According to the British Association direct marketing, every £1 invested in email marketing in 2015 generated £38 in profit. Want to achieve the same results, but don't know how to write a letter to a client?Then use the bestsamples letters to clients, which we have collected for you in this review.
How to write a letter to a client correctly
You think about your customers all the time, but it's not mutual. To capture their attention and get ahead of your competitors, you need to regularly remind yourself. Emails do this very well. According to the authors of the Pipedrive blog, there are several tricks that can work in your favor:
- Patience and more patience. Bring your potential buyer closer to the deal gradually by regularly sending him .
- Agree on strategy in sending letters to clients with the marketing department, so as not to be too intrusive and not to clog the client’s mailbox with repeated information.
- Use a CRM system. It will simplify the technical side of communication with clients and speed up work with mail.
A CRM system is a convenient program that helps keep records of clients and transactions, records all calls, and also helps to conveniently organize correspondence with the client. For example, the program integrates with the mail service (you can connect an unlimited number of mailboxes) and allows you to save the correspondence history directly in the counterparty’s card. If I wrote to you new client, then you can create a deal card directly from an incoming letter.
Letters to clients: examples and ready-made samples
We have compiled a selectionbusiness letters to clients,which you can take as a sample. All you have to do is add details to them.
1. Are you writing to a potential client for the first time? Send this short message:
Letter subject: Perhaps you are our new client
Hello, [Name].
We [brief information about the company].
If this interests you, I am ready to discuss the possibility of cooperation. Let us know what time would be convenient for you to call.
[Signature]
2. Tell your potential client about your successful experience of cooperation with his competitors:
Letter subject: Keep up with your competitors
Hello, [Name].
We work successfully with [competitor of X and Y] V [field of activity] already [so much time] and together we achieved good results. You can find detailed information about them here [link to case/review].
We will be glad if you join us.
[Signature]
3. If you received contacts of potential clients at a business event, send themoffer lettersuchsample:
Letter subject: More about our company
Hello, [Name].
I hope you liked it too [event], and would like to thank you for your interest in [Company name].
I am attaching more detailed information about our company. I will be happy to discuss all your questions over the phone.
[Signature]
Reminder letters
4. Some time after sending letters to clients offering services or additional information remind yourself:
Letter subject: Is there something you want to discuss?
Hello, [Name].
I hope that you had the opportunity to read my previous letter and become more familiar with [additional information].
Do you have any questions or thoughts about my proposal? I will be happy to discuss them over the phone or in person. When will you have time for this?
[Signature]
5. If you can show the effectiveness of your proposal with numbers, then share them in letters to company clients. Facts convince better.
Letter subject: A few facts you might not know about [Company name]
Hello, [Name].
I recently sent you a letter about [Company name], and I think we could be useful [your company].
Our clients are seeing growth [specify indicators] when used [name of product and service]. We also offer [tell us about promotions] And [mention other great deals].
If you would like to know more details, please let us know and we will arrange negotiations by phone or in person.
I'm looking forward to your answer.
[Signature]
6. Offer clients a trial period or free samples. Buyers are more willing to make a deal if they test the product first.
Letter subject: Gift for your company
Hello, [Name].
A few days ago I sent you information about [the product's name] and now I propose to try it in action.
I have created/attached some guest logins/free samples/vouchers that can be used to access/receive [product or service]. Share them with your colleagues. It would be interesting to hear their opinion.
I will be happy to discuss everything in more detail over the phone or in person. I'm sure we can really be useful to you in [field of activity].
[Signature]
7. If you are not sure that you are corresponding with an employee authorized to negotiate, ask him to help reach the decision-maker:
Letter subject: I hope you can direct me to the right person
Hello, [Name].
A few days ago I sent you a letter about [company or product] and now I doubt that I came to the right address.
Is it you who makes decisions on the issue that interests me? If not, could you help me contact the right employee in your company?
Waiting for your reply.
8. Use this text of the letter to the client if, after meeting with him, you want to inquire about his future plans:
Letter subject: Your plans
Hello, [Name].
Thank you for your time. Now I would like to know how you see further discussion of our issue.
If you are still interested, please inform us of your plans.
Waiting for your reply.
[Signature]
9. After meeting with the client, remind him of the following stages of negotiations:
Letter subject: Action plan for the near future
Hello, [Name].
Thank you for taking the time - today's meeting was very productive. Let me briefly remind you what we will do next:
[Date of]: I will send you [contract/full set of documents].
[Date of]: You will pass on your comments and wishes to me.
[Date of]: We will make all final changes and sign the agreement.
If you need to discuss anything before this date, please let me know.
10. Composesuchletter to client, if during the meeting he wanted to receive additional information:
Letter subject: Information on your request
Hello, [Name].
We were glad to meet personally with representatives of your organization. I promised to send you additional information about [question]- they are in the attached file.
Ready to answer any questions. Feel free to call me at [number] anytime or write to this address.
[Signature]
If the client does not contact
11. If the client does not respond to phone call, use the followingletter writing sample:
Letter subject: Couldn't contact you
Hello, [Name].
I wanted to discuss with you [question], but you are probably busy. Please call me back at [number] or let me know when it’s convenient for you so that I can call.
[Signature]
12. Didn’t get through to the client and left him a voice message? Complete it with the following letter:
Letter subject: Didn't get through to you
Hello, [Name].
I recently called you to discuss [question].
[Signature]
13. If a customer persists in not responding across all channels, they may have a lot on their plate. Use this template - even a very busy person can find a couple of seconds to answer:
Letter subject: Short answer required
Hello, [Name].
Unfortunately, I can’t contact you in any way. I assume that you are very busy or are no longer interested in our services.
Please indicate the appropriate answer in your response:
- Please leave me alone!
- Too busy, write to me again in a month please.
- I will contact you myself.
[Signature]
14. If you want to unobtrusively remind about yourself, share with the client information that will be useful to him:
Letter subject: Helpful information for your business
15. If the client delays payment, remind him of this:
Letter subject: Delay of payment
Hello, [Name].
[Date of] I sent you an invoice by email. Payment has not yet been received, so please check if your financial department our account? If necessary, I will resend it. I expect payment from you within a week.
Thank you for your help.
[Signature]
These templates will save you time to actually communicate with clients. And to achieve greater effect, automate the creation and distribution of templates via . right now - it's free and only takes a couple of minutes.
We send dozens of emails every day. Sometimes these are very short messages, for example: “Shall we go to lunch?” Sometimes - with the help of which you present your business or website. When there are a lot of letters and little time, we begin to rush and make mistakes. Usually trivial, like a typo, but sometimes things happen that can seriously harm your reputation and spoil your relationship with a client or employee.
This can be avoided, you just need to be collected and know about some pitfalls. Here are the most common mistakes made when sending emails. Read carefully and remember that you first need to take a short pause, check if everything is in order, and only then click on the “Send” button.
You are typing the wrong address
The most common and most unpleasant mistake. Imagine you want to send rather personal photos to a friend, but you automatically type the address of your boss or customer. And only after the letter has left do you realize with horror what has just happened. If it’s any consolation, each of us has found ourselves in this situation at least once in our lives: lawyers sent confidential documents to the opposite party, designers sent website layouts to the wrong client, etc. But when this happens to us, it seems that the ground disappears from under our feet.
Fortunately, many email services, for example Gmail, have a function. Turn it on and specify a large time interval - it’s quieter, you know.
You forgot about the attachment
You wrote that a certain file was attached to the letter, but you forgot to attach it. Another common mistake that often leads to misunderstandings and apologies. On the one hand, it’s okay, no one is perfect, but it’s better to check everything first and only then send the letter. And to avoid questions from the recipient, we recommend listing all attached files directly in the body of the letter. For example, like this:
Hello, Maxim! I am sending you several files, they are attached:
Service Agreement
GIF with a cat
You don't think about the design
They greet you, as you remember, by their clothes. If you want to prevent your email from making you want to immediately delete it, work on its form. They say you need to devote as much time to it as to the content. Fortunately, today it's easy. To do this, we recommend using the Wix ShoutOut application, selecting a suitable template and adding your text to it. No special knowledge is required, just make sure everything looks neat and beautiful. By the way, a good newsletter has its own secrets and rules, so we recommend reading our email marketing director. Don't thank me.
You do not specify the subject of the letter
The subject of the letter performs approximately the same role as the title of the text. It appears next to your name, the recipient sees it and understands what you sent him: an invoice, meeting results, job offer, website layout, etc. Remember that the topic must be clearly formulated so that a person can quickly find your letter if necessary, and convincing so that he is interested if we're talking about, for example, about mailing. Not long ago we wrote about how, if you have forgotten, it’s worth re-reading.
You don't save drafts
If you like writing letters to text editors, then save more often, otherwise it will turn out that you spent the whole day working on a letter, and then suddenly the computer froze and everything was lost. Or write directly in the mail service - then all your sketches will be automatically saved in the “Drafts” folder.
You are being rude
Politeness in correspondence is no less important than in life. Here are the basic rules that must be followed by everyone:
Always thank the sender for the letter, especially if you see that he did a good job. Remember when we were all taught “magic” words as children? Let's not forget them, even though we are adults.
Stay calm, even if the matter is extremely urgent and important. Nervousness and reproaches will definitely not lead to anything good.
Begin and end your letter with common phrases. The degree of formality will depend on who you are corresponding with. If this is your boss or just an official person, do not use “Hello”, “Bye” or “Kisses”. And vice versa, if you are writing to a colleague or friend, you can do without the traditional “Sincerely.”
You don't proofread the text
Typos can ruin the whole impression, so carefully re-read the written letter, preferably several times. If you have doubts about spelling or syntax, go to Gramotu.ru. It’s better to measure seven times, that is, check, than then apologize for typos and prove that you are actually literate.
And by the way: if you are afraid of accidentally sending an unfinished letter, first write the entire text in full, and only then type the recipient’s address.
You are not putting the right people on the copy of the letter
Let's figure out who might actually receive your letter. The To field is the primary recipient. Field "Ss" - the person who will receive the copy. He is not directly related to the issue being discussed, but wants or needs to be aware. The "Bcc" field is the hidden recipients. You add them, but the primary recipient doesn't see them. And here you need to be careful: you can confuse Cc and Bcc, and then the recipient will think that he is being spied on.
Keep in mind that it is important for some people to be aware of what is happening. You don’t want to listen to reproaches about “How could you not add me to the copy?! I worked on this project for two months!” If in doubt, add everyone who has anything to do with the question. Maybe not everyone will be happy that they are being distracted, but there will be no complaints against you.
You don't subscribe
You wrote “Sincerely, Masha” and think that everything is in order, but the recipient of the letter sits and wonders what kind of Masha this is. From the printing house? Or maybe an illustrator? To avoid leaving him guessing, set up a signature and it will be automatically added to the end of each of your messages. Be sure to include your first and last name, company name, position and contact information, for example, Skype or phone number. You can add an address - although this is advertising, it is unobtrusive.
You're choosing the wrong time
Writing letters at night is not the best best idea. Reason one: you're probably terribly tired during the day, you're not thinking very well, and you're at risk of making all of the above mistakes. Reason two: the avalanche of morning mail will bury your midnight letter, and the addressee will definitely not see it in the near future. And third: apparently, you have nothing better to do if you are writing business letters at three in the morning.
Our advice: if nothing Important or Urgent has happened, send messages from Monday to Friday and on work time like all normal people.
Need to for your business? Create it yourself on Wix - it's easy and free!
Business communication is its own world with its own laws. A lot depends on how we comply with these laws: the impression we make on colleagues and partners, work productivity, and even career advancement.
A special place in business communication occupied by business correspondence, which is the daily responsibility of most office workers and not only. The ability to conduct business correspondence correctly can be a good help for concluding profitable deals and building your business image.
Let's look at some features of a business letter. So, business correspondence is:
- use of template phrases and cliches
- emotional neutrality,
- semantic accuracy and conciseness of presentation,
- well-constructed argumentation.
Business correspondence to English language- this is the same set of rules and cliches, some of which we recommend to use by everyone who works with foreign partners or in international companies. We bring to your attention several useful phrases that will decorate your business correspondence. These phrases will emphasize your professionalism and help shape the image of a business person. Let's begin!
1.Please find attached
Let's start with the classics. Often you have to attach it to a letter various documents or other files. In order to notify the recipient about the presence of an attachment, this phrase is perfect. After all, the word “Attachment” in translation means “attachment”. The phrase should be used at the end of the letter.
Here are a couple of examples of use:
- Please find attached my portfolio.
- Please find attached copy of the agreement/contract.
2.I have forwarded
This phrase can be used if you need to forward an email to other recipients. To notify the recipient about this, the phrase “I have forwarded” is perfect. For example:
- I have forwarded Anna’s CV to you.
- I have forwarded John's email to you.
3.I've cc'ed
A person uninitiated into all the secrets of the peculiarities of business correspondence may not understand what this strange abbreviation means. But we are professionals. “I’ve cc’ed” is an abbreviation that stands for I have carbon copied. The phrase means "to copy someone to receive letters."
So if you need to inform someone that you have copied other recipients, feel free to use this phrase. Eg:
- I've cc'ed Sara on this email.
- I’ve cc’ed Jack and Jimmy on these emails.
As for abbreviations that cannot be used in business correspondence, an exception is usually made for this case.
4.For further details
This phrase is a proven way to politely end your letter in English. "For further details" means "for more detailed information", "in details". Examples of using:
- For further details contact me any time.
- For further details write to our Sales-manager.
Another phrase that will help you finish politely is “If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.” Translated, this means “If you have any questions, feel free to write to me.”
5.I look forward to
The phrase “look forward” means “to look forward.” So if you are looking forward to a response or some other action from the recipient, then it would be quite appropriate to use this phrase. Eg:
- I look forward to your answer.
- I'm looking forward to your reply.
The phrase is best used at the end of the letter.
When writing a letter, you need to be polite even when you don't really feel like it. The ability to write competent letters in any situation reflects your professionalism, good manners and knowledge business ethics. In conclusion, let us remind you that in business correspondence you must show precision of wording and impeccable literacy. The use of abbreviations is also unacceptable (with rare exceptions).
Write emails in English correctly, dear friends! Good luck!
What is email? In the modern business world this is:
- Your face. It is with the help of email that you can create a positive image in the eyes of the counterparty or spoil the first impression.
- Your working tool. A lot of communication with the outside world takes place via email. Therefore, if you are proficient in this instrument, you can make your life a lot easier.
- A powerful distraction. External world trying to harass you, distract you and lead you astray via email.
From this perspective, let’s look at working with email. Let's start with something simple.
Formatting a letter
I use the Mozilla Thunderbird email client, so I will use it as an example. Let's create a new letter and go from top to bottom through the list of fields.
To whom. Copy. Hidden copy
Some may not know, but "To" in Mozilla can be changed to "Cc" or "Bcc".
- To whom: we write the main recipient or several recipients separated by a semicolon.
- Copy: we write to someone who should read the letter, but from whom we do not expect a reaction.
- Hidden copy: we are writing to someone who should read the letter, but should remain unknown to the other recipients of the letter. It is especially appropriate to use for mass mailing of business letters, such as notifications.
Wrong in mass mailings, indicate recipients using the “Copy” or “To” fields. Several times a year I receive letters that list 50–90 recipients in the “Cc” field. There is a violation of privacy. Not all of your recipients need to know who else you are working with on a similar topic. It’s good if these are people who know each other. What if there are competing companies on the list that don’t know about each other? At a minimum, you need to be prepared for unnecessary explanations, and at maximum, to terminate cooperation with one of them. Do not do it this way.
Letter subject
Professional mailing services often write (sometimes sensibly) about the importance of the email subject line on their corporate blogs. But most often we are talking about sales letters, where the subject of the letter solves the problem “the email should be opened.”
We are discussing daily business correspondence. Here the theme solves the problem “the letter and its author should be easily identified and then found.” Moreover, your diligence will return to you in the form of karma of numerous response letters, only with prefixes Re: or FWD, among which you will have to look for the desired letter on the topic.
Twenty letters is the volume of one-day correspondence for a middle manager. I’m not talking about entrepreneurs and business owners at all; their number of letters sometimes goes off scale at 200 or more per day. Therefore once again: do not send emails with an empty subject.
So, how to formulate the subject line of an email correctly?
Mistake #1 : Only the company name in the subject. For example, “Sky” and that’s it. Firstly, you are probably not the only one from your company communicating with this counterparty. Secondly, such a topic does not bring any meaning, because the name of your company is already visible from the address. Thirdly, guess what your own mailbox will look like with this approach to correspondence? Something like this.
Is it convenient to search on such topics?
Mistake #2 : flashy, selling headline. It's great if you know how to write such headlines. But is it appropriate to use these skills in business correspondence? Remember the purpose of a business email subject line: not to sell, but to provide identification and search.
Text of the letter
There are many guides on writing texts for different cases life. For example, Maxim Ilyakhov, Alexander Amzin and other masters of words have a lot of useful information. I advise you to read their articles, at least to improve general literacy and improve the overall style of written speech.
In the process of writing a letter, we must make several decisions sequentially.
A matter of politeness . At the beginning of the letter, you can blur into pleasantries or even tenderness in the spirit of “My dear Rodya, it’s been more than two months since I talked to you in writing, from which I myself suffered and even didn’t sleep some nights, thinking.” Very polite and very costly, both in terms of time to write such an introduction, and in terms of the interlocutor’s time to read it. Correspondence is business, remember? Not an essay in the epistolary genre for a competition or a letter to Raskolnikov’s mother, but business correspondence.
We respect our time and the recipient's!
It only makes sense to introduce yourself and recall the circumstances of your acquaintance in the first letter sent after a fleeting meeting at an exhibition. If this is a continuation of cooperation or ongoing correspondence, in the first letter of the day we write: “Hello, Ivan”, in the second and subsequent ones: “Ivan, ...”.
Appeal . I have always been concerned about the question of who to address in a letter if there are several recipients. Recently I wrote a letter addressed to three girls named Anna. Without any doubt, I wrote “Hello, Anna” and didn’t worry. But such luck is not always the case.
What if there are three or even seven recipients and they do not have the same name? You can list them by name: “Good afternoon, Rodion, Pulcheria, Avdotya and Pyotr Petrovich.” But it's long and takes time. You can write: “Hello, colleagues!”
For myself, I use the rule of addressing by name the person in the “To” field. And don’t contact those in the copy at all. This rule also allows you to more accurately determine (one!) the addressee of the letter and the purpose of this letter.
Citation . Often correspondence is a chain of letters with questions and answers - in a word, a dialogue. It is considered good practice not to delete the correspondence history and write your response at the top of the quoted text, so that when you return to this correspondence a week later, you can easily read the dialogue from top to bottom, descending by date.
For some reason, the default setting in Mozilla is “Place cursor after quoted text.” I recommend changing it in the “Tools” → “Options” menu account» → “Drafting and addressing”. It must be so.
Purpose of the letter . Business letters there are two types:
- when we simply inform the interlocutor (for example, a report on the work done for the month);
- and when we want something from the interlocutor. For example, so that he approves the attached invoice for payment.
As a rule, there are many times more encouraging letters than reporting letters. If we want to achieve something from the interlocutor, it is very important to say this in a letter in plain text. The call to action should be accompanied by a name and be the last sentence in the letter.
Wrong : “Porfiry Petrovich, I know who hacked the old woman to death.”
Right : “Porfiry Petrovich, it was I who hacked the old woman to death, please take measures to arrest me, I’m tired of suffering!”
Why should the correspondent think for you what to do with this letter? After all, he may make the wrong decision.
Signature in the text . She must be. Moreover, all email clients allow you to configure automatic signature substitution, for example the classic “Sincerely, …”. In Mozilla, this is done in the “Tools” → “Account Options” menu.
Whether or not to write contacts in the signature is a personal matter for everyone. But if you are in any way connected with sales, be sure to write. Even if the deal does not take place as a result of communication, in the future you will be easily found using the contacts from the signature.
Finally, one more feature of the letter body for those interlocutors who don’t like (can’t, don’t want, don’t have time) to answer your letters. Please indicate the default in the body of the letter. For example, “Porfiry Petrovich, if you don’t come to arrest me before 12:00 Friday, then I consider myself amnestied.” Of course, the deadline must be real (you shouldn’t send the text from the example on Friday at 11:50). The recipient must be physically able to read and act on your letter. Such “silence” relieves you of responsibility for the interlocutor’s failure to respond. As always, you need to approach the use of this feature wisely. If a person responds to your letters on time and regularly, such an ultimatum may, if not offend him, then stress him out a little or lead to a decision not to answer the letter right now, but to force you to wait until Friday.
Attachments
Letters often come with attachments: resumes, commercial proposals, estimates, schedules, scans of documents - a very convenient tool and at the same time a source of popular errors.
Error : huge investment size. I often receive emails with attachments up to 20 MB in size. As a rule, these are scans of some documents in TIFF format, with a resolution of 600dpi. The correspondent's email program will almost certainly freeze for several minutes in a futile attempt to load a preview of the attachment. And God forbid the recipient tries to read this letter on a smartphone...
Personally, I immediately delete such letters. Don't want your email to end up in the trash before it's read? Check the size of the investment. It is recommended that it be no more than 3 MB.
What to do if it exceeds?
- Try reconfiguring your scanner to a different format and resolution. For example, PDF and 300dpi produce quite readable scans.
- Think about programs such as WinRar or 7zip archiver. Some files compress perfectly.
- What to do if the attachment is huge and you can’t compress it? For example, an almost empty accounting database weighs 900 MB. Cloud information storage will come to the rescue: Dropbox, Google Drive and the like. Some services, such as Mail.ru, automatically convert huge attachments into links to cloud storage. But I prefer to manage my information stored in the cloud myself, so I don’t welcome automation from Mail.ru.
And one more not entirely obvious recommendation about investments - their Name . It must be understandable and acceptable to the recipient. Once upon a time we were cooking in company Commercial offer in the name... let it be Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. I received a letter from the manager with a draft CP for approval, and the attachment included a file named “ForFedi.docx”. The manager who sent me this had a dialogue that went something like this:
Dear manager, are you personally ready to approach this respected man and call him Fedya to his face?
Somehow, no, he’s a respected man, everyone calls him by his first name and patronymic.
Why did you name the attachment “For Fedi”? If I send it to him right now, do you think he will buy axes from us using this CP?
I was going to rename it later...
Why prepare a time bomb - the refusal of a potential client - or create extra work for yourself by renaming the file? Why not immediately name the attachment correctly: “For Fyodor Mikhailovich.docx” or even better - “KP_Sky_Axes.docx”.
So, we have more or less sorted out email as a “face”. Let's move on to looking at email as a tool. efficient work and let's talk about its distracting component.
Working with letters
Email is a powerful distraction. As with any distraction, email needs to be dealt with by tightening rules and introducing work schedules.
At a minimum, you need to turn off ALL notifications about mail arrivals. If the email client is configured by default, you will be notified with a sound signal, an icon next to the clock will blink, and a preview of the letter will be shown. In a word, they will do everything to first tear you away from painstaking work, and then plunge you into the abyss of unread letters and unviewed mailings - minus an hour or two from your life.
Some people have strong willpower that allows them not to be distracted by notifications, but ordinary people It’s better not to tempt fate and turn them off. In Mozilla Thunderbird, this is done through the menu "Tools" → "Settings" → "General" → "When new messages appear."
If there are no notifications, how can you understand that a letter has arrived?
Very simple. You yourself, consciously, set aside time to sort through your mail, open your email client and see all the unread messages. This can be done twice a day, for example, at lunch and in the evening, or during forced downtime, for example, in traffic jams.
People often ask, what about response times and urgent letters? I answer: you do not have urgent letters in your mail. Unless you work in the customer support department (this department has its own rules for working with mail).
If there are urgent letters, the sender will notify you about this through other channels - telephone, SMS, Skype. Then you will consciously go into your email client and process urgent mail. All time management gurus (for example, Gleb Arkhangelsky with his “Time Drive”) declare a standard response to email within 24 hours. This is a normal rule good manners- do not expect instant replies via email from your interlocutor. If there is an urgent letter, notify about it through faster communication channels.
So, we turned off notifications and now turn on the email client according to our schedule.
What should we do when we go to the mail and engage in an activity called “parsing email"? Where is the beginning and end of this work?
I've heard a lot about the zero inbox system, but, unfortunately, I haven't met a single person using it. I had to reinvent my wheel. There are articles on this topic on Lifehacker. For example, " ". Below I will talk about the zero inbox system in my interpretation. I would be grateful if GTD gurus would comment and add or improve the described system.
It is important to understand and accept that email is not a task scheduler or archive for your activities. Therefore, the Inbox folder should always be empty. Once you start sorting through your inbox, don't stop or be distracted by anything until you've emptied this folder.
What to do with emails in your inbox? You need to go through each letter sequentially and delete it. Yes, just highlight and press Delete on your keyboard. If you can’t bring yourself to delete the letter, you’ll have to decide what to do with it.
- Can you answer it in three minutes? Do I need to answer it? Yes, it is necessary, and the answer will take no more than three minutes, then answer immediately.
- You must answer, but preparing an answer will take more than three minutes. If you use a task scheduler that allows you to convert an email into a task, turn the email into a task and forget about it for a while. For example, I use the absolutely wonderful service Doit.im. It allows you to generate a personal email address: you forward the letter to it, and it turns into a task. But if you don’t have a task scheduler, move the letter to the “0_Run” subfolder.
- After quickly replying to a letter, turning it into a task, or simply reading it, you need to decide what to do with this message next: delete it or send it to one of the folders for long-term storage.
Here are the folders for long-term storage I've got.
- 0_Execute. I don’t have such a folder, but if you don’t have a planner, I repeat, you can put letters that require detailed work here. This folder also needs to be cleaned regularly, but with a thoughtful approach at a time specially allocated for this.
- 1_Ref. Here I put letters with background information: welcome letters with logins from various web services, tickets for upcoming flights, and so on.
- 2_Projects. An archive of correspondence on partners and projects with which there are current relationships is stored here. Naturally, a separate folder has been created for each project or partner. In the partner’s folder I put letters not only from his employees, but also letters from Neb employees related to this partner. Very convenient: if necessary, all correspondence on the project is at hand in a couple of clicks.
- 3_Museum. This is where I put those letters that it would be a pity to delete, and the benefit of them is not obvious. Also, folders with closed projects from “2_Projects” migrate here. In short, the “Museum” stores the first candidates for removal.
- 4_Documents. Here are letters with electronic samples of documents that may be useful in the future for accounting, for example, reconciliation reports from clients, tickets for trips taken. The folder has many similarities with the “2_Projects” and “1_Reference” folders, only accounting information is stored in it, and management information is stored in the “2_Projects” folder. In “4_Documents” there is dead information, and in “2_Projects” there is live information.
- 5_Knowledge. Here I only put really useful newsletters that I want to return to after a while for inspiration or to find solutions.
There are other email client settings that are important for the operation of this system. First, by default in Thunderbird there is a “Mark messages as read” checkbox. I prefer to do this consciously, so down with the flag! To do this, go to the menu “Tools” → “Settings” → “Advanced” → “Reading and Display”.
Secondly, we use filters . Previously, I actively used filters that automatically forwarded letters to the appropriate folders based on the sender's address. For example, letters from a lawyer were moved to the “Lawyer” folder. I abandoned this approach for several reasons. First: letters from a lawyer in 99% of cases relate to some project or partner, which means they must be moved to the folder of this partner or project. Second: I decided to add awareness. You yourself must decide where a specific letter should be stored, and it is more convenient to look for unprocessed messages in only one place - in the inbox. Now I use filters only for distributing automatic regular letters from various systems, that is, letters that do not require me to make decisions. Filters in Mozilla Thunderbird are configured in the menu “Tools” → “Message Filters”.
So, with the right approach, email should take from 10 to 60 minutes a day, depending on the volume of correspondence.
Yes, and one more thing. Have you already turned off notifications about the arrival of new letters? ;)
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