Tips

Good E-mail tips

 

No matter to whom you are writing; follow the basics of e-mail etiquette. By doing so, you will look professional while being perceived as an intelligent person.

-          Make sure your e-mail opens with a pleasant greeting and a nice closing. A few additional  “please” and “thank you” go a long way.

-          Address your contact with appropriate level of formality and double-check if you spelled their name correctly.

-          Spell check – e-mails with typos are not taken as serious.

-          Be specific and avoid writing info which is to general

-          Remember about proper structure. First word should be capitalized and appropriate punctuation applied throughout. !!! or ??? are perceived as rude or condescending.

-          If at a moment of writing you feel emotionally charged, step away from a computer and try to calm down before proceeding.

-          Refrain of using the Reply to All feature, rather make it more personal. 

Business E-mail

In a business people want to know the main reason of you contacting them as quickly as possible. Because they don’t have enough time to read a long letter, business e-mail should be short. Use simple phrases in order them to understand and feel comfortable. For a subject line, to avoid your message to be sent to a spam folder, don’t use dangerous words.(Such as Help,Problem,or Free) Suggestion: write the most important information first.

Grammar

Nothing can be worse than wrong grammar used. Important steps to follow before sending an e-mail are:

-          Read through it out loud

-          Proofread using common sense and/or browser’s spell check

-          Review entire structure of an e-mail

 

Common misspelling words in a text are:     

-          writing loose for lose

-          Its for It’s

-          There for Their

-          Effect for affect

-          Then for Than

Length of an E-mail

Keep e-mails as short as possible. You don’t have an opportunity  to show emotions and explain every single thing in detail as you would have on the phone or face to face.Therefore, if you have a lot of information that you’d like to address your recipient; use bullet points. Otherwise keep it neat and not to lengthy.

Dates

 

 

 

 

In order your e-mail to fall into a “good” category, be as clear as possible when talking about dates. It’s easy to miss a deadline, a meeting or other important things if deadlines are unclear or even missed. Try not to use dd/mm/yy format as it might be confusing. A recipient might have hard times at guessing which comes first the month or the date. So, try to keep it straightforward by writing a date and spelling fully a month. Ex: instead of 02/03/14 write as February 3^rd,2014.