Email is an important part of the way we conduct business and our lives. Yet, few people know the right way to start and end a professional business email to get the best results.
Monday, April 11, 2016
How to Start and End a Professional Business Email
Email is an important part of the way we conduct business and our lives. Yet, few people know the right way to start and end a professional business email to get the best results.
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I feel like I am reading over other people’s emails all the time because they want someone to proofread, especially if it has something to do with a job, internship, or to someone in a position of high authority. I think that is totally fine because I often ask other people to proofread my emails like that. This article reaffirms a lot of my beliefs on email and the attitudes people have about it. Email is kind of strange when you think about it because it can be the delivery system for the most formal of emails (as demonstrated by this article and how much people care about the introduction and closing of the message) and also the most informal of messages without introductions and closings. I almost wish there was a standard to emails that everyone followed like cover letters, but that would take too much time and defeat the purpose of ease of email.
I think these are some pretty solid tips for composing a professional email. I think there some really good do's and dont's that you should pay attention to when writing emails in general, which is kind of what I was hoping that this article was going to be pointing out. For instance, I think the idea about never writing "To Whom It May Concern" is a good one, it definitely does come off as not only too stiff but it also comes off as very impersonal, which is one of the main things that I've noticed that professionals hate. If you add a little bit about who you're actually directing the email to, you're far more likely to receive a response, particularly if your email is regarding applying to a position or looking to set up a meeting.
Oh email. I feel like email is something that everyone preaches about being so integral and important to our professional and personal lives, and yet no one bothers to be consistent about it. I have professors and coworkers who send me emails in several different layout and formats despite the subject or other audience members to their email. And it is very troublesome. I would like for email to be a constant in my life. I would like to know there would be a singular way for me to receive email and a singular way for that email to be dictated and a singular way for me to receive that information. Alas, no matter who the email is from or what it is about, I’ll never know how it is going to go. I have been on the receiving end of emails that I thought were going to be calm and collected and ended up being inane and unclear and angry, and vice versa. I wish everyone could see this article and put it to work.
Email is such an important part of our lives nowadays, and I don't think that it was until very recently that I figured out the correct way to send them. I always had a problem with either sounding too formal or too informal, and I know that I found it hard to find a happy medium between the two. One of my favorite classes this year was when Molly taught us about business etiquette and email, as it's something that I'd always struggled to get right. Like Kim said, I wish that there was more of a standard for email because I feel the emails I get from professionals can be highly unprofessional. Whenever I get an email that sounds unprofessional, especially from someone I don't know, it always makes me question their intentions or authority. If everyone read an article like this or took a class like I did it would definitely help to solve this problem.
This article has a lot of good tips when it comes to opening and closing a professional email. It just shows how important it is considering there is a whole article, that is not insignificant in length, about this topic. I never liked To Whom It May Concern not because it sounded too stiff and formal but because it lacked any sense of personality and knowledge of who you were talking to. One of the most important things to look at when you receive an email from someone is to look at how they closed their message. If a professor ends with their first name you should respond back in kind. If they wanted you to be more formal they would end with a more formal closing. The hardest thing, though, is to decide how to start an email if you’ve never emailed the person before, and in that case this article has a lot of good ways to not sound overly formal or overly casual.
Like Monica mentioned above, this article has some pretty helpful content when it comes to the do's and dont's of crafting a professional email. I learned a few things from this article that I didn't know were considered outdated already (for example, the whole "To Whom It May Concern"-- didn't know that that opening was a bit too stiff for most occasions. Just thought it was polite to do so). I definitely took that tip and will try not to use that opening if I can help it! However, some parts of this article also had me a bit baffled. Are there people out there who ACTUALLY use text language in a professional email??? That concept is nuts to me and I can't really wrap my head around that there probably are people out there who sincerely believe that using text language in a professional setting. It's funny to me that the article details that and lists examples of what may be considered an inappropriate way to close an email (L8R or CYA). I thought those things would have probably been common sense, right?
I always like email advice since I always worry that I’m not writing emails the way I should. One thing I realized with this article is that I tend to be unsure of when to use a formal tone or an informal tone. For example, if I’m sending a cover letter and resume to know someone I know, is that a formal or informal email? Or if I know that my professors go by their first name in the department, but I’m emailing a professor I haven’t met, do I use their first name, or do I go more formal simply because we haven’t met? I usually default to formal, but sometimes I worry the formality will seem strange. I think my fear of emails stems from the importance of tone, which is discussed in the article. I can never be sure how something I write will be interpreted without the tone and body language that are used to interpret intent in usual conversation. I tend to worry that what I say will not accurately convey what I mean.
This article offers a lot of useful and up to date advice that I will definitely keep in mind in the future. Most (if not all) of the "how to send an email" articles that I've read talk about how important it is to make sure your email is formal, uses the correct format, and how you can't be casual, etc. This article mentions that many organizations today prefer casual, informal email styles even for professional business emails, which I think is very true as being overly formal can achieve the opposite of the desired effect. Emails are so important today because a lot of times our emails to a company are their first impressions of us. I think on top of these tips, it's important to let your personality shine through as well - companies get so many emails every day and without matching a face to your email, it can be hard for you to stand out. In the end, I think it all comes down to not crossing the line, and this article does a really good job of drawing it.
This article does have some good tips on how to write professional emails. However, something that I still struggle with when writing professional emails is finding the balance between sounding like myself, sounding too professional, and sounding too much like I got it off of an article. I find that when I write an email I can often go into being too informal or not necessarily being too formal, just more of like I got each line from somewhere, which I probably did. This article lays out some good tips of finding that balance. However, when does it end? I never know for how long to follow the good business email guide lines, after the first few, or should you always try to be formal in your emails? As much as I re read emails over and over again before I send them, I think something that could be even more helpful is how to write a business letter, like one you have send in the mail, because for an internship I needed to include a letter, and I had no idea what to do there.
This article does seem a bit obvious to me. I have never had any trouble writing emails, and have a pretty good sense of when I need to be more professional and when I don't, so a lot of this was just review. The part that I did find very interesting, though, is that we should not start emails with "My name is Kat Landry and I..." I have always felt the need to start that way with people I do not know, as though I am sort of introducing myself through the email. But I see the point that the author is making, that then the email is all about you, and not about the two of you connecting. I think if it's followed up properly it isn't a bad idea to introduce yourself, but it's also fairly easy to slide into talking about yourself a little more than you might have done in person. I think the most valuable part of this article, and the most important thing to keep in mind, is that you should just match the other person. It is so easy to just duplicate their tone that it ought to become instinctual. That and just go with your gut! Do you feel too formal? Too informal? Is your opener too stuffy? I mean really, would you like to be addressed this way, were the situation reversed?
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