Chris Thoughts

Email Etiquette – Ten Checks Before Sending Out Your Next Email

Posted on 02. Apr, 2009 by Chris in Career 101, Ideas

Conducting an email takes time, but it is better than making a live phone call most of the time. Simply, in an email, people will state things in a more logical way. We would prefer to get 50 emails per day than to receive 50 phone calls.

Good business is predicated on clear and effective communication and email is the primary mode by which business is conducted. Yet corporations, government agencies and educational institutions stand on the sidelines and do little to train workers and students on the fundamentals of email etiquette.

So before sending out your next email, spare one minute on the 10 checks I come up with,

1. Have you customized your First Name & your family name, your company info and etc in a more standard form?

This helps people to put you in outlook contact without editing, and know the first glance whom the email is from.

2. Are you only using plain text, or only black and white color in your content?

Use rich html, and use dark blue or other color to make others think your attention to detail. Life is good, you will be remembered even by this.

Added bonus: some people only use plain text to read email, meaning your effort of using html is ignored. To play it safe under some circumstance, avoid using too much html as it would creat a mass, if not more under the plain text content.

3. How much time do you waste decoding a poorly written email?

Step in others’ shoes and think what’s your first impression while reading the first line of the email. So do it like doing a standard press release for your own company. The tag line, the first sense, and the first paragraph raises your readers’ interest.

Added bonus: also think about doing a phone call though email is normally a good starting point.

4. You did think about splitting content into different paragraphs, but have you thought about also using a few bullet points (also with the key sentence in bold font weight) to tell your content?

Use a consulting mindset over this. Think your receivers are your clients and they have only one minute to hear your pitch. That’s your email.

5. How often do you use email to say one or two words, such as “OK”, “fine” or one or two lines?

This is not professional, and not nice to your buddies. You’d better enrich your content.

6. How often do you proofread an email before sending it?

Modern email system has made things easier, for example, use Gmail’s “check” function. If you don’t have this in your mail system, copy & paste it somewhere to proofread.

7. How often do you send a email with 5+ attachments without zipping it? Would it be better if your attached files are in PDF format?

Meaning the receiver would have to download it for 5+ times. Do you enjoy clicking on the attachment files for 5+ times. But, if attachments have different usages and some are optional for downloading, do the 5+ attachments.

PDF avoid that your receiver will suffer from font missing problem, and PDF looks neater in a way that people would prefer to open than any  other file type.

Added bonus: be sure that some file converted by higher version PDF software can not be open by normal version PDF software. So check the compatibility if possible.

8. Do you reply to a message within 24 hours? What if you can’t do it within 24 hours?

You may not carry a BlackBerry, but it is not a good excuse to skip or reply email late. 95% of people might reply late. You are going to make a difference, so do it within 24 hours, 1 hour or even sooner if possible.  In a lot of scenarios, it even means the “live” or “dead” of a potential deal.

If you can do it in time, Tim Ferriss’ s tip might help. Go check it out.

9. Have you considered when to add contact information, and how to structure it?

Rich contact could lead to unexpected business, but addressing it underneath every email might look dull. You can consider by 5-fold of send and reply, the contact plus the disclaimer info would make the content hard to read by others.

So do two things,

1) Be wise and selective to use rich contact info and disclaimer

2) Use horizontal format instead of vertical one. For example,

Use:

Your Name | Job Title | Division | Company Name

Phone: ### | Email: ###

Instead of:

Your Name

Job Title

Division, Company

Contact Info

You know what it means.

10. How often do you receive an email with an attachment without a properly structured title, or with no text in the email body?

Self-explanatory.

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