????如果你希望電子郵件能有效地傳遞信息，那么就一定要去揣摩讀者的心態(tài)。

????亞馬遜（Amazon）上關(guān)于“商務(wù)寫作”方面的書將近有6,000種，再讓你讀這方面的相關(guān)內(nèi)容，你或許會(huì)覺得難以理解。不過，一旦你把從書中學(xué)到的付諸實(shí)際，你就會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)你的郵件仍然無法實(shí)現(xiàn)那個(gè)最終的目標(biāo)——讓讀者作出你想要的回應(yīng)。一封出色的電子郵件能夠說服讀者采取特定的行動(dòng)，比如：批準(zhǔn)一份投資方案、提供信息、同意提供一份證明或者接受邀請(qǐng)等。因此，如果你的郵件無法讓讀者按照你的希望采取行動(dòng)，你就浪費(fèi)了別人和自己的時(shí)間。

????以下是能幫你寫好郵件的七個(gè)建議，這些都是從我擔(dān)任戰(zhàn)略顧問的25年經(jīng)驗(yàn)中總結(jié)而來。這七大訣竅有一個(gè)共同點(diǎn)，那就是都非常注重揣摩閱讀者的心理。為什么這一點(diǎn)非常重要？在對(duì)方收到你發(fā)出的郵件后，他就會(huì)馬上在心里將你的郵件進(jìn)行分揀歸類，很有可能就歸入了那些糟糕的類目下，比如：“忽略并歸類為垃圾郵件”、“以后再讀”、“現(xiàn)在讀，但不采取行動(dòng)”等等。而顯然，你所期望的是對(duì)方將你的郵件歸類為“現(xiàn)在看并馬上采取行動(dòng)”。

????如果想要你的閱讀者做出積極的回應(yīng)，懂一點(diǎn)社會(huì)心理學(xué)和行為經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)會(huì)對(duì)你有所幫助。具體來說，關(guān)于這兩個(gè)領(lǐng)域的一些基礎(chǔ)知識(shí)，有兩本書非常值得一讀。第一本是羅伯特?希爾蒂尼（Robert Cialdini）的《影響力：說服的心理學(xué)》（Influence:The Psychology of Persuasion），這本書對(duì)順從行為進(jìn)行了心理學(xué)分析，即什么因素能讓一個(gè)人答應(yīng)他人的要求；另外一本是由理查德?塞勒（Richard Thaler）和卡斯?孫斯坦因（Cass Sunstein）合著的《推動(dòng)力》（Nudge），這本書對(duì)各種系統(tǒng)進(jìn)行了分析，幫助人們提高作出對(duì)自身更為有利選擇的能力。雖然這兩本書本身不涉及商務(wù)寫作，但是包含了一些非常實(shí)用的相關(guān)理論。在這些理論的基礎(chǔ)上，我總結(jié)出了以下的建議，它們與你在別的地方學(xué)到的那些常見的商務(wù)寫作技巧，比如“避免使用被動(dòng)語(yǔ)態(tài)”、“避免使用行業(yè)術(shù)語(yǔ)和縮略語(yǔ)”、“變換語(yǔ)句的長(zhǎng)度和結(jié)構(gòu)”等，將互為補(bǔ)充。

????下面就說說這七個(gè)建議。

????技巧1：要考慮到你的上司會(huì)在何時(shí)何地閱讀你的郵件。在當(dāng)今這個(gè)快節(jié)奏的時(shí)代，以字節(jié)信息為載體的高速通訊可以隨時(shí)隨地實(shí)現(xiàn)。因此，寫完了一封電子郵件之后，你也許會(huì)忍不住馬上發(fā)給對(duì)方，而這也很容易實(shí)現(xiàn)。但是，請(qǐng)考慮一下對(duì)方會(huì)在何時(shí)何地收到你的郵件。舉個(gè)例子，如果你想要給老板發(fā)封郵件，申請(qǐng)請(qǐng)兩個(gè)月的假，那么周五晚上就不會(huì)是一個(gè)很好的時(shí)間點(diǎn)。這個(gè)時(shí)候，你的上司正被困在擁擠的機(jī)場(chǎng)，等著晚點(diǎn)的飛機(jī)帶他回家；在此之前，他剛剛與工會(huì)代表進(jìn)行了長(zhǎng)達(dá)三天的緊張談判，結(jié)果不歡而散。你的請(qǐng)假申請(qǐng)也許理由萬般充分，措辭流暢有力，但是你不妨多等一會(huì)，讓你的電子郵件在一個(gè)更好的時(shí)間和地點(diǎn)進(jìn)入上司的收件箱。

????技巧2：利用主題線索讓郵件在收件箱中更為顯眼。商務(wù)人士都非常忙，因此他們無法為作出一項(xiàng)決定花費(fèi)太多時(shí)間。所以，他們往往是根據(jù)過去的經(jīng)驗(yàn)，或者僅僅根據(jù)呈現(xiàn)給他們的一條書面線索就下意識(shí)地作出決定。首先是給電子郵件擬定標(biāo)題，這不難做到。標(biāo)題要讓閱讀郵件的人感到這是機(jī)會(huì)，并且會(huì)有好處，而不是要他們費(fèi)力做什么事情，或者謀求他們給予恩惠。例如，你要寫一封邀請(qǐng)別人參加基準(zhǔn)管理培訓(xùn)的電子郵件，如果標(biāo)題含有類似“學(xué)習(xí)”這樣的字眼，就會(huì)讓人產(chǎn)生“如何提高績(jī)效”之類讓人不安的聯(lián)想。更高深的技巧是，要拉近郵件閱讀者和你的心理距離，例如，提及共同利益或夸贊對(duì)方。當(dāng)然，這種做法稍不留神就會(huì)走偏：你不想去誤導(dǎo)、欺騙或操縱讀者；只是想勸導(dǎo)、說服、促使他們作出決定。

????If you really want to get your message across, make sure you understand the mindset of the person you’re emailing.

????Amazon AMZN 1.60% lists close to 6,000 book titles on “business writing.” You might wonder why you need to read anything else on the subject. Well, once you start practicing what you’ve learnt from many of these books, you might find that an email of yours still fails to achieve its ultimate purpose: to evoke the response you want. A good email persuades its reader to take a specific action, such as: approve an investment proposal, provide information, agree to provide a testimonial, or accept an invitation. So, if your text doesn’t get your reader to act as you intended, you have wasted both your and her time.

????Below you’ll find seven tips to help you be a better email writer, which I have drawn from my 25 years’ experience as a strategy consultant. What these seven tips have in common is that they focus on the psychology of the reader. Why is that important? As soon as a reader receives a text, he mentally pigeonholes it into one of several, possibly damning categories: “ignore and ditch,” “read later,” “read now, but no action.” Obviously you want your reader to pigeonhole your text in the “read and act now” slot.

????To get your reader to respond positively, it helps to understand a little about social psychology and behavioral economics. Specifically, two great books serve as a good intellectual foundation to these fields. The first is Robert Cialdini’sInfluence: The Psychology of Persuasion, which addresses the psychology of compliance, i.e. the factors that cause one person to say yes to another person. The second is Richard Thaler’s and Cass Sunstein’sNudge, which examines systems that help people improve their ability to select options that will make them better off. While these books don’t deal with business writing per se, they contain relevant and applicable insights. They lead to tips that you will find complementary to the often technical tips about business writing that you find elsewhere, such as “avoid the passive voice,” “avoid jargon and acronyms,” and “vary the length and structure of your sentences.”

????Let’s move on to the tips.

????Tip 1. Take into account where and when your boss reads your text.In today’s fast-paced world of instant, omnipresent and byte-size hypercommunication, it is easy and tempting to fire off a text to your targeted reader as soon as you have finished writing it. But think about when and where he will receive your text. For example, it may not be a great idea to mail a request for a two-months leave of absence to your boss on a Friday evening when he is waiting at an overcrowded airport for a delayed return flight home after three days of intense and unsuccessful negotiations with union delegates. Your request may be perfectly reasonable and eloquently worked out, but you’d better wait for a more auspicious time and place for it to land in your boss’s inbox.

????Tip 2. Stand out in a crowded inbox by using clues.Busy as businesspeople are, they cannot afford to think too long about every decision they have to make. They often make fairly automatic decisions based on past experience or just one written clue that is presented to them. It starts with simple things like the subject header of your mail: it should convey opportunity and benefit to the reader rather than effort and goodwill from him. For example, when you write an email to solicit participation in a benchmarking exercise, the heading “Study” may evoke more dreadful associations than “How to improve performance.” More profoundly, make yourself likeable to your reader, for example, by referring to shared interests or flattering him. Of course you’re walking a fine line: you don’t want to mislead, deceive or manipulate your readers; you simply want to convince, persuade and facilitate.