It is very important for your image to send letters, faxes and emails which are correctly typed and spelled and look good on the page.
Try to address your communication to a named person or a job title, if you are writing to a company (The Sales Director’, for example). Communications addressed to the company only tend to get shunted round from department to department. Identify quickly what you are writing about by giving either a reference, or a heading, or both.
If you are in any doubt about spelling, grammar or sentence construction, get someone to check it for you. All your documentation should be to the high standard you set yourself for the rest of your business operation.
Letters have evolved an etiquette for language and layout, but email is still establishing itself in these areas. Follow these suggestions, and your email will be acceptable to the reader:
Layout:
- Subject: make the subject heading meaningful to the reader. If your recipients don’t know what the email is about, they are less likely to open and read it
- If you don’t know the reader it’s better to start with ‘Dear …’ than ‘Hi!’ Sign off with ‘Regards’ or, later, ‘Kind regards’
- If you have several slightly different things to say, use subheadings, and make sure there is more space above the subheading than below it. Use bold, not CAPITAL letters. Leave spaces between paragraphs
- If you are writing about two totally different subjects, send two emails. People often don’t read to the bottom
- Take time to plan, so that the email is well constructed
Language:
- If in doubt, use more formal language. It’s not appropriate to write business emails in the language of text messages
- Don’t key in words or sentences in all capital letters; people think you are shouting at them.
- Do use initial capital letters for names and words like ‘I’ . Check the spelling
- Don’t use symbols and smileys, unless you know the reader very well
- Write good, correct, straightforward English – which isn’t as easy as it sounds!
