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Do your emails stand out in the recipient’s crowded inbox? Rhymer Rigby’s article ‘Be authentic:What to wear at work’ in Monday’s FT prompted me to revisit the question of how do you make sure your email stand out in a crowded inbox and convey the right image.
Should an email be as perfect as a letter?
This question is posed frequently by clients, of all ages, all sectors and from business of all sizes. Some argue that email is an informal communication and that more lax rules, grammar, punctuation and layout are acceptable. Your email sends a signal about you and your business just as clearly as the clothes you wear send a message about you and your persona. The question then is dress down or keep to the smart business suit.
More often than not you and your email recipient will not have met let alone spoken. But within five seconds of reading your email the recipient will have formed a picture of you and it may not be the one you wanted to convey. Nonetheless, it is their picture and it determines the tenor of the relationship. Sloppy email (jeans and tee shirt) may reflects badly on you because it may suggest both you and your business are sloppy. For some clearly jeans and a tee shirt are acceptable and only you can decide.
Your email must therefore instantly convey the right tone and language just as the clothes you wear create an image of you. This ’email dress’ code must be carried through from the subject-line and initial greeting to your signature and disclaimer at its end if you want to convey a professional image. This blog has been based on material in Brilliant Email: how to win back time and increase your productivity.
Follow this week’s Tweets for daily tips the image you create through your email etiquette.
Tags: email best practice, email etiquette
Yes, according to a recent survey we conducted. 21% consider spelling mistakes are unprofessional and 79% feel they convey a sloppy image of you as the sender.
Most people like the emails they receive to be grammatically correct. 29% feel poor grammar is unprofessional and 63% feel it makes you look sloppy.
Indeed one of the fist questions I am often asked when running a workshop is ‘will you teach people how to write a good business email’. Not surprising so few young workers have good email etiquette when school teachers send out emails littered with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
What is your opinion? Does a poorly worded and constructed email annoy you?
Tags: email etiquette
No reply is it email overload, arrogance or plain bad manners? Recently a well established trade magazine asked for volunteers to write expert columns. They never either acknowledged or replied to my email. Is this because they feel no need to demonstrate the basic simple courtesy just blogged by Ted Coine or is the requesting editor’s email inbox so overstuffed they don’t read half their emails?
Tags: email etiquette, email overload
Email etiquette and email security. It’s that time of year again, Valentine’s Day is here. It’s not just the high street that’s bursting with Valentine fever. The internet is full of online shopping sites covered with hearts, pushing last-minute gift ideas and online dating services, trying to get you to sign-up to make this year THE year that you find that special someone.
Electronic cards are ideal for the busy or last-minute romantics out there. Sending an eCard for a special occasion seems to be a growing trend – it’s cheap to do, environmentally friendly and a convenient alternative to traditional cards.
I think the concept is great and there are a lot of trusted sites which offer you the option to create animated videos or cards to send by email to your Valentine, but there are just as many spammers hiding behind bogus messages, so beware!
Security companies monitor the activity of spammers at this time of year and see spikes in spam related to Valentine’s Day such as emails with subject headers like, ‘An original gift for Valentine’s Day’, ‘Very Hush-Hush Valentines Day Offer’, ‘Quick and Easy Valentine’s Day Gifts’ and lots more*.
Hackers often use Valentine’s Day to try and sneak malicious software on to your computer, or to lure you to what looks like a legitimate website to make purchases, allowing them to steal your bank account details and passwords, without you realising.
Be cautious and do not open emails from unknown senders even if they flatter your ego!
Tags: email etiquette, email security
What picture of the sender does an email convey which contains, spelling mistakes, poor grammar and is badly structured? To me, it’s one of a sloppy person who does not really care, an email written in haste maybe? For many of my clients such emails can be very expensive especially when the contents are incorrect and they end up in court as evidence.
Alternatively, either a prospect or client feels the sloppy email is a reflection of the service they either are or will receive. The question which often comes up in workshops is ‘should an email be as perfect as a letter’? In a word ‘yes’, regardless of whether it is internal or external. Why worry about internal communications? They so often slip outside, forwarded carelessly and in haste.
Moreover, sloppy emails often result in more email overload because either you need to read and re-read the email to decipher what the sender is saying or you play endless rounds on unnecessary email ping-pong. For some of my clients this can be very costly and especially when English is not the mother tongue: shipments are missed, products specifications wrongly interpreted. Has this ever happened to you?
Here are three tips on good email etiquette for the content:
What are your top tips? Do you think an email should be as perfect as a letter?
Tags: email etiquette, email overload