
How to get every email returned - gnicholas
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/25/opinion/sunday/writing-advice.html
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gnicholas
I've found a couple things to be useful:

* If there's a question for the person to answer, make sure it is the _very last sentence_ in the email. That way when the person finishes reading the email and is deciding whether to ignore/archive or reply, they're more likely to reply. If possible, make the question yes/no instead of long answer. For example: "Is now a good time to move forward?" versus "How does this sound to you?"

* Keep the email short. People generally don't like reading long emails, and even if they start they're less likely to finish it if it's long.

* If you've been following up with someone for a while, start off an email with "I wanted to follow up with you on this _one last time_ ". This reminds the person that you've emailed several times before (and perhaps makes them feel guilty for not replying sooner) and lets them know the ball is completely in their court. I have found this to be very useful in kick-starting leads that went stale.

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tosser0001
> * If there's a question for the person to answer, make sure it is the very
> last sentence in the email.

Oddly enough I do the exact opposite: Within reason, I try to make the
question I want answered the very first sentence.

I hate expository emails. Just tell me what you’re looking for. If I need more
detail I would hope the follow on text would provide it.

~~~
munchbunny
I use a framework I learned while taking a course on legal argumentation back
in college. Turns out it works fairly well in longer emails (whenever a
paragraph is needed). Write your question/conclusion at the beginning and end.
Stick context, evidence, and analysis in the middle in that order.

You could literally use the same sentence first and last if you just really
need to get the point across and don't have time to get creative.

~~~
amolo
Mind sharing the framework?

~~~
runiq
I believe they just did.

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goatherders
I do this for a living and craft somewhere between 1000 and 2000 emails a
week. Here are some additional tips:

\- be authentic. I never email anyone without believing 100% that my message
can help solve a problem I already know they are struggling with.

\- be personal. Do some research and find something that shows you are putting
in the work to make sure you are authentic. It makes all the difference.

\- be honest. Should go without saying.

\- offer something expecting nothing in return. For example, if you are
selling SEO services send them a list of where their site ranks for 5 keywords
you think apply to their business. Then send 2 or 3 simple things they can do
on their own to solve the problem

\- keep it short. 140 words is enough. Keep rewriting until it is that short.

\- ask one question and make it yes or no.

Lots of other nuance but those are good pillars to build on.

~~~
gnicholas
What is your source of email leads? That is, how do you know of 1000-2000 new
people each week whom you know you can help with a problem they are struggling
with?

~~~
goatherders
I have a team of researchers and a number of tools (sales navigator, apollo,
zoominfo,etc.)

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chevman
As someone who buys a fair amount of SaaS/Cloud/on-prem software (~$5-10 mil
annual spend), the amount of B2B and recruiting spam I get is overwhelming. My
public contact info is basically burned at this point - email, LinkedIn, work
phone, etc.

I have a second profile that only gets shared with actual people that I have
actual relationships with.

I would say about the only way to get past that filter is via some kind of
content marketing that gets shared by folks or an actual direct person to
person introduction.

~~~
notzuck
As somebody that does business development, I really don't want to intrude on
people but at the same time I need to generate leads.

What other tips do you have for someone like me? (I'm pre-sales for a vendor
that sells products and projects around 1 - 10 million$) for a large vendor.

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cconcepts
I used to call myself a writer because I wrote blogs. Now I'm a writer because
I write a bazillion emails everyday. If this article piqued your interest at
all then you ought to read "On Writing Well" by William Zinser. Best written
communication advice I have ever come across and entertaining reading to boot.

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Animats
Sometimes it's a technical problem.

Right now, for some reason, I can't get transactional emails from Doordash,
Fastrak, or EZFacility. If I ask any of those sites for a password reset, the
email never shows up. I had to drop Doordash and switch to Grubhub.

My email goes to my web site, hosted by HostGator. There's no filtering there;
it's just forwarded to my ISP, into an IMAP box. There's spam filtering at
that point, which puts mail into different folders.

EZFacility uses Sendgrid, and the problem seems to involve Sendgrid. But they
won't talk to me, because I'm not a direct Sendgrid customer.

Amusingly, I can get the same emails through my ancient Stanford alumni
account. That just forwards to my main HostGator web site, so the mail goes
through all the same steps, plus some aggressive spam filtering at Stanford.

So I dumped Doordash, signed up for a maker space via the Stanford account,
put Fastrak on paper billing, and avoid all services that use Sendgrid.

~~~
gnicholas
Interestingly, we just discovered a sendgrid problem today. Messages sent via
our web form never arrive. Wonder if this is related? If you have any details
of your experience that I can share with sendgrid, hit me at this username at
gmail. I'll likely be talking with them soon...

~~~
c_moscardi
Funnily enough, this is another great tactic for getting emails returned
(looping in someone with more leverage than you or asking them to follow up
for you)!

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panarky
1\. Only ask one question. More than that and people skip it until later then
forget. Or if they do respond they only answer one question anyway and forget
the others.

2\. Schedule the delivery for first thing in the morning. Email delivered
during the day, after people get busy, just scrolls off the front page and
gets lost. (I use Gmail's new scheduled send multiple times a day now.)

~~~
jimmaswell
Re: #1 why can't it just be expected that people be professional and just read
the whole thing, answering everything in it? Why is it acceptable that
everyone is lazy and inconsiderate? Why am I the only person on the planet who
would actually do that? Humanity is so disappointing sometimes.

~~~
tosser0001
You can’t force a bunch of text onto busy individuals and then label them
“inconsiderate”. Honestly, I think it shows more consideration to assume
people only have so much time to devote to interruptions and so keep the text
tight and specific.

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takanori
Lots of nytimes articles on HN lately

~~~
gnicholas
Lots of people insinuating things about this recently.

I'm the person who posted this article, and I do not have (and never have had)
a relationship with the NYT. I read their articles for free thanks to a
partnership my library system (SMCL) has with the NYT. I definitely don't
always agree with their stories, but some of their tech stuff is good.

It's also worth noting that some of their content is newsworthy for the HN
community simply because many (non-HN) people read the NYT and form their
ideas about tech based on what they read there.

~~~
takanori
It was just an observation on my end. It just seems weird that (arguably) the
most mainstream news outlet in the US is dominating hacker news links...

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bruhmoment
Hi everyone, would you mind avoiding using any sites articles from New York
Times? They require a subscription after a certain amount of views. Sure,
journalism isn't charity work (news editors and journalists need food on the
table, too, you know?), but all other sites have advertisements. I leave
advertisements enabled on sites that don't block you out. If you use an
article from NYT, would you mind including another link to a mirror article?

~~~
shhsshs
I’ll add that most of the time you can get around their paywall by using an
incognito tab. I still agree I would rather have a mirror.

~~~
dredmorbius
NYT added an exceedingly annoying Incognito detector some months back.
Archive.is works though.

