Writing the ideal business email!

Top Stories

»	PLI scheme has attracted Rs 1.46 lakh crore investment, created 9.5 lakh jobs
»	Centre pays Rs 4,820 crore to 2.75 lakh farmers for pulses under MSP scheme
»	India's private sector growth surges to 4-month high in Dec: Report
»	Govt inks Rs 13,500 crore deal for 12 Sukhoi fighter jets with HAL in big boost to self-reliance
»	Over 2.2 crore women-owned MSMEs registered under govt scheme in last 4 years: Minister

Writuparna Kakati | 28 Apr, 2008
Developing effective business emails are significantly different from informal emails. As one knows business people who receive emails want to know the point as quickly as possible. They don't have time to read through a lot of copy unless something immediately captures their interest. They don't appreciate long and never-ending mails, but just benefits and facts.

Certain rules if followed will bring in more response from prospective clients:

INFORMATIVE SUBJECT LINE:
Always pay double attention to your subject line and prepare it carefully. After the sender address, the subject line is the first thing B2B email recipients will look at. The subject line should directly relate to the primary benefit your product or service offers.

BE ACCURATE:
Whatever claims you make, benefits you offer, or statistics you quote, make sure they are true and not inflated. Nothing is worse than starting off a relationship with exaggerated or even false information. Do not make an email longer than it needs to be. Always remember that reading an email is harder than reading printed communications and a long email can be very discouraging to read. And be brief. Your job with the email is to capture interest, then provide more information if it's wanted. You need to identify the most important benefit to the recipient and sum it up in a short paragraph.

Also be clear on what you want the reader to read. Most business people are turned off by email messages with bad grammar, misspellings, and/or unintelligible content. If you personally struggle with writing, hiring a professional writer to prepare your messages is a worthwhile investment.

LANGUAGE:
Whatever you're going to say, write in words they understand and are comfortable with. People tend to understand and react better to words they use in everyday conversations. Always put yourself in their shoes. Try to picture the daily routine of the people you're contacting and reflect that in your writing.

Never assume that recipients have the same knowledge about your product or service you do. After you have captured their interest, try offering a step-by-step know-how of whatever you're marketing to help them understand what you're trying to say.

SIGNATURE AND OTHER DETAILS:
Never forget to put your full name, title, company, address, phones, pager, fax, email, and Web site links. This gives the recipient a choice of how to contact you for more information.

TIMING:
Timing is very important, so carefully choose when you actually send the mail. Most businessmen spend Monday mornings catching up on the email, postal mail, and phone calls that have piled up in the weekend. Sending a mail on Monday would usually mean getting your email mixed in with dozens or even hundreds of communications that are being reviewed by recipients.

SPAM:
These days personal computers and corporate networks use spam filters. These software are designed to snare presumably unwanted incoming messages based on a variety of characteristics, including the sender's email address, words in the message subject line or even in the body of the message. Normally, email filters examine the words in the email subject line. So to prevent your email from filtering or going to the spam folder, one need to exercise care when creating the mail.

Moreover sophisticated anti-spam methods used by ISPs use a "point system" that identifies words and phrases commonly used by spam. Usually, it allows a sender a maximum of five points. If an email goes over five points it is filtered out and is never delivered to a customer.

So try avoiding certain words and phrases including:

Free!
50% off!
Click Here
Call now!
Subscribe
Earn $
Discount!
Eliminate Debt
Double your income
You're a Winner!
Reverses Aging
Hidden
Information you requested
"Stop" or "Stops"
Lose Weight

Too much usage of these words will only ensure that your email ends up in the spam folder. Thus the whole purpose of the email is lost.

ATTACHMENTS:
Think twice before sending attachments. Most of the time, you don't know what software the recipient has or uses. A better idea can be to provide links to web pages where the information contained in the attachments is displayed. By sending large attachments you can annoy customers and even bring down their e-mail system. Wherever possible try to compress attachments and only send attachments when they are productive. Moreover, you need to have a good virus scanner in place since your customers will not be very happy if you send them documents full of viruses.

WRITING IN CAPITALS:
IF YOU WRITE IN CAPITALS IT SEEMS AS IF YOU ARE SHOUTING. This can be highly annoying and might trigger an unwanted response. Therefore, try not to send any email text in capitals.

MESSAGE THREAD:
When you reply to an email, you must include the original mail in your reply, in other words click 'Reply', instead of 'New Mail'. This will provide the context of the email. It is very frustrating if you have to spend a long time to find out the context of the email in order to deal with it. Leaving the thread might take a fraction longer in download time, but it will save the recipient much more time and frustration in looking for the related emails in their inbox.

Next time when you are writing an email, keep these rules in mind before you hit the send button and see the difference.