How Anyone Can Add Safe Humor To Their Email: 10 Ways to Add Humor to Email

Mar 6, 2021

If email is creating too much EGAD in your workplace, why not add a little e-levity to your emails to help you stand out, connect with your teammates or customers, and improve your chances of getting a timely response! Here are 10 simple ways anyone can add a bit of humor to their email messages.

10 Ways to Add Humor to Your Emails

Email is responsible for a lot of stress in the workplace. Let’s face it: survey after survey suggests that there’s a lot of EGAD due to email!

In fact, one survey suggested that employees get 83% more stressed out when they read emails. And another study found that 50% of all emails have a tonal issue. In other words, 50% of the time recipients of an email don’t know how to interpret the tone of the email.

We also know that evidently email makes us a little stupid. According to one study, when you’re dealing with a lot of email, our IQ drops to the same level as if we had been smoking a little bit of the marijuana, as I believe the kids call it these days.

There’s clearly a lot of EGAD at work due to email!

Why not add a little levity to your email to lighten the load just a little bit? Why not use a little bit of humor to stand out from the herd to be heard, to increase the chances, as studies tell us, of people returning your email messages? In fact, a YesWare study found that sales emails with humor leads to a 38% increased likelihood that people will return those emails.

A little humor in your emails can help build trust, improve collaboration and make you more likable. So why wouldn’t you be the person that instead of adding to the stress of email makes somebody smile, just a little bit?

And of course, with so many people working remotely, email etiquette has never been more important. You still have to be efficient and effective and professional and all that good stuff with your emails, you know, no ALL CAPS for example – don’t be yelling at people in your emails! Always be professional.

However, you should look for opportunities to inject a little bit of fun into your emails. Of course the humor is going to vary depending on who you’re sending the email to;  if it’s your closest colleagues versus an email to your CEO or a first-time customer, the humor is probably going to be a little different.

And for goodness sake, make sure you are practicing safe humor in your emails. The written word does not smile so we can’t understand when you’re being sarcastic, so avoid sarcasm, keep the humor safe.

Here’s a great guideline to consider. Always assume that you are sending a permanent record in an email message. So are you comfortable with your email message being read at an all employee meeting by your CEO or your grandmother? Use that as a guideline and if you feel a little uneasy, then maybe change the humor.

And let’s be clear.  You’re not a comedy writer. Do you know how much comedy writers get paid? Neither do I, but I assume they get paid a lot! Don’t try to be a comedy writer. Don’t try to be funny. Instead,  try to deliver email messages with spirit of fun. So rather than going for the guffaws, just try to put a smile on people’s faces.

Here are 10 effective simple ways anybody can add a little bit of humor to their email.

1. Make your subject lines catchy. Think like a newspaper editor with those catchy headlines. Think in terms of headlines, make it short snappy. Yes, you still should explain what the email is about, but make it interesting! Instead of “Update on the 2021 Financials,” how about, “Late Breaking News About the 2021 Numbers” or “Hear What the Critics are Saying About the Latest Numbers” or “Three and a Half Reasons Why You Should Read This Email!”.  

 

2. Include a humorous or upbeat salutation. “Hello, fellow mammals,” “greetings fellow earthlings,” “Hello, bipedal humans,” “Hello to the nicest- smelling, friendliest best-looking team on the planet!” or “To my favorite-est client in the entire history of clients!”

 

3. Theme it. And by that, I mean, reference whatever offbeat, fun theme it happens to be (I list them on my website, www.MikeKerr.com). Something like, “Hey, happy International Goof-off Day everyone,” or “Happy Answer Your Cat’s Question day!” or “Happy International Talk Like a Pirate day!” or “Hey it’s bacon day everyone, I hope you have had a chance to have your bacon today!”

 

4. Punch it up! Include the setup part of a joke, and then tell recipients of your email that in order to get the punchline, they have to get back to you and then you will provide the punchline. That’s a fun, effective way to get people to return your emails!

 

5. Offer some funny options. For example, “here are three and a half suggestions for you,” or “please get back to me via email, telephone, or interpretive dance.”

 

 

6. Be quotable. Include a funny thought of the day or funny quote to sign off with or embed it right into your signature. Something like, “Writing in cursive is my signature move!”, or “I lost my friend’s audio book and now I’ll never hear the end of it!”

 

7. Sign off in a fun offbeat way. “Yours mired in spreadsheets, Susan.”  “Looking forward to your response and the end of the day!”

 

8. Add a fun, alternative job title into your email signature. You could use even these real life examples like: “The Manager of Vibe,” The Queen of Fun and Laughter” or “The Director of First Impressions!”

 

9. Tag it! Add a funny, catchy motto or tagline into your signature: “Making our numbers rock one spreadsheet at a time!” (I’m really into the spreadsheet theme today.)

 

10. Instead of the usual blah, blah blah, with your email auto responders, add a little rah, rah, rah. If you Google “funny email auto-responders” you can find all sorts of examples on the web. But just do something a little fun: “Sorry, I can’t get back to you right now. I’m trapped in an all-day Zoom meeting and I can’t find the exit – I’ll get back to you as soon as they let me out!”

So what about you? What have you done to add a little humor to your email messages? What has worked really well in terms of you using a little humor to get a response from people in your email messages? Let us know, drop a comment in the comments below!

Michael Kerr, 2021. Michael Kerr is a Canadian Hall of Fame speaker who speaks on inspiring workplace cultures and humor in the workplace. He is the author of 8 books, including The Humor Advantage and The Jerk-Free Workplace.