Basic Email Etiquette you should know.
‘The first impression is the last impression’ is a well-known phrase acknowledged by every professional. It may be hard to accept the truth but people have busy lives and most do not have the time “to get to know you.”
In this era of online interactions, your first email to someone is their first impression of you, so DO NOT RUIN IT!!!
Here are some absolute basic email etiquettes you should know to create a good image of yourself in the minds of everyone you interact professionally.
1. Use your professional email address:
You may be your father’s favourite child, but using daddyslilprincess@gmail.com is just not very appropriate.
That is not it. emt96br7o@gmail.com is not very helpful either. This one here is extremely nondescript. The problem here is that it’s not only hard to read and remember, but it’s also not pleasing to the eye. And people love to see what’s exquisite.
So remember these few things while choosing your email address:
- Representing your company: When you are representing your company, be sure to use the email address that your company has provided to you. This will avoid your email from looking non-branded and your recipient will be more likely to open and respond to your email sooner.
- Representing yourself: When you are writing an email as a freelancer, or just to introduce yourself, your private email address should be selected specifically to speak for itself. It does make a huge difference. Be as picky as you can while choosing a perfect email address.
If you do not have a professional-looking email address then what are you waiting for? Go and create one. I mean — it’s FREE!
2. Keep your subject line clear:
Your subject line is the only thing that will make your recipient open your email in the first place. If your subject line looks scam-ish, most people will not bother opening your email, let alone reading all the valuable information that you wrote for them. Nobody wants that so it is necessary to keep your subject line clear.
Relate it to the contents inside it.
Also, do not make your subject line a clickbait. If the recipient does not receive what was promised to them in the subject line, they will be less likely to open your succeeding emails.
3. Make your email signature look professional:
You are risking the authenticity of your email if you do not add a signature.
Your email signature must include your full name, job title, company, and contact information.
Adding your contact information will ease a lot of things. It will allow your recipient to interact with you in other places, be it over a call or on different social media platforms.
It will also help your recipient to get a deeper knowledge about you, the work you do and your company if you add the necessary social media link.
Pros: It is free marketing!
Cons: None as such.
4. Greet appropriately:
Know your recipient. Who is the person you are writing to? What is the relationship between you and your recipient like? Is she your potential employer or is he a colleague you have known for quite some time?
The most common ways to greet are:
- Dear Ms./Mrs./Mr. <Last name>
- Hello <First name>
- Hey/Hi <First name>
Use them appropriately keeping in mind who you are addressing and how you want your tone to be. Is it supposed to set a formal tone or a friendly tone?
When you are writing a formal email, use the salutation “Dear.” Otherwise, “Hello”, “Hey” and “Hi” never did any harm.
Avoid using “Yo” or “Ssup” unless you are writing to your bestie, just for the fun of it.
5. Write briefly and to the point:
Like I already said before, people have busy lives and people love short emails. Of course, nobody would like to read a 500-word long email when it could have been a few hundred words shorter.
I do not mean that you should say everything in one line. That is a big NO! You must add whatever is necessary — just nothing extra.
Make sure to introduce yourself, if your recipient does not know you already. Write what made you send that email. Do not miss the necessary information — but keep it to the point.
To conclude, I can say that there are a few more etiquettes for you to know. Not too many, but a few more. More on that later.
These were the basic email etiquettes everyone should know.
