By Raju Ramalingam

Be concise

Less is more. When you are answering an email you don’t have to include the original message. The person that sent it to you definitely has a copy of the message. Experts say any message of more than 100 lines is considered long and it will probably end up not read.

Be careful with attachments

They are a great invention, but they should be used carefully. If you send a short message as attachment, you will certainly annoy the reader. He will open your email, wait for another program to open the attached document, and find out that you only wrote one or two line in the attachment. If an attachment is required, let the recipient know what it contains. Attachment with strange extensions can contain viruses.

Be careful when you send mail to multiple recipients

Before doing this, ask yourself if every person in your list really wants to find out details about how you spent your weekend. Recipients will get annoyed if the information is of no interest to them. It can even be considered spam if repeated many times.

And also, remember all the addresses you have in you address book before sending the email. Some years ago, an employee forgot the addresses in his address book and sent a message in which he critiqued the boss. The message got to the boss as well and, of course, the employee got fired.

Be careful how you write

Emails that are too familiar are not appreciated by everyone. If you are not addressing a person you know, don’t use short phrases. Check your text to correct the misspellings. Emails with lots of mistakes don’t look good and make a bad impression.

Formatting problems

Not all email programs are simple, so keep the simplest format possible. Maybe the recipient cannot see the green font and the flower sent by you. Email is for communication, not a design exercise, so keep it simple.

Starting and finishing

Don’t start a message with at least a simple “Hello”. Lots of people jump right to the subject. It doesn’t have to be formal, just something polite. “Dear” or “hi” are very appropriate. At the end “Sincerely” might seem too formal, so use “All the best” or “Yours truly”.

About the author:

Raju Ramalingam is a bilingual (Tamil/English) copywriter and an affiliate of Global Domains International, Inc. Watch the Red Ferrari movie.