Emails are a fact of life, and for most professionals and job seekers, an absolute necessity in day-to-day communication. Thus, it’s vitally important that you learn the basic etiquette of a proper business email to be seen as the professional that you are by your boss, employees, clients, colleagues, and prospective employers.
Dale Carnegie, American educator, master communicator, and author of How to Win Friends and Influence People said, “There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.”
Every part of what you do reflects back on you and on your company. Do your part to ensure that you represent your company in the best way, like the brand ambassador that you are—beginning with your emails. Follow these tips to whip your email (and professional persona) into shape to get business done right.
1. Fonts and formats
It might be fun to
get creative—but most likely your reader won’t find it quite as much so, especially if an already crazily formatted text doesn’t translate well in another browser. Avoid colorful fonts and over-formatting. Stick to black, and a standard email font. As a rule of thumb, formatting should be limited to lines, spaces and, if needed, bullet points and numbers.
2. Opening lines
You’ve said your hellos. Now what? Get creative and fight the urge to simply wish them a happy day of the week, like the hundreds of other emails they’re reading through—because let’s face it - that’s overdone, and can come off as a bit pretentious and boring. Here are a few lines you can try on for fit instead:
Formal
- I’m reaching out about…
- Thank you for the quick response.
- I hope you’re having a wonderful week.
- I hope this email finds you well.
- Allow me to introduce myself.
Informal
- It was great to see you at…
- How did [a project] turn out?
3. Grammar
Great grammar is not only an essential part of business emails, but it makes you appear more credible and professional than misspellings and questionable usages. Here are some of the most common grammar mishaps:
- There/they’re/their
- Its/it’s
- Effect/affect
- Your/you’re
- Too/two/to
- Loose/lose
- I/me/myself
Spell check used to be every writer’s and non-writer’s best friend. While still necessary, there are some great resources (like
grammarly) available for the internet generation to help make you the Shakespeare you know you are in your heart.
4. Emojis and text talk
Sure, there’s a place for it all—and that’s in your text messages to your best friend. It may not be appropriate with your boss or to the business contact you’ve been working with over the last few months. In the texting age, LOL and ROFL may be engrained in us as a natural enough response, but they should be avoided in professional emails to represent yourself and your company in the right light.
5. The sign-off
Be sure your email closing maintains the tone you’ve established. If your email is less formal you can use sign-offs such as:
- Thanks
- Best
- Cheers
- Have a great weekend
- And others similar well wishes
For more formal emails, sign off with:
- Thank you
- Thank you for your time
- And other similar (formal) sentiments
6. Email subject lines
After you’ve written that masterpiece of a business email, you want to be sure that it gets read. In a busy work environment it’s easy for emails to be overlooked—especially if the subject lines aren’t indicative of their content or importance. So brainstorm, craft, and get your emails read.
Business email etiquette doesn’t have to be a mystery. Follow the simple steps above so you can start to enhance your own credibility as an expert and professional.
