You don’t have to be an expert writer to compose an email. However, there are many things to consider when writing emails, especially for business communications . Here are several email etiquette rules to keep in mind for your professional messages.
The Email Fields
Double-Check Your Recipients' Addresses
Enter a Concise Subject Line
Include CC and BCC When Warranted
The Message Body
Add a Greeting
Use an Easy-To-Read Font
Include a Signature
Tone and Professionalism
Be Cautious of Caps and Formatting
Keep Humor and Emoji to a Minimum
Add Necessary Attachments
Courteous Communications
Consider Concise Messages for Mobile
Schedule Sending During Business Hours
Shorten Lengthy URLs
The Email Fields
It may seem simple to fill out the fields for your email, but these tips may save you some embarrassment and help your recipients at the same time.
Double-Check Your Recipients’ Addresses
If you’ve ever sent an email to the wrong person because you relied on the “smart” suggestions from your email application, then you know how embarrassing it can be.
It takes only a minute to double-check the recipient’s name and email address. If you have an application that converts the email address to the recipient’s name for display purposes, simply click that arrow or hover your cursor over the name for a quick review.
Enter a Concise Subject Line
The subject line you include with your email should be succinct and meaningful. This allows your recipient to see exactly what the email is about at a glance. They may even read their emails in order of the content’s importance, which is where the subject line comes in.
Try to keep the subject line short but significant. Make it a concise summary of what your message includes.
Include CC and BCC When Warranted
Not every recipient of your message may belong on the To line. You can use the CC field to copy others who need the email as a reference or the BCC field to copy them but keep their email addresses private.
Reserve the To field for those you’re directing the message to and any actions you require from them. For others who simply need to be aware of the message, whether you’re hiding their email addresses or not, use the CC and BCC lines instead.
The Message Body
Obviously, the body of the email is where you include your message. But there are a few tips to remember that can make or break that message.
Add a Greeting
Especially crucial when composing a business email is adding a greeting. Start your message appropriately with “Dear,” “Hello,” or something similar, followed by the recipient’s name.
There’s nothing that says “I’m in too much of a hurry to worry” than an email without a greeting.
Use an Easy-To-Read Font
While it’s tempting to switch your message font to something different or unique, it isn’t always the best option for the person actually reading the email.
Use a default font that’s easy to read like Arial or Times New Roman. Not only are these classic fonts standard for most email clients, but they are also simpler to read than a script and more professional than an overly casual option .
Include a Signature
Similar to eliminating a greeting, not signing your email can come across as unprofessional. And with that closing, you should include the basic details your recipient would need.
Email signatures vary, but can include your full name, company, title, phone number, website, and links to social media. Whether you have all of those details in your signature or simply your name, be sure to add it to the end of your message.
Tone and Professionalism
Along with the basics of filling out the email fields and composing the body of your message, consider your words. Do you want to use all caps to stress a point? Should you include a bit of sarcastic humor? Let’s take a deeper dive.
Be Cautious of Caps and Formatting
It can be tempting to use all caps , bold text, or an underline to emphasize your words. But too much of these in a message defeats the purpose and can convey an aggressive message.
Try to avoid all caps. You don’t want your recipient to feel as if you’re yelling at them. And use font formatting like bold, italics, and underline sparingly and only where necessary.
Keep Humor and Emoji to a Minimum
While most people enjoy a bit of humor now and then, it doesn’t always have a place in an email. Reason being, the recipient can’t see your body language or hear your snicker. In written communications, humor can come across as inappropriate or even offensive at times, even when you don’t mean it that way.
Along with eliminating humor, try not to overuse emoji in your email . While a smiley or thumbs up can be beneficial in a chat or text message, they can convey an unprofessional tone in business emails.
Add Necessary Attachments
We’ve all done it at least once. We tell the recipient we’re sending them a file and then forget to attach it. Take a moment before hitting Send to be sure you’ve included any necessary attachments.
Additionally, some email services like Gmail and Microsoft Outlook offer features to remind you of forgotten attachments . Take advantage of these helpful tools so you don’t have to follow up your email with another message containing the file and an apology.
Courteous Communications
Some email etiquette rules aren’t set in stone, but can simply be courteous, considerate, and helpful.
Consider Concise Messages for Mobile
With more and more emails being viewed on mobile devices, take this into consideration when composing yours. Eliminate unnecessary words and get straight to the point. There’s nothing worse than opening an email full of text on your mobile phone that requires continuous scrolling.
Schedule Sending During Business Hours
If you use the handy email scheduling feature many email clients offer, be considerate of when you schedule that delivery. Sending an email right at the end of the workday or even at midnight simply isn’t nice.
Try to schedule the emails for a workday and during business hours, unless you have a compelling reason not to do so.
Shorten Lengthy URLs
One final tip for being courteous is regarding links you include in your emails. Similar to composing shorter messages for mobile viewers, you can do the same when including links. Consider using a URL shortener like Bitly or linking to text.
Rather than a link that takes up too much space in your message, you can reduce its size and still get the link to your recipient.
Hopefully some of these email etiquette rules are ones you plan to use for your own business messages moving forward. And if you do send a message you’d like to take back, check out how to recall an email in Outlook or how to unsend a message in Gmail .
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