Crafting your email etiquette
Have you ever sent out an email and immediately wished you had waited a few minutes before doing so? We all have. That’s why we have put together this list of five (or six) things to get into the habit of doing any time you are about to hit “Send.”
Remember: this blog post is for correspondence with business associates. When inviting friends into your football pool, you can probably disregard most of these tips.
1. Check your email list
There is little worse than emailing someone and then realizing you’ve accidentally emailed someone else. And also realizing that someone else really shouldn’t have seen the email you’ve sent them.
Make a habit of always eyeballing your email list before firing that email off. You’ll be glad you did.
2. Avoid too much jargon
It’s okay to have a casual tone in your emails. That said, overly casual can begin to sound underly (a word we made up for the purposes of this blog post) professional.
3. Avoid excessive short forms
Ext. Marketing Inc.’s Andrew Broadhead and Richard Heft have debated this one. Andrew is way more comfortable including plenty of words like “we’ve”, “I’ll” and “you’re”. Richard? Not so much.
There are no hard and fast rules for this one, but listen to Richard and consider reducing those short forms to keep your emails sounding more professional.
4. Remove the jokes
Nuances are very, very hard to pick up in electronic correspondence. If you’re not 100% sure how a joke will be received – or if anyone at all could be offended by the joke – it’s best to exclude it altogether. Keep the tone somewhat professional too.
If you’re not 100% sure how a joke will be received – or if anyone at all could be offended by the joke – it’s best to exclude it altogether.
If anyone at all could be offended by the joke – it’s best to exclude it altogether.
5. Always check your spelling
Do a quick spellcheck before you send any email. Spelling errors never reflect well on the sender.
6. Get someone to read it over
We’ve only added this one as an aside because no one has the time to have someone review every one of their emails. That said, it doesn’t hurt to have someone take a quick look at your more important emails to make sure they make sense.
Use these few tips and you’ll send out stronger, more professional emails every time.