How to Motivate Your Boss to Read Your Email

Email is probably not the preferred method for communicating important information.  My bosses receive hundreds of emails a day.  But sometimes, the communication has to be electronic.  How do you make sure your email doesn’t get lost in the electronic black hole?

Utilize the subject line:  

1. Clearly identify what the email is about.  It may sound obvious, but it’s amazing how rare it can be.  

• Use descriptive words.
• “Question” as the subject line is super vague and means nothing.  It’s about the same the subject being only a question mark.  Try just adding a question mark behind the subject of the question. Subject:  Your Vacation Schedule?
• If they need to do something, say Action Required.  
• If you’re forwarding an email, you don’t have to keep the same subject line.

2. Use as few characters as possible. It should not be a full sentence. It should not be long fancy words. Have it communicate what the email is about simply.  The less for you busy boss to read, the better. Think of it as writing or reading a newspaper headline. What can that newsboy shout that will inspire your boss to read.  Think, “Hear ye! Hear ye!”

Subject: CFO Needs Budget

Subject: Approval Needed for Strategic Plan

3. Use your boss’s buzz words.  If I need to forward an email that came across my desk to my boss regarding a request from the company’s president, I will put CEO: in front of the message.  If the email is about a key deadline that he is working on, I’ll put the project in the title.  One of my bosses seems to get wise to my buzz words and starts ignoring them, so I am always adapting.  

Subject: CEO - RE: PowerPoint Presentation

Know your boss’s priorities. If your boss is working on a key deadline and your email is about something totally different, recognize that they are probably not going to have time to read it and might push it off.  Don’t get upset over it and don’t hold it over their heads later (“well, I sent you an email about it!”).  Either don’t send the email or follow-up with them in person when they've cleared off their priorities.

Don’t cry wolf.  If you send every email as Important or WITH ALL CAPS (which is internet shouting), then after awhile your boss isn’t going to pay attention to it.  Those features can really help you get noticed, but if you do it one too many times on something only moderately urgent, then it’s going to lose its effects.