According to a Harvard Business School study, meetings are about 20 percent shorter now. This means that conversations that used to happen in person are now happening via email.

What’s a sales professional to do? Keri Brooke, the senior vice president of Sales Cloud Marketing at Salesforce, says you should learn how to make a splash in this digital sea of emails.

Be succinct. To get a fast response to your sales email, keep it short, recommends Brooke. It’s best to be more direct with your language, showing less formality and using fewer words. The goal is to make it easy for the other person to consume and digest. You could even create templates for your sales reps to use to ensure short and consistent messaging around certain products or topics.

Schedule meetings directly from email. Brooke recommends using email-calendar integrations to reduce back-and-forth in selecting a meeting time. The last thing you want to do is send your prospects a wordy email that they may forget to review and hit reply. It’s better to allow your prospects and clients to choose their preferred meeting time with a single click right in the email.

Time your sales messages correctly. Timing is incredibly important when you want a fast response to your sales emails. Brooke says a good rule of thumb is to avoid overly busy days (like a Monday after a holiday) and send your sales emails mid-week. You could also send your sales communication in the morning when most people check their email. Brooke adds that deciding on the right time also depends on what your customers want from you. Some clients may want you to be their trusted advisor, and they want immediate responses. Others may not need to hear from you right away. Consider each of your accounts and send your sales emails when it makes the most sense.

Break down information silos. If you send an email and never record the correspondence in your CRM platform, did you really communicate with that account? Brooke points out that information stored in emails can easily end up siloed from other relevant data. When that happens, sales reps working on the same account may not have visibility into those communications. As a result, they may make different assumptions, which can lead to confusion and conflict.

Ultimately, getting a timely response to your sales emails comes down to making it easy for the recipient. Your clients and prospects are juggling endless requests, and you don’t want your email to add to their stress. Be thoughtful in your communication and balance your effort with a reasonable ask. When you can make it easy to respond, your prospects are likely to hit reply.