How to Email Without Offending

by Jon on 2009/05/04

in communication, news

email intelligence

Tomorrow sees the start of a two-day teaching gig at Påhlmans Institute in central Stockholm. Once again I’m talking to some business clients about how to use email intelligently.

As a warm up for that, here are my Top 10 Tips for How to Email Without Offending:

  1. Spell the recipient’s name right.
  2. Use “Dear + Recipient’s Name,” if you are approaching for the first time rather than “Hi” E.g. Dear Jon,
  3. Take another look at your mail before hitting SEND.
  4. Remember to include a SUBJECT line in your email.
  5. Spell the subject line correctly.
  6. Avoid humour unless you know the recipient very well i.e. close friend or family.
  7. Keep email short: e.g. one email for one subject.
  8. Don’t forward jokes.
  9. Don’t use FYI when forwarding; actually say why you think the recipient will find it of interest.
  10. Close your email with “Best wishes” or “Yours sincerely”, not “Cheers” or “Best”.

For more email tips why not check out a recent YouTube presentation on Writing Effective Email I made for a client.

Image:FlickrCC

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  5. Can We Develop Better Email Marketing Campaigns?

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Jon Buscall - Communications Consultant

Communications Consultant Jon Buscall

I'm an available-for-hire online communications consultant based out of Stockholm, Sweden.

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  • Jon
    @Annette,
    Great comment ! I printed it out and showed it to the class.

    If you think about it, if every American corporation that did business with Germany could know this it might save a lot of positive energy. And win them some business.

    :)
  • Great list, thanks Jon!

    I'dl ike to add one more (though I don't know if this isn't perhaps a typically American thing): I often get emails starting with "Annette" only. No "dear" or even "Hi", just the name. But here (Germany/central Europe) this feels like being shouted at. (Like your name in caps with exclamation mark!) We'd start a mail like that if we were angry with someone. We consider a start like this as really impolite 8or at least very arrogant) and might get the tone of the rest completely wrong as a consequence.
  • Wow! That's got me thinking, Jon. It's true then, that the age of Common Sense is dead!
  • Jon
    The sad thing is I meet so many clients for whom this is ground-breaking knowledge. It's dismal.

    For example, a CEO I know who heads a major corporation here in Sweden regularly sends out email to his entire management staff without a subject line. It's like he hasn't grasped the concept of clear communication. Or how important it is to store and retrieve email data.

    I think largely it's a generation thing. Often, it's managers in their 40s and early 50s who are the worst culprits. But I'm seeing even young support staff not knowing how to address people formally in English when writing email. The language of text messaging has shot the register of business communications to bits in places.
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