It’s official. Mullets are back.
Yep, teenagers up and down the land are doing their best impressions of mullet maestro Billy Ray Cyrus c. 1992.
I blame Stranger Things for resurrecting this horrifying hairstyle that should have died along with MC Hammer pants and Tom Selleck moustaches.
But I have found one silver lining in this trend…
It’s given me a great name for a certain type of email I’ve been talking about a lot recently:
‘The Mullet Email’
Why mullet? Well, like the hairstyle, it’s short at the front and long at the back.
Picture this:
You have an email to send to a group of colleagues about a new system for booking annual leave.
It’s important, but they won’t care.
You’ve read my book Email Attraction and know emails shouldn’t be longer than 80 words.
But…there’s loads of critical information to convey and email really is the best/only option.
(And you pinky promise me you’ve explored all other options and cut it down as much as is humanly possible.)
What do you do?
Enter: The Mullet Email!
What is it? It’s a short summary at the top with a dividing line underneath it and the full information below.
In the summary section you should aim to answer three questions in three sentences:
- Why should your reader care?
- What’s this email about?
- What’s the next step?
For example:
Booking your annual leave shouldn’t be so hard.
We’re rolling out a new platform that makes it quicker and easier to take time off.
Please read the information below to set up your account by Friday 25th March.
[Instructions of how to set up the account]
The joy of the Mullet Email is it grabs attention first, and then delivers the information to a now more receptive reader. Simple but effective.
So go on, give the mullet a try! (The email, not the hairstyle. Or both, but send pictures.)
