Think for a moment how many emails you send a day.

And how much time you spend a day writing all these emails.

Sometimes you think that your words are pretty clear, and end up sending 4 more emails explaining exactly the same thing to a client or employee.

And sometimes your clients don’t even open your email or they simply don’t hit the “reply” button.

Does this sound familiar? I bet it does.

It happens to all of us.

We waste time in something that should literally take 5 min.

Our words seem not clear or they are simply ignored, in both cases the result is the same: we waste valuable time every day.

Probably your content is valuable and relevant for the person that should read your emails. So you may wonder, what’s is not working?

Writing cold emails isn’t easy, but with some tips, you can make your clients open your emails and get them interested in your content.

Either if you’re writing to a former client or employer/employee, either if you’re writing a potential client who you don’t know yet, you should implement a strategy to effectively convey your message.

Why your emails are always ignored or misunderstood?

 And I’ve noticed these communication problems not just with my clients, but also in my daily life:

• Your emails are not well structured.
• Your emails aren’t well written.
• You aren’t thinking about the objective of each email while your write.
• You aren’t sympathising with the receiver of the email.

 

And if you’re contacting a potential client who you don’t personally know:

• You’re probably focusing too much on you/your business/your products.
• You’re not adding value with your emails.
• The tone of your email isn’t appropriate.
• You’re not addressing the person correctly.

 

And these are just a few examples of communication problems that I can probably every time that I open my inbox.

This is probably due to the fact that you just want to get over with something as soon as possible and you don’t pay attention how you’re writing your emails, which normally results in more time invested in solving such issue later on.

Or because you’re copying and pasting the same email to contact as many people as possible. If people can’t see that you’re not talking specifically to them, they’re just not going to reply.

In fact, if I can’t see that in the first line of the email, the sender has included my name or the name of my business, I simply don’t reply. Why would I waste my time writing an email, when the sender hasn’t wasted his time to even look for my name? (And it’s not that difficult to find it, believe me.)

Let’s analyse some of these communication problems:

The 6 worst communication problems that are making you lose readers

 

1. The objective of your email isn’t clear

Every email has an objective.

Otherwise, we won’t bother writing emails.

If we write an email to say happy birthday to a friend, we want this friend to feel that we care about him/her in a special occasion.

If we’re contacting a potential client about a new offer that we’re launching, it’s probably because we want to make him buy it.

But you should always write bearing this objective in mind: why am I writing this email?

Let’s have a look at this example:

[No greetings] I run a digital marketing agency that helps our clients generate more sales from the web by taking advantage of the most recent changes in Google algorithm. Have you heard of the changes that Google has made? If not, I’d like to tell you about them and tell you how you can take advantage of them.   I wanted to reach out to you to see if you were interested in seeing what my team and I can do to give you the edge on the competition. I would be happy to look at your competitors with you over the phone and share some of our insights.   The information we provide gives you a full understanding of what is working in today’s digital marketing world and helps you to see what my team and I can do to increase the traffic and sales to your site.   Even if you’re not interested in using my services, I will still be happy to answer all your questions and provide you with this information.

What do you want from me?

Do you want me to hire you, or do you want to inform me about the Google algorithm? Why would I even care about knowing this changes? I’m not a professional digital marketer.

Why would you want to answer all my doubts if I’m not going to hire you?

The objective isn’t clear.

This can happen mainly for two reasons:

1. The first one is that your email covers too many objectives, and the reader gets lost. It’s the case that we can see in the example above: this guy wanted to help me with the changes in Google algorithm, give information about it, increase my traffic, increase my sales, phone me to analyse my competitors… (I wonder if he would have been willing to cook dinner for me as well!)
2. You don’t bear in mind the objective of your email and you don’t make it explicit in your email. This happens especially when we want to be subtle about an issue or write about bad news.

Solution:

If you want your reader to clearly see this objective and stop wasting your time writing three or four emails until this objective is finally clear, focus your writing on this objective.

You can use bold text to highlight the most important part of your email, and ask your read to do a single action.

If you want to include more than one objective, you can use bullet points and lists. This way your reader won’t get lost among all the information.

2. You don’t sympathise with your clients

 Wearing your readers’ shoes is basic. We need to understand them if we want to hear for them and make them interested in what we’re saying.

If you want to connect with your readers, show them that you understand them.

This happened to me a couple of weeks ago.

There was a mistake in the amount of money that a hotel charged me, and I sent them an email. This was their reply:

 

Dear David,   Thank you very much for your email. Please be noted that we charged you in our GBP currency rate. Euro currency is not in our hand. If you have more question to ask please conatct [email]. We looking forward to serve you soon.

 

Firstly, I didn’t ask about the currency I was charged in, but the amount of money in the invoice. Secondly, they didn’t even say “sorry”, or “we’ll do something about it asap”. (I won’t even mention the grammatical mistakes.)

I was worried and they didn’t show me that they understood my concerns. Obviously, I wasn’t happy. They lost a client.

Solution:

 Write bearing in mind you readers’ emotions. If they are worried, show them that you care. If they’re happy about something, say congratulations. If they’re sad, make everything that is in your hands to help them.

A sad client is the worst type of marketing for your business.

 

3. You’re focusing too much on you/your products/your business

This is probably the funniest of these communication problems. Let’s have a look at the example:

Hey, I was just checking out your site, and was very impressed. We make engaging 90 – 120 second videos that explain businesses and engage audiences, at the highest level. Of course, our voice-over can come in any accent you desire! Being that we are an American team located in the Middle East, our rates are affordable, while the quality cannot be beaten. Prices start at as low as $1,500! Want to hear more? You can check out our work at [website] Let me know when is a good time to talk, and we can jump on a call. Greetings from Palestine,

I have counted 9 we/our/me/I and only 2 you/your. Big mistake.

Why in this world would I want a video to explain my services? They didn’t mention the impact that this video would have on my sales, visibility, etc.

They just focused on themselves.

This may sound a bit harsh but it’s the truth:

No one cares about your business.

They care about what your business can do for them. So stop talking about yourself, and start talking about how you and your business are going to change their lives.

Solution:

Turn every feature of your product or service into a benefit for your clients.

I.e.: “our voice-over can come in any accent you desire” –> “You’ll be able to target a specific market and communicate better your message adjusting the accent on your video to the accent of your targeted audience”.

4. There’s no call-to-action

 And here we can use the same example than number 1 above.

Every time you write an email, you want your reader to do something. If you really want your readers to take an action, then say it.

If you want your clients to buy, then say it and add an explicit call-to-action.

I’ve seen so many failed marketing campaigns because of a lack of a call-to-action… People are normally scared of tell others what to do. They think they can sound bossy.

But what they don’t understand is that all their readers may not know what to do next, what makes them lose people taking a specific action.

Don’t be scared of telling your readers what to do. At the end of the day, this call-to-action is providing value to your audience.

5. You don’t speak your potential clients’ language

Another very important aspect to connect with your audience is to speak their language. Remember:

[Tweet “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”]

I’d never speak English to my Spanish clients, even if they understand me. Not because I prefer speaking Spanish, but because we can connect better in Spanish.

Adjusting the way you do business to your audience can have a great impact on your business.

You’ll make your clients more comfortable when they speak to you, and the conversation will have a different flow.

And make sure you have a good command of the language. You have no idea how many times I’ve seen long email conversations, just because sender and reader didn’t understand each other.

You’ll save time (and money in the long run) if you include language specialists in your team to deal with communications with international clients.

6. You’re not adding value in your emails

You can’t expect people replying your emails if you’re the only one who is going to benefit from that email reply. Let’s have a look at this example:

Dear David , Greeting from [name of the company]!!! Its pleasure to introduce our company, we do language translation for all Indian and foreign languages. Company is based in [name of town], India. Though we both are in same Industry we thought of contacting your company for requirements in Indian Languages. We believe in delivery on time with the highest possible quality and this is made achievable through our dedicated staff with excellently coordinated process to work with our experienced native translators.   We do Translation for all Indian official languages and foreign language as well. Please find the below Indian language pairs.

Ok, so the objective here is pretty clear. They want me to hire them every time I have to do a translation in any Indian language (which I never do).

But what’s the benefit here for me? What would I gain for that?

Maybe there are benefits, such a future collaborations, but they didn’t mention that in the email. Why would I bother and reply to this email then?

Solution:

If you know that you’re going to gain something with an email that you’re writing, you should offer something in exchange to make your reader interested.

If you want to be hired, highlight what you can do for your reader, how they’re going to benefit from a collaboration or simple answer this question: why should my reader reply to this email?

 

 

Have you ever made one of the worst communication mistakes included in this list? Would you include any other mistake to the list that you’ve faced in your business? Let me know in the comments section below. I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences about this.