THE BEST EMAIL SIGN-OFFS

(February, 2017) Thanking you in advance for listening to this story. According to a study of over 350,000 email threads by the productivity app Boomerang, your email sign-off really does make a difference as to whether or not you get a response. Boomerang studied emails from over 20 online communities’ mailing lists. Eight closings – “thanks,” “regards,” “cheers,” “best regards,” “thanks in advance,” “thank you,” “best,” and “kind regards” – were used more than a thousand times. They all yielded higher response rates than the 47.5 percent average. The top three were:
– “thanks in advance” (65.7 percent)
– “thanks” (63 percent)
– “thank you” (57.9 percent)
* Wow, this is information I can use probably nowhere.
* I always go with “Up yours truly”.
* Great. So now we have Boomerang reading our emails too.
* Careful, Boomerang. This sort of thing can come back around at you.
* People say “Thanks in advance”? How presumptuous.
* Can we agree that “Kind regards” sounds too “kiss-ass”?
* Another way to boost your response rate is end your email with: “P.S.: Did you hear about that website that gives out free candy?”
* A higher response rate is good, unless the people are just writing back to tell you to shove it.