How to send effective emails
Avoid some common, not to mention embarassing, mistakes when sending business emails. We've also included some suggestions to make your emails work for you rather than against:
Use a powerful email subject line
The subject line tells the recipient what your email is about. The easier you make it for them to decide what’s in your email the more likely they are to open it and respond to you. For someone with a busy inbox it also makes their life easier as it allows them to sort their emails by subject. Avoid subject lines like ‘hello’, ‘check this out’ or even ‘happy new year’ as many email filters will identify these as spam and block them.
Use an appropriate email greeting
- It’s polite to open your message with a simple hello or use the person’s name or other suitable salutation.
- The words you use should be appropriate to the content of the email and the relationship you have with the recipient.
- Avoid the temptation to be too informal on business emails.
- If you’re sending emails from a different machine to usual, make sure you’re not sending them using a ‘from’ address that will, in one fell swoop, wipe-out all the credibility you’ve built up. You might want to think twice, therefore, before sending a business related email from a personal mail account like ‘susiehot@freemail.com’ .
Write an effective email message
- Spell check!
- Don’t use upper case – it’s considered RUDE, like you’re SHOUTING
- Don’t use unnecessary formatting like fancy text or different colours – it’s a message you’re creating, not a work of art
- Be careful what you write; think, write, read, and read again just to make sure it makes sense and really says what you want it to.
- Don't send an email in anger. Draft a response but don't send it until you've calmed down and checked it through.
- Remember that personal comments or remarks that could be considered offensive or confrontational are stored permanently and could be retrieved at any time to work against you. It's therefore often best not to put your opinions in writing.
- Unlike live communication, you don’t get immediate feedback from facial expressions, tone of voice or body language so you won’t necessarily know whether your message has been received and understood, or if it’s been misunderstood and caused confusion or offence.
- Don’t try and joke with the recipient of your message – humour does not translate well over email and can easily be misinterpreted as rudeness.
- A simple ‘thank you’ message goes a long way, especially if you’ve asked for input or advice. It’s far better to send a simple acknowledgement than the sender forever wondering if their message was ever received.
Create an email signature
It’s very easy to set up a standard email signature and you should always do this for all business related emails. Typically it should include your name and position, company name, contact phone numbers and possibly address too. If you’re a Ltd company you must include your company registration number and registered office address as well. You can include the company logo and set the font style and colour to reflect the brand guidelines. If you have staff you should tell them to use the same format so everyone's emails have a consistent look and feel.
Find out how to set up an email signature in MS Outlook Express.
Avoiding embarassing email mistakes
When to use ‘reply’, 'reply all’ and ‘forward’
‘Reply’ to messages in a thread rather than create a new message each time. That way the story is retained for the benefit of those involved and for new recipients who become involved at a later date. Keeping the subject line the same also helps people keep track.
If you’re including a new recipient in the thread and there is an attachment you want them to receive you will need to ‘forward’ the message to them rather than 'reply’ing to it and just adding their name to the distribution list.
If you’re asked to reply to a query that has been passed to you from someone else make sure you reply to the correct person – you may need to cut and paste their email address from the contents of the mail rather than hit ‘reply’.
Take care with ‘reply all’ – errors with this feature have been well documented to the amusement of many and the despair of those directly involved. 'Reply all' is fine on an email chain where everybody is involved in the same dialogue, but is not appropriate, for example, when you receive an 'all staff' email - if you do a 'reply all' your response will be sent to all the recipeints of the original email. To just send your response to the sender you need to 'reply'.
When to use ‘copy’ and ‘blind copy’
Address the email directly ‘to’ those who are being asked to do something and ‘copy’ those who just need to know.
There’s a time and a place for Bcc. Adding names into the Bcc field will copy them in on a message but the people listed in the 'to' for 'cc' fields will no know. Generally speaking if you’re copying someone in, the other recipients of the email ought to know, so use ‘copy’. One of the occasions when bcc is acceptable is if you’re including lots of recipients who do not know each other in the same email but you want their email addresses to remain confidential.
When to use 'read receipt'
Don’t use ‘read receipt’ for general day-to-day communications as it can often be misinterpreted as a lack of trust in the recipient. For the messages you absolutely need to know got there it’s OK to use this feature, but remember that a ‘receipt’ is not necessarily a ‘read’, and that a ‘read’ it not necessarily going to result in an action.
Tips for maintaining email security
It’s been said before but we’ll say it again:
- DON’T open attachments from people you’re not expecting to receive a mail from, however official it looks.
- The same goes for clicking on links in emails from unknown senders. Remember, if the sender is genuine they should have their contact details on the email so you can phone them to verify. There are several popular scams that surface at regular intervals and you will get to recognise and know these.
- If you're sent a returned or failed email or a warning about a virus and it’s sent as an attachment it’s likely to be a virus. Do not open it and do not forward it.
- If you want to check for the latest virus alerts look at either Symantec or Sophos both of whom have a ‘latest virus threats’ link on their home page.
- Be vigilant and use some common sense: the main high street banks will not often, if at all, send email messages to you about your bank account, and they will certainly not send you ones with spelling mistakes or exclamation marks included!!
How to send effective emails
Avoid some common, not to mention embarassing, mistakes when sending business emails. We've also included some suggestions to make your emails work for you rather than against:
Use a powerful email subject line
The subject line tells the recipient what your email is about. The easier you make it for them to decide what’s in your email the more likely they are to open it and respond to you. For someone with a busy inbox it also makes their life easier as it allows them to sort their emails by subject. Avoid subject lines like ‘hello’, ‘check this out’ or even ‘happy new year’ as many email filters will identify these as spam and block them.
Use an appropriate email greeting
- It’s polite to open your message with a simple hello or use the person’s name or other suitable salutation.
- The words you use should be appropriate to the content of the email and the relationship you have with the recipient.
- Avoid the temptation to be too informal on business emails.
- If you’re sending emails from a different machine to usual, make sure you’re not sending them using a ‘from’ address that will, in one fell swoop, wipe-out all the credibility you’ve built up. You might want to think twice, therefore, before sending a business related email from a personal mail account like ‘susiehot@freemail.com’ .
Write an effective email message
- Spell check!
- Don’t use upper case – it’s considered RUDE, like you’re SHOUTING
- Don’t use unnecessary formatting like fancy text or different colours – it’s a message you’re creating, not a work of art
- Be careful what you write; think, write, read, and read again just to make sure it makes sense and really says what you want it to.
- Don't send an email in anger. Draft a response but don't send it until you've calmed down and checked it through.
- Remember that personal comments or remarks that could be considered offensive or confrontational are stored permanently and could be retrieved at any time to work against you. It's therefore often best not to put your opinions in writing.
- Unlike live communication, you don’t get immediate feedback from facial expressions, tone of voice or body language so you won’t necessarily know whether your message has been received and understood, or if it’s been misunderstood and caused confusion or offence.
- Don’t try and joke with the recipient of your message – humour does not translate well over email and can easily be misinterpreted as rudeness.
- A simple ‘thank you’ message goes a long way, especially if you’ve asked for input or advice. It’s far better to send a simple acknowledgement than the sender forever wondering if their message was ever received.
Create an email signature
It’s very easy to set up a standard email signature and you should always do this for all business related emails. Typically it should include your name and position, company name, contact phone numbers and possibly address too. If you’re a Ltd company you must include your company registration number and registered office address as well. You can include the company logo and set the font style and colour to reflect the brand guidelines. If you have staff you should tell them to use the same format so everyone's emails have a consistent look and feel.
Find out how to set up an email signature in MS Outlook Express.
Avoiding embarassing email mistakes
When to use ‘reply’, 'reply all’ and ‘forward’
‘Reply’ to messages in a thread rather than create a new message each time. That way the story is retained for the benefit of those involved and for new recipients who become involved at a later date. Keeping the subject line the same also helps people keep track.
If you’re including a new recipient in the thread and there is an attachment you want them to receive you will need to ‘forward’ the message to them rather than 'reply’ing to it and just adding their name to the distribution list.
If you’re asked to reply to a query that has been passed to you from someone else make sure you reply to the correct person – you may need to cut and paste their email address from the contents of the mail rather than hit ‘reply’.
Take care with ‘reply all’ – errors with this feature have been well documented to the amusement of many and the despair of those directly involved. 'Reply all' is fine on an email chain where everybody is involved in the same dialogue, but is not appropriate, for example, when you receive an 'all staff' email - if you do a 'reply all' your response will be sent to all the recipeints of the original email. To just send your response to the sender you need to 'reply'.
When to use ‘copy’ and ‘blind copy’
Address the email directly ‘to’ those who are being asked to do something and ‘copy’ those who just need to know.
There’s a time and a place for Bcc. Adding names into the Bcc field will copy them in on a message but the people listed in the 'to' for 'cc' fields will no know. Generally speaking if you’re copying someone in, the other recipients of the email ought to know, so use ‘copy’. One of the occasions when bcc is acceptable is if you’re including lots of recipients who do not know each other in the same email but you want their email addresses to remain confidential.
When to use 'read receipt'
Don’t use ‘read receipt’ for general day-to-day communications as it can often be misinterpreted as a lack of trust in the recipient. For the messages you absolutely need to know got there it’s OK to use this feature, but remember that a ‘receipt’ is not necessarily a ‘read’, and that a ‘read’ it not necessarily going to result in an action.
Tips for maintaining email security
It’s been said before but we’ll say it again:
- DON’T open attachments from people you’re not expecting to receive a mail from, however official it looks.
- The same goes for clicking on links in emails from unknown senders. Remember, if the sender is genuine they should have their contact details on the email so you can phone them to verify. There are several popular scams that surface at regular intervals and you will get to recognise and know these.
- If you're sent a returned or failed email or a warning about a virus and it’s sent as an attachment it’s likely to be a virus. Do not open it and do not forward it.
- If you want to check for the latest virus alerts look at either Symantec or Sophos both of whom have a ‘latest virus threats’ link on their home page.
- Be vigilant and use some common sense: the main high street banks will not often, if at all, send email messages to you about your bank account, and they will certainly not send you ones with spelling mistakes or exclamation marks included!!