E-mails, like any other collateral, have become a struggle to get the reader’s attention—even if it’s a personal note to a friend. And the key to getting somebody to read your e-mail, much like the key to getting somebody to read your ad, Web page, press release, or direct mail letter, is the headline. When it comes to e-mails, your subject line is your headline.

Sure, this may sound like an extreme measure to take, especially for a personal note. But think about how you view e-mails. Are you more likely to read one with no subject line or one that states some sort of purpose? Will you read an e-mail with a subject line that says “Hello” before one that says something specific like “Potential new client” or “Meeting availability?”

Granted, it depends on who’s sending you these e-mails. Even e-mails from friends we rate based on the subject line, particularly during the workday. If it doesn’t have a subject line or says something simple like “hello,” we’re more likely to put it aside for a later time.

For business e-mails, it’s even more critical to treat subject lines like headlines. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be ultra creative. Just to the point. Remember, most people get more e-mail than they can handle. Most of us want to know what the e-mail is about without actually reading it—kind of like how we read headlines of a newspaper before committing to a particular article.

So be specific, to the point, and, brief. Try to keep the number of characters in your subject line to 72 characters or less—preferably less. Like anything else, the less work you make the reader do, the more likely they are to do what you want—in this case, read your e-mail.

We’ve all heard of AP, Chicago Manual, and the other style guides out there (I prefer The Gregg Reference Manual). Most agencies, corporate communications or marcom departments will loosely follow one or the other. That is until you send that one article to the VP for review and he/she wonders why you didn’t cap his/her title and department in his/her quote (e.g. “…for the coming year,” said John/Joan Smith, vice president of finance.)

You can point to all the style guides you want, the Veep is going to have their title and department capped come hell or high water. And then ask why you didn’t cap every word in the headline. It’s times like this when having a style guide for your company can come in very handy.

This doesn’t mean you need to recreate or re-write Chicago or AP. Just create a document that lists the way your company formats certain things like headlines, titles, abbreviations, measurements, and other grammatical points. For example:

• Using a comma before the “and” with lists (depending on who you ask, some will use the third comma—e.g. commas, verbs, and periods—while others won’t—e.g. “commas, verbs and periods.”)
• Capping the first letter of every word in a headline or just the first word (e.g. “HiRoad Wins Award” or “HiRoad wins award”).
• Acronyms. Do you spell out the acronym every time or just once?

Now, this might seem to be a whole lot of extra work about “the small stuff” and with limited upside. That depends on your perspective. If you have more than one person writing for your company—particularly if you use freelancers—consistency is key. A style guide gives everybody who writes and reviews your collateral pieces—ads, brochures, press releases, Web content, etc.—a reference. This way, you don’t have inconsistencies in format—e.g. one article capping titles and departments and another lower casing.

We’ll cover some suggestions for what sections your style guide should contain in a future blog.

While gaining media exposure remains the number one goal of a press release, it can have another extremely helpful use—informing your own employees.

Many companies, in their haste to get a release out, forget the folks on the front lines. Sure, the release may have nothing to do with what the majority of your employees do on a day-to-day basis. But if you subscribe to the theory that your employees can be your best sales and pr agents, you need to keep those people current.

On another level, including your employees on your distribution list does have an effect on morale. The announcement itself might not mean a whole lot. Yet reading about it first in the newspaper or hearing it on the radio does. When you have the opportunity to eliminate a “what do I need to know that for, I only work here,” you should take it. Including your workers on your press release distribution is a very easy way to do that.