Why E-mail Gets Deleted: The Vital Importance of Proofreading

Today, I received an e-mail with the subject line "Why Customers Leave Suddenly: The Vital Important (sic) of Sequencing." The content turned out to be interesting and relevant, but I almost passed over the whole thing as junk mail.

I get a tremendous amount of junk mail, so I use automatic filtering to help cut down on the burden. Most of it gets diverted to the junk folder, but some manages to pass itself off as legitimate, so it stays in my Inbox.

In my business, I often get inquiries from total strangers. I can't tell what's worth reading from the sender's name, so I have to decide based on the subject lines. When I'm scanning my incoming mail, if I see garbled syntax and it doesn't look like a business inquiry, I just automatically assume it's not something I want to read. Hitting Delete is almost automatic.

In this case, I just knew the e-mail couldn't be from one of the real marketing mavens, because they know better than to send out e-mail without proofreading it. But I was wrong, and I was lucky. Just as my finger was poised over the Delete key, I glanced at the name of the sender and I was able to stop myself in the nick of time.

Maybe you think I'm exaggerating about how quickly I make a decision about whether to hit Delete or not. Let me assure you, I'm not! Who wants to waste time on this intrusive, annoying, insulting stuff? And because the filters aren't perfect, I go through my junk mail folder daily to double check that there's no legitimate e-mail there. Most of the time, it really is junk, so I scan the titles very rapidly, hitting Delete as I go.

The moral of this story is clear: if you want your e-mail to be read, don't tempt fate. Before you hit Send, proofread your subject lines.