I’m interrupting your regularly scheduled email inspiration/tip for some productivity advice.

I know you want to learn from the master over here.

And by “master,” I mean shiny object syndrome expert.

Oooo a new tech tool!?!? Wait. Where did the last 2 hours go?

But seriously, here’s a tool I keep forgetting about and rediscovering. It’s like a tiny treasure I keep from myself and then remember when I get the overwhelms.

AND it only takes a minute to set up.

INBOX PAUSING

Whaaaaaaaaaaat!? I know.

If you’re like me and keep your email inbox up at all times (because everyone will scratch their eyeballs out if you don’t respond to their email in 30 seconds), then you know how distracting it gets.

I installed Boomerang for my Gmail and G suite emails and it comes with INBOX PAUSE.

If you don’t know what Boomerang is, it’s also its own productivity hack. It can send back emails that you sent that the recipient didn’t respond to. It can also schedule emails in your inbox.

SO COOL.

Weirdly, I mainly use it for the Inbox Pause feature.

When I’m trying to focus, I flip on the pause switch which defaults to 2 hours.

I know what you’re thinking. Why not just close out your email?

When I’m trying to dig through my emails for one tiny detail that I cant remember, I end up losing time because OH LOOK ANOTHER NEW EMAIL. It’s NEW! It’s SHINY! Must read it!

You know that song and dance.

And for all of you Outlook users, there’s a similar function. It’s called “Work Offline”.

Seriously, it’s a game-changer.

OK, calm down.

That joke was hilarious but not *that* hilarious.

I’ll wait for you to stop laughing.

No? Didn’t laugh at all? Fine. I’ll save my best stuff for later.

I hate to break it to you. The holidays are on us.

First, Halloween. Then, Thanksgiving. Then, Christmas. You know the drill.

It’s a comically out-of-control snowball that is about to scoop you up in its demolishing descent.

Some of you may be in businesses that do not sell anything related to holidays.

That’s fine.

But it’s kind of weird *not* to acknowledge a celebratory season, right? (Unless that’s really, really not your thing or your brand).

And even if it’s not your thing, you don’t have to go overboard with the all of the words you can replace a syllable with the word “boo.”

OK, now I have to do it. Ready?

Boo-tiful, a-boo-rable, fa-boo-lus, boo-ty…

OK. I’m out. That didn’t take long.

Back to emails here.

What I’m really trying to say is, that you don’t have to go all out for a holiday email, like Halloween. You can keep it keep it super simple.

A fun color change, a cute little boo pun, an emoji in the subject line.

Find a way to celebrate the ordinary with people who are looking for something to celebrate.

Here’s an incredibly easy, fun, simple example of a Halloween email that’s worth taking note. 

Here’s what you should copy from this email: 

1. COLOR

Postable used a bright orange background color with white font and a black CTA button.

The background color immediately brings Halloween to mind.

The bright color also helps contrast against the white font and black CTA button making everything “pop”.

2. SUPER SIMPLE

A marketing email doesn’t have to be five million paragraphs long.

If you have a promotion or simple message you want to get out to your audience, consider a brief, direct email that gets your point across!

3. SUBJECT LINE EMOJI

Seasonal emojis for the win! Emojipedia as collections of seasonal emojis to pull from.

Sprinkle one here and there in your subject lines during the season and feel all of the Halloween goosebumps.

Check it out —-> https://emojipedia.org/halloween/

GOT IT?

Now, what can you do to play with your emails this week?

I wish I could take credit for this week’s email. It’s a newsletter series called Short and Sweet by the lovely, Janelle Reichman.

She owns and operates Ellanyze, a front end web development company.

She is one of the kindest humans I’ve met in Ann Arbor, MI. She freely gives her time and is a talented WordPress developer.

Her Short & Sweet series is just that. Short and sweet.

Janelle highlights something that has stuck out to her every week – which is either an artist, a business hack or a website tip.

It’s easily digestible and a joy to read.

Take a scroll, check out this example of Ellanyze’s Short and Sweet, then read the 3 easy things that are worth repeating.

Here’s what you should copy from this email: 

⓵

LENGTH: 

Do you see how short this email is? 

We often can only grab our email subscriber’s attention for a fraction of a minute. Maybe more if we’re lucky.

In a crowded inbox, how do you make sure people read your content?

Make it short.

I often seen people try to cram as much content in an email as possible. 

Cut down the copy and highlight the most important parts of your business as possible.

⓶

BRIGHT, BOLD VISUAL: 

I immediately want to know more about what’s happening in this email based on the visual.

My curiosity is piqued.

Is it an overly stylized image? No.

It’s a beautiful graphic that she cropped for the size of her email. That’s it.

Don’t overcomplicate your graphics. They don’t need to by hyper-stylized.

It just needs to be eye-catching.

⓷

CTA: 

I often see CTA’s buried in the bottom of emails.

Here, Janelle makes her Discovery Call CTA button bold and beautiful.

There is no missing it.

If I want to talk to Janelle, I know exactly how to do that.

Don’t hide your CTA’s.

Don’t make your subscribers hunt to find how to contact you. The harder you make it for them, the less likely they are to follow through.

GOT IT?

Now, what can you do to play with your emails this week?