The real reason people ignore you

A Times journalist recently tore apart a cold email she’d received from a PR that opened:

‘Hi Emma, hope you’re good?’

Apparently it was too informal, grammatically suspect and a sign civilisation is collapsing.

But buried beneath the outrage was actually a sound point:

Nobody pays attention to generic emails anymore.

Your reader has seen a variation of ‘Hope you’re well’ roughly 389,000 times this year already. Their overloaded brain instantly filters out generic language like this, because it signals:

• low effort

• mass email

• nothing interesting coming next

I’m often asked how you start emails to people you don’t know, and my answer is always this:

Be specific.

Specificity cuts through because it feels personal and human. So instead of ‘I hope you’re well’ you could try:

• ‘Your LinkedIn post about AI supervision made me laugh/feel attacked.’

• ‘I stole one of your ideas in a workshop yesterday.’

• ‘Your article on client service raised a question I can’t stop thinking about.’

These work because they show:

• you’ve done your homework

• this email is for them and them only

• there’s probably value inside

It’s the difference between asking someone in person ‘Hi how are you?’ (a.k.a. I don’t really want an answer) and ‘How was the zoo trip with your son – did you get to see the llamas?’ (genuine interest).

Now I’d still take a warm ‘Hope you’re good’ over a cold robotic corporate email packed with ‘further to’ and ‘at your earliest convenience’.

But if you want replies, attention and action, get specific.