Business Email Etiquette – All You Need To Know About It Suman November 3, 2016

Business Email Etiquette – All You Need To Know About It

Although a recent Twitter poll I ran ranked email low as a popular medium of communication, I think that emails are far from obsolete. The internal communication in an organisation may shift to Whatsapp and other modes. But we still have tons of exchange with clients, investors, sales leads which will require formal email writing skills. As someone who has trained in communication for 14 years, I believe in the art of perfect email writing. It isn’t as hard and people still get it wrong. I ran into this awesome article that covers every aspect of basic email writing and how to do it correctly.

Some of the tips I like in this article are:

1. Addressing the recipient correctly is very important. If it’s a formal relationship, use Mr. (Surname/full name) while addressing.

2. CC only the relevant people and write down the full name of the person instead of hurried versions of names you might have saved in your address book.

3. Reply to all only when it makes sense. Or you’ll just end up adding another unwanted email to the recipients’ inbox

4. Formatting is a very imprtant part of writing. There is no need to bold or colour fonts unless very important. Colours only make the email look ‘spammy’.

5. This is my favourite – Don’t just click reply and type out your response and send. Edit the previous email and subject line before you respond. Remove the irrelevant bits to avoid long mail trails.

Read on the rest and apply the concepts in your everyday email. You can do it right!

Professionals communicate in a professional manner at all times. Consummate professionals e-mail as if every message could be on company letterhead. Do you?

Source: Business Email Etiquette Basics – Business Email Etiquette

You may also want to look at another detailed post I wrote on writing effective emails here. My post covers concepts like the style and tone of an email.

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