Personal Email In an Age Of Clutter

Clutter

As the amount of email and digital traffic ever increases, I think the human race is developing a 6th sense: mass marketing detection and filtration. Somehow we can sense if a real person took the time to send a single, personalized email to us and only us.

Quite In addition to the extra sensory antenna I am developing as a part of this collective human evolution, these clues can be quite helpful in weeding out personal from bulk emails:

  1. You mentioned or eluded to something that is unique to me / my company (not just the company name)
  2. It is a short email. I know you email a lot of people. If it’s long you’re copying and pasting. Busted.
  3. (If done tactfully) The subject line has something personal.

I have no qualms about ignoring or deleting an email that was sent to thousands people.  However, if I am reasonably sure that a real person took their time to think about me and personally email me, I will place a lot more value on the email and it will leave a positive impact. I also won’t mind continued followup emails if I know each are personal – and a reasonable amount of time has passed between emails.

The only catch? You have to email one person at a time. Inefficient, I know. But fare more valuable for the recipient.

We can help...almost

We have something on the horizon that will help streamline the process of personalizing your followups. Something to help you add a personal message to an otherwise impersonal followup. Details will have to wait! Follow us on twitter for the latest updates.

Published by Reilly Sweetland

Founder of FollowUpThen (YC S17). Likes productivity, efficiency, React, Node, and all things followed-up upon.

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