June 2012 posts on the Investment Writing blog

Here are the links to posts you missed on the new Investment Writing blog:

• 5 Things to Stop Doing in 2012
• How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing–Part one
• How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing–Part two
• Facebook likes and links for financial advisors vs. the rest of the world
• Webinar replay available: “How to Write Effective Emails and Letters”
• Focus your marketing, says the “Financial Services Marketing Handbook”

____________________    
Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.  

Copyright 2011 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

February on the new Investment Writing blog

Come join me on my new Investment Writing blog! It's part of my website.

Here are the links to articles you've missed in the last 30 days:

• Financial writing tip: Don’t ignore the elephant in the room
• Social media: How to succeed in 30 minutes a day
• Your email subject lines make a world of difference
• “Smart people”: A good ad by Bessemer Trust
• How asset management giant BlackRock is tackling social media
• New publishing opportunity for investment professionals
• Where’s the typo?
• Guest post on emerging markets: What about China?
• SEO: What’s right for your financial blog?
• Poll: What’s your favorite online resource for grammar, punctuation, and word usage questions?

____________________
  Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.  

Copyright 2011 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Quick email tips for financial advisors and clients in my guest post

You can snare some quick tips for advisor-client email communications in my guest post for the KBK Wealth Connection blog.

The tips boil down to

1. Get to your point quickly
2. Keep it short
3. Organize clearly

Visit Kathleen's blog for more details.
____________________    
Susan Weiner, CFA, writes and edits articles, white papers, blogs, investment commentary, web pages, and other communications for leading investment and wealth management firms. She has presented “How to Write Emails and Letters Your Clients Will Read” to great reviews by financial advisors.  

Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

My May blog posts by category: Blogging, economy/investments/wealth management, marketing, social media, writing

Did you notice that I went wild in May, posting every day as part of the Word Count Blogathon? For your convenience, I'm listing my May posts by category.


Blogging

• The two most important words are...
• Financial bloggers' posts may violate copyright law
• Spice up your blog with free or low-cost photos
• Setting myself a challenge: A May Blogathon

Economy, investments, and wealth management

• "Have mutual fund fees gone up or down?"
• Poll: Which should investors fear most? Which #CFA2010 speakers were right?
• R Koo, "Lessons from Japan: Fighting a Balance Sheet Recession" from #CFA2010
• GMO's Jeremy Grantham on "The Ethical Hole in Finance" at #CFA2010
• Dan Ariely says disclosure may hurt investors: Report from his #CFA201 talk
• Roger Ibbotson attacks asset allocation "folklore"
• Hear Roger Ibbotson on asset allocation
• Morgan Creek Capital's Yusko riles up Tweeters with comments on investment fees
• Morgan Creek Capital's Yusko on investing
• Small-cap investing opportunities according to Artio's Dedio

Marketing

• My Boston-area networking suggestions
• Tip for how to connect with your workshop attendees 
• If you enjoy my #CFA2010 tweets
• Top four email mistakes to avoid when you've got a referral
• Timely, creative financial ad from Northwestern Mutual
• How to improve your financial planning client relationships
• Your customers, your inspiration

Social media

• Using CFP in your Twitter name--Read the CFP Board's position
• The compliance-constrained advisor's guide to LinkedIn, Part II: Status updates
• Can you help with my Facebook dilemma?
• How I've benefited from Twitter

Writing

• Plain English can bring your financial topic to life
• How to write subheads that command attention
• Executive's lesson for your communications with clients and prospects
• Start with a good lead, or lose your reader
• Guest post: "Correct Grammar Errors in Your Writing Quickly and Easily"
• 10 blogs I can't live without: Writer's edition
• Financial advisor poll: How do you sign your business emails?
• Whoa, insurance=spam?

____________________    
Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.  

Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

The two most important words are...

Copyblogger Brian Clark's lessons in "The two most important words in blogging" apply equally to any form of marketing communication. Pay attention because using these words will make your communications more persuasive.

See if you can guess the two words before you surf to Copyblogger's site. If you have attended any of my presentations on writing, you should know one of the two answers.
 ____________________    
Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.  

Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Guest post: "Correct Grammar Errors in Your Writing Quickly and Easily "

Adults often struggle to improve their writing skills. That's why I've become a fan of the teaching techniques of @LindaAragoni. In this article, Linda shares a technique for cutting the number of grammar errors in your written communications.

Correct Grammar Errors in Your Writing Quickly and Easily

By Linda Aragoni

Do you have trouble correcting your writing for grammar errors?

I know I do.

I suspect you do, too.

Here is a simple way to make correcting your writing easy.

First, keep a list of the grammar errors you make regularly. Most people make a few errors repeatedly. An error you make once in five years is no big deal, but a grammar error you make once every five sentences is an error you need to eliminate.

Your teachers probably have told you about your habitual errors for years. Errors like sentence fragments, comma splices, and run-together sentences top the list. Subject-verb agreement errors and problems with pronoun-antecedent agreement are not far behind. Chances are you know how to correct those grammar errors if you see them.

To make sure you see grammar errors so you can correct them, read your completed paper looking for just your most frequent error. If your most common error is writing sentence fragments, scrutinize each group of words between terminal punctuation marks to see if it is a true sentence. Do not worry about anything else when you look for fragments. If you see any other kind of error, highlight it to fix later.

After you finish reviewing your paper for your most common mistake, go through it looking for your second most common error.

Keep doing that one-error-at-a time correction until you have examined your paper for each of your habitual errors.

When you correct for a single error at a time, take a break between errors. Do not try to cram the editing into the hour before a paper is due. If you do your editing in 5-10 minute sessions spread over a day or more, you will do a better job and experience much less stress.

Although this single-minded correction strategy sounds as if it would be terribly time-consuming, it can be done quite quickly. And it pays off quickly, too. If you can eliminate from your writing three errors you make habitually, your writing will show a big improvement immediately.

Linda Aragoni's one-mistake-at-a-time strategy grew out of teaching grammar study skills to first-year college students using their error-riddled papers as practice exercises. Her e-book Grammar Abusers Anonymous teaches mature high school and adult students how to master grammar without paying tuition. Copyright 2010 Linda G. Aragoni. 
____________________  
Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.  

Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Top four email mistakes to avoid when you've got a referral

You've probably used a referral to ask a stranger for an informational interview or a chance to talk about your business. If you make your initial contact by email, please avoid the following common mistakes:

• Burying the name of your mutual acquaintance in the body of your email
• Not making it clear immediately what you're seeking
• Not identifying yourself clearly and succinctly
• Putting the burden on the other party to follow up

Let's flip these mistakes to get a list of best practices. 
 

1. Highlight the name of your referrer

When I've got a referral, I often put the referrer's name into my subject line. For example, "Allan Loomis referred me" or "Allan Loomis suggested I talk with you." The familiarity of that person's name raises the odds that the recipient will open your message. 

2. Quickly tell your reader what you're seeking 

3. Identify yourself briefly

People are busy. They don't want to read a long email to figure out what you want from them. Open with a line such as "Allan Loomis suggested I contact you for a brief informational interview about how you manage your investment research needs." Then, and only then, should you give a brief self-introduction.

4. Take the initiative to suggest some times when you and your reader can connect. Nothing stops you from writing "I look forward to hearing from you." But don't expect your recipient to follow up. The burden is on you because you're the person requesting the favor. I increasingly find myself writing "I will call you next week to follow up."

Pay attention to these tips and you'll increase your odds of success whether you're marketing yourself or your company.

____________________  
Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.  

Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Financial advisor poll: How do you sign your business emails?

Email communications with clients, prospects, and referral sources are an essential part of  your private wealth management or investment business. Handle them well, and you deepen your relationships. In How to Instantly Connect with Anyone, author Leil Lowndes suggests an email closing technique that may boost your effectiveness.

Even something as small as your email signature sends a message to your clients, prospects, and referral sources. You set a different tone when you end with "Sincerely, Jane Advisor, CFP, CFA, Senior Vice President" instead of "See you soon, Jane." 

Lowndes suggests that you forego traditional closings in favor of ending your email with your recipient's name. For example, "Thanks so much for your help, Samantha" when Samantha is the person you're emailing.

According to Lowndes' approach, you can get away with just your first name or initials--or even nothing at all--after such a line. "Hearing their own name unexpectedly as the last word of your message makes them feel an instant connection with you," she says.

I like Lowndes' idea. But only in moderation. If you close every email like this, the technique will lose its impact.

The rest of the time, you've got an array of more traditional closings to choose from. You need to strike the right balance between formality and warmth. This may mean using different signatures for different clients, depending on  your relationship with them. Signatures may also vary by occasion.

Please answer the poll in the right-hand column of this blog about which of the following closings you use most often. 

• Best wishes
• Bye 
• Cheers
• Have a great day/weekend
• Kind regards
• Sincerely
• Sincerely yours
• Thank you
• Warmly
• Yours truly
• --None of the above

I'll report on the results in my June e-newsletter.

By the way, in these days of blogging transparency, I'm disclosing that I got Lowndes' book for free. I won it in a Twitter contest when I was the first to reply to a tweet by the publisher.


Related posts

• To "Dear" or not to "Dear" in your email
• "You" can help your job hunting thank you
• Six ways to stop sending emails with errors

____________________    
Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.  

Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Whoa, insurance = spam?

Insurance can get your email tagged as spam. I never would have guessed.

I saw the following message after I ran one of my e-newsletters through a spam checker.

It looks like there are some words in this email that might send your email to a Spam folder. To make sure your email is delivered successfully, we recommend going back to change or remove the following words: insurance.

Perhaps this happened because there are too many spammer pushing shady insurance schemes.

Fortunately one iffy word isn't enough to keep your email out of most in-boxes. Look at your overall spam rating before you panic. If it's low, like the typical rating on my e-newsletters, you should be okay. 

The "open" and "bounce" rates for my e-newsletter mentioning "insurance" were no worse than usual. However, "insurance" was the newsletter's only element tagged as potential spam.

____________________  
Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.  

Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

"You" can help your job hunting "thank you"

Which "thank you" are you more likely to read? The note that opens with 1) "Thank you for meeting with me" or 2) "Your company's disciplined approach to..."?

Number 1 makes me yawn. "Another lame thank you note," I say to myself, although I'm impressed the writer bothered to write when so many people don't.

Number 2 makes me think, "Hey, this person listened to me! They're writing about one of my company's key messages."

Recruiters and career counselors tell job hunters their communications should focus on the company that they're pitching instead of on themselves. One way to achieve this is to start your "thank you" note with the words "you" or "your," and then convey your appreciation later.

A friend tried a variation on this when requesting an informational interview from a senior executive. He opened by citing an article that had quoted the exec. "You said '...' in this article, which interested me because...' " He got the interview.

The power of "you" isn't just for job hunters. It boosts the power of most communications--blogs, brochures, articles, websites, white papers, and more. Try it and see!


Related posts
*  Which topic should you discuss in your client email's first paragraph?
*  Your mail has three seconds to grab your reader's attention
* To "dear" or not to "dear" in your email

____________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
If you're struggling to pump out a steady flow of good blog posts, check out my five-week teleclass for financial advisors, "How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read," and sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Poll: Which topic should you discuss in your client email's first paragraph?

When you email your clients, they expect you to
    * Be polite
    * Be clear
    * Provide any necessary background information

So when you email a request for action to a client, what should you discuss in the first paragraph?
   1. Social niceties, such as "It was nice to see you last week..."
   2. Your request, such as "Please sign and fax the attachment..."
   3. Background to your request, such as "Remember we talked about adjusting your asset allocation..."

Please answer the poll in the right-hand column of my InvestmentWriting blog. I'll report the results--and share my bias with you--in next month's newsletter. The NAPFA MA members who attended my email writing workshop know my leanings, but I wonder if I've convinced them to change their habits. 

I'll report on the poll results in my February e-newsletter.

Related posts:

• Six ways to stop sending emails with errors
• Your mail has three seconds to grab your reader's attention
• To "dear" or not to "dear" in your email
  
• When NOT to personalize your email's subject line
  

____________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Thank you, NAPFA MA Study Group, for your great response to my email/letter writing workshop

The NAPFA MA Study Group asked lots of great questions during my November presentation to them on  "How to write effective emails to your financial planning clients." Thank you, NAPFA members and guests, for your energetic participation!


Here's some of their feedback.

•  "I found this presentation very helpful in the sense that it focused on key elements to being an influential but understandable advisor." 

•  "Susan's presentation brought to life the benefits of better writing."

•  "Great tips for jump starting my client communications"

• "Susan's presentation made me want to go back to my office and juice up my emails and letters."

• "I learned how to make my emails and letters more reader-friendly, how to simplify technical information, and how to entice people to actually read the email."

• "I have been making presentations to Fortune 500 companies for 20 years. I wish I had taken Ms. Weiner's course years ago!"

• "It was a very good presentation. I found it very useful and helpful....I learned how to simplify sentences, how to emphasize client's interests, and how to structure emails or newsletters."

• "I feel like I now have a variety of tools available to write better emails, letters, and all correspondence."

Now I can't wait for my next opportunity to present this workshop to financial advisors!
____________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2009 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

If you're marketing to RIAs...

...email should be your top method for communicating with them. That's the message I took away from "Marketing to Today's RIA: What Every Asset Manager Should Know," a webinar and report from Morningstar Advisor and Swandog Strategic Marketing. Their webinar and report are based on an online survey of 500 financial advisors that was supplemented by interviews.

Their research suggested some lessons that may apply to everyone marketing to registered investment advisors (RIAs), even though the Morningstar-Swandog report focused on RIAs' interactions with asset managers. 

Lesson 1: Stay in touch via email rather than heavy-handed personal contact or expecting RIAs to visit your website. The graph on p. 13 shows a strong preference for email communications over web access, wholesaler visits, and phone calls.

Lesson 2: Tailor your marketing materials to RIAs rather than using materials for registered reps. RIAs fall between registered reps and institutional investors in their sophistication. The Morningstar-Swandog webinar quoted one RIA saying, "Give me substance!" RIAs want meatier content than registered reps. Another telling quote: "Most info from investment managers is propaganda. Real objective analysis is rare and valuable" (p. 7).

Lesson 3: Get your company's thought leaders exposure in  arenas that confer apparent third-party endorsements. Print publications used to be the best method for this. But now, as moderator Leslie Banks pointed out, you can use Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to push out your content AND get it endorsed by people whom RIAs respect.

Take the time to read the report and watch the webinar on "Marketing to Today's RIA: What Every Asset Manager Should Know." I've barely touched on their content and each covers slightly different content.

____________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2009 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Tune up your writing skills on Nov. 10 or Nov. 19--or hire me to help you

Could your writing skills use a tune-up? If you work with investments, you'll get useful tips from my November 10 lunchtime presentation to Boston Women in Finance (BWF) on "How to Write What People Will Read About Investments." Lunch is included in the program cost.

This program sold out the first time I presented it to BWF, so register early. 

It would be great to meet you at this program. Please introduce yourself as one of my readers.

If you're a NAPFA member who lives in the Boston area, you can see me present on "How to Write Effective Emails and Letters to Your Financial Planning Clients" at your November 19 study group. 

If you can't attend either presentation, consider hiring me to train people at your company. I've presented across the U.S. and Canada on "How to Write Investment Commentary People Will Read." I can develop presentations tailored to you. 

Note: I updated this blog post on Oct. 21 with the BWF registration link and NAPFA information.

____________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2009 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Guest post: "Can I replace my paper newsletter with an e-newsletter instead?"

Are you considering scrapping the newsletter you send via U.S. mail in favor of a newsletter delivered via email? If so, please read the guest post below by Tom Ahern of Ahern Communications, a specialist in fundraising, advocacy, and "persuasion" communications. It is excerpted with permission from his Love Thy Reader newsletter.

Ahern writes from the perspective of non-profit organizations seeking donations. But most of what he says applies equally well to investment and wealth managers seeking to retain existing clients and attract new ones through communications with clients, prospects, and referral sources.



Can I replace my paper newsletter with an e-newsletter instead?

This is the most commonly asked question at my workshops. My considered answer has stayed the same for the last five years: "Ummm...no. You really want both."

A well-done paper newsletter can produce significant revenue. Witness the Gillette Children's Foundation in Minnesota, which went from generating $5,000 per issue to $50,000 per issue just by changing a few things.

Understand, too, that paper and electrons are two very different media.

Paper is slow -- the good kind of slow, the kind that's made the "slow food" movement so popular among the health-conscious. Paper is a reader's medium, a relaxing place where you, as the writer, have the elbowroom to tell stories, show terrific pictures and report results.

An emailed newsletter, on the other hand, is fast. It's an ACT NOW! medium. Words are kept to a minimum.

In December 2008, Jeff Brooks shared with me some conclusions from his company's ongoing research into e-newsletters.

"I had a hypothesis," he wrote, "that e-newsletters were radically different from print newsletters. Not about story-telling," Jeff clarified, "but about the actions you can take. We've tested that notion a couple of times, and so far, that's proving to be true. It seems what works is to have one topic with 3 to 5 actions a reader can take, at least one of which is to give a gift, but the others aren't."

A fully firing communications schedule stays in touch with the donor base at a minimum once a month. Electronic newsletters help you satisfy that torrid pace. But if you pull the plug on paper and switch to utterly electronic, your donor income will almost certainly fall.

Here's a tantalizing bit of confirming data from Convio, via Ted Hart: Donors you contact with BOTH email and conventional mail give $62 on average annually versus a $32 average gift for those donors whom you contact ONLY through postal mail.

In other words, it's NOT an either/or situation, paper or electronic. It's a BOTH situation: paper AND electronic, if you want to maximize results.

Of course, that assumes you are actually getting results.

If you aren't currently making money with your paper newsletter, don't expect to do any better with an e-newsletter. Really good donor newsletters are few and far between, in my experience. Most nonprofit newsletters sent to me for audits are unwittingly built to fail, due to a variety of unguessed fatal flaws.


Related posts:
* Should you drop subscribers who don't open your e-newsletter?
* Boost readership of your e-newsletter with powerful subject lines
* Three tips for how often to publish your newsletter


____________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2009 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Six ways to stop sending emails with errors

Everybody sends occasional emails with typos and punctuation mistakes. But some emails are more important than others. When you want to make your email perfect, follow these rules. 

1. Print out your email.
Somehow it's easier to see errors on paper. 

2. Read it out loud.
This is good for catching missing words that your mind might otherwise fill in. Otherwise, you often see what you expect to see.


3. Get someone else to proofread it.
It's easier for a third party to catch your errors. 

4. Let it sit overnight.
When you read with fresh eyes, you're more likely to catch errors. 

5. Use a spell-checking program.
If your email program doesn't support spell-checking, copy the email into your word-processing program, so you can check it there. However, remember that spell-checkers aren't foolproof. 

6. Create a checklist of common errors.

Using a checklist makes you slow down and, so you're more likely to catch the errors highlighted on the checklist. For example, let's say you're confused about "How to punctuate bullet-pointed lists." Add to your checklist: "check bullet point punctuation rules" with a link to the rules. 

Have you got other suggestions for keeping emails error-free? Please share them in the Comments section.

____________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2009 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Your mail has three seconds to grab your reader's attention

"The consumer decides in 3 seconds whether to trash your mail, or take 30 seconds to scan and prioritize your mail, and 3 minutes to actually sit and read it," according to a RR Donnelley Direct Marketing Tip of the Day  provided by copywriter Pat Friesen.

That's why it's so important to create a compelling subject line for your emails and a strong opening paragraph for your letters.


Related posts:
* When NOT to personalize your email's subject line  
* Boost readership of your enewsletter with powerful subject lines
* "Email Subject Lines: 15 Rules to Write Them Right"






__________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2009 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

"How to send a personal email" by Seth Godin

"How to send a personal email" by Seth Godin gives some excellent suggestions about how to avoid being perceived as a spammer.

But there are no easy answers. Basically his 14 points boil down to taking the time to make your email short, clear, personal, and relevant to the recipient. 

I found Godin's blog post thanks to Anna Goldsmith's "Just Because You Have Someone's Email Address Doesn't Mean You Have the Right to Email Them."

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2009 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

To "dear" or not to "dear" in your email

What salutation should you use to start a business email? 

• Dear? 
• Hello? 
• Something else?
  

I typically open with the person's name followed by a comma. Like this

Susan,

This is how 95% of my business correspondents start their emails.

Some people use "Dear," then the recipient's name. That's essential for a business letter, but it's too intimate for a business email. At least, that's how it feels to me.

I was surprised to see that the authors of Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better argue for using "dear." They don't like my approach. They say:

For some reason, people who would never in a letter write "Jim" or "Bob" or "Mr. Smith" with no introductory word beforehand feel no hesitation in doing so in an email.... But it strikes us as rude to bark out someone's name like that, even in an email, especially if you don't know your correspondent."

I reserve "Dear" for my correspondence with friends. Or for replies to emails in which I've been addressed as "Dear Susan." I think it's usually appropriate to echo the salutations used by the person with whom you're corresponding.

I don't have strong feelings either way about starting an email with "Hello" and then the name of the recipient. If Allan emails me with "Hello, Susan," I'll "Hello, Allan," back to him.

If you read my "Should you say 'No' to 'Please,' " you're probably not surprised to find me disagreeing with the authors of Send, as did most of the respondents to my reader poll on the use of please in emails.

So, how would you address an email to me? Would you use one of the following salutations?

• Dear Susan:
• Dear Ms. Weiner:
  
• Hello
• Hi
• Hi, Susan
• Ms. Weiner,
• Susan,
  

 
_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2009 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

When NOT to personalize your email's subject line

Personalizing your email subject lines with the recipient's name--for example, "Susan, can you attend meeting on Feb. 12?"--will always increase your readership. 

Or so you'd think. But that's not true according to an article about subject lines by Mark Brownlow on Email Marketing Reports.

If your email recipient doesn't know you well, they may assume your email is spam. Using first names in the subject line is a classic spammers' technique.

"If you haven't got a real 'relationship' with your subscriber as such then maybe personalizing isn't the way to go as they may see it as being artificial or spammy," said Kath Pay, as quoted in Brownlow's article.

I think that using your recipient's name is most useful in the subject lines of emails you send to colleagues and clients. They know you're no spammer. Instead, your use of their name signals that your content is directed specifically at them. They realize they're not one of gazillion people who are cc'd on the email. That's why I recommend this technique in my workshop on "How to Write Effective Business Emails and Letters."

What's your experience with personalized email subject lines?

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2009 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved