How do you start your emails? Do you write, "Hey" or "Hello" . . . or maybe, "Yo," then immediately feel LAME for doing it?
Some business experts wanted to know the best word to open with if you want to get a response. Which might be useful if you're applying for a job, or work in sales.
They looked at hundreds of thousands of posts from online messages boards. So not exactly "emails," but close enough for their purposes.
Overall, 48% of the messages they looked at got responses, regardless of what they opened with. But here are the five opening words that did the best. And they're all pretty common ones . . .
1. "Hey." It had a 64% response rate.
2. "Hello," 63.6%.
3. "Hi," 62.7%.
4. "Greetings," 57.2%.
5. "Dear," 56.5%
Another study last year did the same thing with words you use at the END of an email, and the best thing to close with is, "Thanks in advance." The rest of the top five are "thanks," "thank you," "cheers," and "kind regards."
(Quartz)