This is Part 2 from the series of “Golden Mantras for Effective Email Communication”. If you read Part 1, I hope you are waiting for this Part 2 from that series. I hope this will help you for practicing professional communication. Enjoy!

1. Manage your emails

Most of the email client softwares offer feature of creating folders. Create the rules based on the criteria that uniquely filters the mail and move the mails automatically to the desired folder. Make the folder name short and meaningful to you. If you make more than 20-25 folders, you will not see all folders without scrolling down. You can create 9 high priority and frequently used folders starting the name with number 1-9, so that those folders are always at the top of the list. You may have your own way of organizing emails, but I prefer this.

2. Mark the mails

If you receive hundreds of emails a day, you need a magic skill to scan all the emails very quickly and mark the mails with little flag to prioritize and remind you to go back for later attention,just not to miss important emails.

3. Email address speaks about you

I have seen many business and government people using free email services in business communications. Also I have received many business offers using funny email addresses like love77 at hot_mail.com, dangerzone409 at @ yah000.com etc. Many business people think you are not serious or still immature to do business. These names reflect your emotions, not the business motive. Business people like plain, straight names as email ID under corporate domain names. If you are freelancer or individual company, still use your name, combination of your name and family name, name and company name as email ID. That gives more professional and corporate message. And also confirms the authenticity of your message. Email address itself promotes your personal brand or your company.

4. Context Matters

If you are replying a mail, don’t delete the mail content you received. Keep the content of the email unchanged. Also refer to some other form of communications you had made with the person over the phone or meetings.

There are several ways of replying emails. But I find two ways more effective to keep track of the whole email communication history.
a. Write your response in-line with the email content you received. You can use different color for your response or mark the response section to differentiate from the content of the mail you received.

b. Write your response at the start of the email, referring to each of the issues discussed point by point. If you write your response at the end of long email, the reader may find difficult to scroll down to the bottom of the email and sometime creates confusion.

5. Avoid SMS Language

Most of the people addicted sending SMS via cell/mobile use abbreviated SMS style language in business communications as well. Look at one of such examples:

Hi Steve,
hw r u? Thx 4 yor hlp. I gotta go. C u 2nite.

Tty,
Raj

Level of informality in language depends on your relationship with the email recipient. But you must use plain and clear language to present yourself professional and acceptable to all types of business communications.

6. Unlock your CAPS

Knowingly or unknowingly, some of us like typing our messages all in Capital. And some of us type all messages in capital to emphasize message. Typing all in Capital looks like you are shouting. Don’t forget that if you write all in capital everything, you will have emphasized nothing.

7. Text vs. HTML

In plain text email, there is only character that can be typed using keyboard, which is known as ASCII character set. No formatting, no colors, no tables. You can use #, +, *, ~, - etc, to create bullet points, separate paragraphs, give table-looks. Most of the plain text only emails are written using fixed width Courier font. This gives you properly align the characters.

Emails using HTML format email gives full facility to make your email as your web page, using fancy fonts, colors, images, links and tracking scripts. This is useful if you want to send your corporate email newsletter.

Don’t confuse at all. As we know, these days emails are being read not only on computer screens but also on devices such as mobile phones or PDAs. If you use plain text email then any of such new devices can easily interpreted and display without distorting the email content and its layout. But if you use HTML, some of such devices don’t display properly and may display every thing as garbage. And size of the HTML email is obviously large than text based email.

8. Read your outgoing email twice
Most of the email client software offers spell check/grammar check functionalities. Either Enable auto check option to enable email client check the spelling and grammar. Also give your time to proofread the email before you click “Send” button. Simple typos will make you embarrassed and look sloppy, giving your unprofessional impression to the email recipient.
Wrong spellings and unstructured sentences gives impression that you are not so attentive.

9. Acknowledge mail receipts
You look more professional to promptly response to the emails you got, acknowledging that you received and email and will revert back to the sender with needful actions on possible time you can commit. Keeping the email sender uninformed about email receipt and also necessary action is unprofessional and it leaves your wrong impression.

10. Research first
If you are asking some questions or you are seeking some help and seeking a meaningful timely response, do some research yourself first and explain what you already know and what was wrong with that.
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