Email is still the primary communications option in the business world. Professionals send and receive an average of 70 emails a day for business purposes. The number is even bigger when you count personal emails, advertisements, and group emails.
Despite its frequency of use and the fact that emails have been around for ages, there are still those who treat business emails lightly. There are a number of ways to maintain and certain ways of doing things; that is if you want the person receiving your emails to respond positively. Here are simple rules of email etiquette often neglected in the real world.
Recipient, Subject, and Body
I recently received a job application email from an experienced sales officer. The person listed multiple recipients, including the company’s catch-all email and customer support, in his email. This was his first mistake. The subject line said JOB APPLICATION in all-caps and without any additional information. The body of the email? Completely blank.
He did attach his CV at the end of the email, though. Did I open it? I moved the email straight to the Trash folder. That is NOT how you send a job application email; far from it, actually.
Making the same mistake in other situations usually ends the same way. The person receiving your email wouldn’t even bother opening it and reading its content. Mistakes like these are more common than you think too. Writing the entire email body on the subject line or using CC instead of BCC are among the mistakes you need to avoid when sending business emails.
Verify Your Recipient
You want the email to reach the right recipient. However, you want to avoid sending the same email to multiple recipients just because you are expecting a fast response or relying on luck to get the message delivered to the right person. This is no longer an acceptable practice in today’s business landscape.
There are several ways you can figure out the right recipient you need to send your email to. You can review the company’s website and find more information about key figures and the recipient you want to reach. You can use tools such as theemailfinder.co to do more research on verified email addresses. Researching the right person to contact is easier than you think, and it is certainly worth doing.
Reply with Care
Sending a reply is just as crucial. You need to know when to use the Reply-to-All button, and when to turn the public conversation into a private one. Unfortunately, there are no predefined rules to follow in this case. You just have to decide for yourself when to use the feature.
A good rule of thumb to follow is to use private, one-to-one replies when talking informally to a co-worker. Keep the group conversation formal and strictly about business. This way, you can have good discussions without increasing the number of emails others receive for unnecessary reasons.
These are just the three email etiquette that many still neglect or choose to ignore completely. Follow this simple rules of etiquette and you will be able to conduct better, more professional communications via email.