NFIB

Send Top-Quality, Well-Written Emails
12/ 12/ 2002

by Jeffrey Moses

The speed, directness and low cost of email has revolutionized the way we communicate. It has also led to a type of brevity of writing that often irritates email recipients, and may leave the sender looking bad.

The formality of traditional business letters has all but gone out the window with email. Including the date is usually not necessary because most email programs automatically show when the email arrives. The use of a heading does not fit with the now-traditional brevity and informality of emails. And many people no longer even offer a salutation at the beginning of the email, barging right into the body text of the message.

To make the best impression and show professionalism, the sender of a business email should include a salutation and at least one or two sentences addressing the recipient personally. The salutation should use the formal "Dear Mr." or "Dear Ms." when the recipient is not known well, is senior to the sender or if the email is sent in lieu of a formal business letter. Using the recipient's first name is appropriate for most other occasions. If you're not certain whether to use a person's first name, don't. Err on the conservative side.

Write your email as you would any letter, with careful attention paid to grammar and spelling. For a formal email, you may want to compose a copy in a word processing program, then copy and paste the final text into an email.

If you know the recipient extremely well and email them frequently, or if you're in the middle of back-and-forth correspondence involving brief questions and answers, you can be more relaxed about maintaining a high standard of writing. Even in this case, adding a proper salutation takes no more than a second or two. And no matter what, spell check before you send!

If every email you send out is top quality, as described in today's Workshop, people will recognize your extra effort and consideration--and will think the better of you for it.

Small Business Sound Off
Does this story hit home?  Share your story with us