How to Write an Email

A well-written email opens doors, closes deals, and gladdens hearts.

But a bad one can really wreak havoc with your life and business.

So here are some basic rules for writing effective emails that get the job done right:

1) CARDINAL RULE: NEVER EVER write anything that you'd later on regret if it were read by "others."

REMEMBER: On the Internet nothing remains a "secret" forever!

If you are writing and sending an email critical of your boss, a friend, your boss, or anybody else, it is safe to assume that eventually it will surface and eventually it will be read by the same person that you;re tearing down.

As my grandma used to remind me frequently: "if you don't have anything nice to say for someone then don't say it." Same goes for your emails too.



2) Never use UPPER CASE LETTERS unless you really want to SHOUT at the other person. Upper case letters are not only harder to read but they are also the equivalent of a loud speaking voice. Be very careful before hitting the "Caps Lock" key on your keyboard.



3) SUBJECT LINE is very important. Do you know that close to half of all emails are either left there in the in-box or sent to the trash bin without being opened and read?

Emails with clever, intriguing or humorous subject lines get clicked, opened and read. But make sure the humor would be appropriate for the occasion, message and the recipients. Locker room or army barrack humor might be appropriate for your buddies from college and the Marines. But the same humor may give your relatives a heart attack, especially when sent on their birthday. So watch your language and exercise your best judgment.

4) Be careful with the way you design your signature block. You can read more about the proper way to write email signature blocks right here.

5) Enter the TO address as the last thing, after you finish writing the text of your email. That would prevent accidental mailings if by mistake you hit the SEND button before you're done with the message.

Better yet, compose your email message in a word processor and not within the message text-box of your mail program.

NOTE: Prefer a word editor other than Microsoft Word (like WordPad, for example) since Word throws in a lot of invisible characters that create problems with some email servers. One simple word processor with many features is Bean. I use it regularly. It's free as well.

When you like what you've written, copy and paste it into your message text-box and send it away.



6) Never trust the FORMATTING of your email. All email programs have a different way of displaying different formatting tags. For example your bulleted list may end up arriving on the other side as a list prefixed by a caret (>). Your supposedly bold words may not arrive bold at all. Or if you think you are sending italicized words, they may not be italicized at all when they reach the inbox of your recipient.

Do not communicate anything in your emails the meaning of which depends on the way you format them in your message body area since the specific formatting that looks good on your screen may be totally lost and stripped off when the message is delivered to the other side.

Here is a universal way to signify italics when you'd like to stress a word: use asterisks (*) before and after it. For example:

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*Please* help me! I *can't* find the answer.
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How to write a Critical Email

How to write an Email Subject Line

How to write an Email Signature Block

How Not to Use the Wrong Words in Emails

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