I recently received an email from a company who wanted to do business with me and it was so poorly written that I just knew at first glance, I wouldn’t want to work with them. Yes, it was that bad. This encounter inspired this post because even in the professional setting, I have seen emails that really make me cringe. So here are some do’s and don’ts for writing great emails.
Greet the person and spell their name correctly
I work in the IT field and I suppose people assume that whoever they are communicating with are men. As a result, I cannot count how many times I have been called Edwin or Edwine in an email when my signature clearly states Edwina. To avoid making this mistake myself, I usually verify the person’s name and if it is a long one, I copy it from their signature. It’s really not that hard guys. Stop butchering people’s names. As Mattie James would say, if you don’t know how to spell my name correctly, you won’t know how to pay me. So pay attention to the small details.
Fonts, font colors and font sizes matter
Speaking of paying attention to details, this is another thing that I find annoying. When someone sends you an email with various font colors and sizes, it shows a sense of carelessness. Use the format painter tool to copy and paste your preferred format to the entire body of your email. It takes less than 10 seconds. While you’re at it, double check your email for grammatical errors.
Subject lines should match the content of the email
I’m sure you’ve all experienced this: an email is about XYZ but someone decides to use a thread about ABC and confuses everyone for no reason. Start a fresh thread when a new topic arises or simply update the subject line before you hit send. Also, be sure to reply all when there are multiple people on a thread who need to remain in the know and please be sure to bcc people who don’t belong on the thread. There’s no reason to keep someone on a thread that has nothing to do with them.
Keep it short and read it to yourself
People’s inboxes are already overflowing. Get to the point. Someone emailed me recently only to ask if it’s ok for them to email me. By doing that, you just wasted my time and yours. Briefly introduce yourself and state your request. While you’re doing that, reread your email to make sure it doesn’t sound rude. Written words can sound way different than you intended them to. By reading your email and rephrasing where necessary, you can avoid miscommunication.
Include pertinent information in your signature
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked for someone’s phone number only to find that they simply sign their emails with their first name or just “thanks.” Don’t make it hard for people to reach out to you especially when doing business. Besides, you simply set up your signature once and it gets added to every email.
Bonus tip:
When starting an email, add the email address last to avoid sending emails to the wrong person. It has happened to me that I hit enter and somehow my draft gets sent. When you wait to add the email after all edits are done, you avoid this issue.
Do you guys have any email pet peeves? Share them below.
