Why the Email Postscript (PS) Wins Friends and Influences People

Get more responses to your cold emails

Blood rushed into the capillaries in my face. I giggled to cover up my embarrassment. Glanced sideways to see how my classmates reacted.

My business school writing instructor had just trashed the email opening line “Hope you’re well.” I’ve written 1,000+ emails starting with a variant thereof. Wasn’t that a law of emails, that they had to begin with our best wishes for the other person?

Little did I realize the queasiness of this email pleasantry which has infected corporations and startups alike. The recipient loses a second each time, skimming past the impersonal opening line, searching for the actual message.

How could an email be more direct, while also more personal?

The postscript (PS) is the perfect place to show how you care for the other person as an individual. Everyone — whether a colleague or a stranger — wants to be seen.

“PS: Hope your horse riding trip was the adventure you hoped for. The only time I tried riding I fell off a galloping horse. Presumably you did better?”

“PS: Saw that you also enjoy following chess. How did you get into it. Want to play a game sometime?”

“PS: Came across your lovely poems online. The “Inside a cloud” stuck with me. Thank you for writing these.”

The PS is working for me. Skip the blah-blah-blah email formalities.

Let your reader get straight to the point instead while inserting a PS that’s actually personal.