Writing a business email is boring. Although services email services are decades old (Gmail 10 and Hotmail 15) and there's no real innovation per se in them, they are still widely used for electronic communications.
Every day you are bombarded with numerous emails in your inbox out of which you ignore a maximum portion. If you are writing a mail as a business representative, it means that there is all the more reason for your customer to ignore your email. Therefore, you should develop email etiquette. This is how you have a better impact on your client or boss or colleague.
Here are 5 ways to write an email more effectively and get the job done -
1- Keep it short.
A wise man once said, "If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter message". On Twitter, you write a tweet with a limit of 140 characters. Try and write your email as short as 150 words. (This article is 400 words for reference)
2- To the point.
You have to be direct. Do not use too many adverbs and adjectives. It makes no sense to keep your emails that are very important lengthy by adding unnecessary words.
If you can't follow the first point and keep your emails short, then add a brief summary at the beginning and indicate the action which is required.
3- Respond quickly.
When something is important, respond quickly. The CEO of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel, declined Mark Zuckerberg's offer to buy Snapchat for $3 billion. Later on he tweeted the initial emails they had exchanged. The first email by Zuckerberg was 46 words that came in at 6:23 pm. Spiegel replied 30 mins later with 19 words. Zuckerberg replied again, 3 hours later, with just 14 words. The deal didn't work but you can learn from it that responding quickly to an important email is necessary.
4- Reread before sending - Twice!
Reread your emails just to double check whether the message is clear. Also, keep an eye out for grammatical errors. It obviously looks bad on your part if you send a grammatically incorrect email!
5- Add the address in the end.
Don't address an email till you have finished reading and rereading it. Finish off your thoughts for the important email first, then fire off the send button. You will realise the value of adding the address in the end when people have common names or different accounts which can cause confusion, or sometimes loss of confidential information.
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