$" " PRACTICE
BUILDING CAPACITY
Trusting Email to Build Capacity
Darryl Booth, MBA
mail may never be delivered, opened, read, and acted on. Can We Avoid Important Emails Going to Spam? This issue is something we can manage. It is not completely out of our control. In fact, getting email through to the inbox is a bit of an art and a science. Nearly every email service scores incoming email for likely spam. Note, too, that more advanced systems (e.g., Gmail) also watch how the recipient previously responded to emails of the same type. If your previous email was moved to trash without opening it, then your next email might go straight to spam. It learns. Follow these simple practices to increase delivery rates: • Use a familiar from name and a meaningful subject line. Most recipients decide what to do with your email seeing only the sender, subject, and date. For example: From: Smith County Environmental Health Department Subject: 2023 Retail Food Renewal Invoice • If you can, personalize the email greet- ing. Using “Dear Joe Smith” is superior to “Dear Operator.” • Design an email body with substance. Also, take the time to deliver an email body with useful information. A paragraph that explains the reason for the email and its importance weighs mightily when detect- ing spam. • Reserve the last few lines of every email for the agency’s name, address, and phone number. • Use a real reply-to address (e.g., smith- countyeh@smith.co.us) that is monitored.
Editor’s Note: A need exists within environmental health agencies to increase their capacity to perform in an environment of diminishing resources. With limited resources and increasing demands, we need to seek new approaches to the practice of environmental health. Acutely aware of these challenges, the Journal publishes the Building Capacity column to educate, reinforce, and build upon successes within the profession using technology to improve eciency and extend the impact of environmental health agencies. This column is authored by technical advisors of the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) data and technology section, as well as guest authors. The conclusions of this column are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of NEHA. Darryl Booth has been monitoring regulatory and data tracking needs of environmental and public health agencies across the U.S. for over 20 years. He is the general manager of environmental health at Accela.
T he very first email was sent in 1971. By the mid-1980s, the world accepted email as a convenient, fast, and inex- pensive means of communication. We all rely on email every day. We are experts. So why raise this topic in 2023 with the promise of building capacity? We Still Do Not Trust Email for Important Notices In fact, most environmental health depart- ments (maybe most local government departments) still send paper mail by the U.S. Postal Service routinely, with the win- dows envelope representing the last major improvement in mailing.
My pitch, bearing testimony to the benefits of an all-digital mindset, often meets resis- tance. Yes, there is serious resistance to retir- ing paper, postage, and handling. Here are the most common questions along with recommendations. Can I Be Certain My Important Email Is Delivered and Read? You cannot. Yes, there are schemes that promise digital email read receipts and open tracking, but these are not reliable. These schemes could not be used, for example, in an enforcement case. Aside from certified mail and other ser- vices that require a signature, even traditional
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