The Clueless Guide On How To Write Effective E-Mail

So many of us do it daily, but hardly anyone does it efficiently.  E-mail has rapidly become as important as checking your physical snail mail box outside your home.  Nothing annoys me more than having to wait more than 24-48 hours for an e-mail response unless they have auto-reply turned on notifying you otherwise.  My gripe to people I know who do that is, “would you check your physical mailbox every three or four days?”  They always reply with the common answer, no.

Here are some guidelines for effective e-mail

• Don’t Ramble! -  When people sit down to check their e-mail they often have lots of messages and little time.  Don’t tell your life story only to get to the point in the very last sentence.  KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) often works well for e-mail.  No more than five sentences, that’s it!
• Be Careful With E-Mail Directories and pre-defined mailing lists - I’ve seen people I know make this terrible mistake.  When loading up multiple recipients or using a pre-defined mailing list make sure you know who it’s going to!  Double check and re-check the recipients you’ve selected or know who the mailing list contains.  You could send information and have it seen by users who you definitely don’t want seeing it.
• Don’t E-Mail Angry - Sometimes you will receive a message that angers you or maybe your upset for outside reasons.  Never, ever send an e-mail while angry.  Just leave it sit till the next day and approach your e-mail with a calm and collected mood.
• Respect Privacy – I’m not terribly strong on this point, but some people are really hypersensitive about their e-mail address.  I am personally not one of these people.  When sending an e-mail to a group of people consider using the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) option.  This will mask everyone who receives the message so none of your recipients know who else received the message.
• Have A Good Signature - Signature are important and everyone should have one.  Often times they are over done and sometimes down right distracting.  Don’t use photos in your signature as it will increase the likelihood of being caught by a spam filter.  Don’t put any kind of quotes in your e-mail, they could end being offensive or confusing to your recipient.  Use eight lines to compose your signature, anything more is just too much.  Only include what you want recipients to know!  I know it is kind of obvious but if you don’t want business calls at home, don’t include your home phone number.  Lastly don’t get flashy and fancy, keep it simple.  Your not designing a poster, use easy to read fonts.
• Check It Often - As I described above, nothing gets under my skin more when someone does not check their e-mail daily or respond in a timely matter.  Check your e-mail at the bare minimum once a day, I recommend checking it twice a day.  Don’t just read, respond!   Techno geeks like myself have e-mail on constantly with push notifications to our mobile devices.  When you send me an e-mail I get it within a minute or two.  If it is critical i’ll respond within minutes, not days.  You wouldn’t let your physical mailbox outside your home go unchecked for days, would you?
• Don’t Use HTML - Don’t use HTML to link to your website or blog or anywhere else on the web.  (i.e. “My Website”)  Actually spell out the address. (i.e. http://www.techization.com)  You never know what kind of e-mail client the recipient is using and how it could display or not display your address.  This leads to a distraction within the message and could result in a lost opportunity if your link doesn’t work.

And for goodness sakes spell check before you send!

Did I forget one of your e-mail etiquette pet peeves?  Have another good point?  Leave a comment below!