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1. Be short
Have you seen those direct marketing letters and brochures that often turn up in your inbox? Often they are letters imploring you to continue to your magazine subscription.
The letters I'm speaking about are four pages long, and fold in the middle like a small book. They frequently use different type sizes and two or three colors to make their point more palatable.
I still throw them away.
Why? Because I don't have the time to wade through while they get to their point.
When writing an email message in business, don't fall in to the same trap. Business email is designed to get a result: to communicate an important fact, or to get a response.
You'll get that result better by getting to the point early, and keeping your message short.
2. Be grammatical
One feature that business communication has in common with other types of communication is standard grammar and syntax. But particularly when composing email, business people let their grammar and spelling become sloppy.
So keep your wits about you when writing email. Remember that anyone can read an email message you write, from the CEO on down, so becoming lazy with grammar and spelling may not put forward the impression you want.
And, if you are writing to a customer your lax grammar will reflect poorly on your company too!
3. Be Right
People won't care about the meeting you are throwing about the XYZ product if the product's real name ABC. They may remember your mistake though. In many areas of writing email (as in much business writing) you are practicing persuasion--asking someone to do something. If your reader doesn't trust your knowledge or your good judgement, you'll have more trouble "getting your way."
Get your facts wrong and you've at least called your judgement into question for those that don't know you. Not forever maybe, but why risk it? And, if you have a reputation for good judgement, errors in fact will at least result in requests for clarification. A series of back and forth emails will ensue. Who has time for that?
4. Be careful
Email may seem a more casual form of communication than an old-fashioned typed business letter. It has the features of immediacy, ready availability, ease of use. Remember that email has permanence too.
Microsoft, for example, was probably displeased (but not entirely surprised) when certain communications were uncovered in their U.S. Government antitrust case. These communications-email--were revealed as exhibits at the trial, showing executives at Microsoft in an unflattering light.
Surely the people writing those emails, who included the CEO Bill Gates, had not thought email was totally private? The amazing thing is that even for the computer-literate, the immediacy of email beguiles them into thinking it is also intimate. That it is a private conversation with a colleague who may also be your best friend: just like writing a letter, sealing it in an envelope that no one will open, and dropping it in the mail.
However, traveling through dozens or perhaps hundreds of computers on its way to its destination, email is not quite so private as that. So choose your words and topics with the knowledge that more than just a friend could be reading it.
5. Be proactive
Since email is easy to reply to, be proactive in asking the receiver for a response. Once you know the answer, you can make your business plans accordingly. And, wondering whether someone really did get your email after all is worrisome at best.
When replying, most email programs will prefix a "Re:" string to the subject line, making clear to what the message refers. To get a response, just ask.
A short example email illustrating the features above:
Hello Ted,
I'm sure you recall the August 1st meeting where we discussed the proposed venture capital funding of XYZ Inc. I've finished the paperwork for the next round and would like to ask you to look it over.
That is, if you are not too busy!
If it is okay with you, could we get together today at 3PM?
Just let me know whether this time is convenient.
Regards,
Margaret
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