Sending e-mails is one of the top tasks people do online and it might seem that everyone knows the basics of sending a good e-mail, but there are some additional and “uncommon” tips that you probably haven’t heard before that will help you send better e-mails:
- Don’t Open Your E-mails with “I apologize/sorry to bother you” Line. Using the line in oral speech might sound appropriate, but, in e-mails it basically sends the message to your recipients that the content might be annoying and that you are already bothering them in a way.
- Make your E-mails are Small Screen Friendly. The vast majority of people nowadays access e-mails from small screen devices. Imagine how much it would “hurt” their eyes if they had to read long strings of text that is flooded by unnecessary images or graphics. Keeping your text short and sweet is the best policy to get your message across without this issue.
- Think twice before you use the “cc” function. CC allows you to send your e-mail simultaneously to many recipients, but the downside is that recipients’ e-mail addresses are visible to anyone who receives the e-mail and this may annoy some users for obvious privacy reasons. Furthermore, many people find CC’d messages spammy and pointless.
- Use the Bcc Function When Sending E-mails in Bulk. Bcc is basically a more private and appropriate CC version since it allows you to send an e-mail to many users at the same time, without their address being exposed in the Bcc field.
- Don’t Overdo It With Fancy and “Cute” Graphics. It’s perfectly fine to spice-up your message a little bit with a couple of graphics, but too many graphics and emoticons look annoying and don’t translate well to some devices or platforms.
- Always Check Your Grammar. Even though e-mail is not exactly used in a formal context, you should still make sure you send grammatically correct messages and double check so that there are no embarrassing spelling and grammar mistakes.
- DON’T write in ALL CAPS as this could be translated as an angry tone. The lack of emotional cues in writing makes email readers very sensitive to any cues that they can find and ALL CAPS means raise of voice and negative emotions.
