In this article, you find some tips on how to improve your email writing skills. By following several simple rules, you will make your correspondence more comfortable and learn how to write professional emails. So, here are the basic rules for creating a good business email.
1. Address your recipient by name in your professional email
A good official email format implies personal addressing to a recipient. Your recipient will be much more gracious if you refer to him or her by name. If you are making a newsletter for several recipients, it is better to list the names of each one in greeting and divide into blocks the information that relates to each of them in the text of your letter. Each block must be started with the name of a recipient to which the information relates. Highlight each name with some background color for a recipient to not waste time reading the entire letter, and quickly see his or her block.
Remember you should always be polite and correct in relation with your interlocutor in email writing, regardless of the style of his or her communication, position or other factors. You represent the company, and the recipient perceives your words as the position of the company, incorrectness in this matter is unacceptable. Correspondence can be communicated to the management of any level, or published on the Internet without consent or notice, and therefore it is necessary not to allow the use of letters against you or the company.
2. Clearly specify the subject of your letter.
How to write an official email correctly? After the title of your letter, briefly describe the essence with some keywords, with the help of which you or your recipient can easily find this letter if necessary. It is the best to use 2-3 common words and bind to something specific. The heading "Price negotiation" does not say anything. Instead, it is better to write like this "Price negotiation for tender No. 251804". If the letter is not just informational but calls for action, it's better to say about it directly in the topic. A good email format implies that your addressee can immediately determine what kind of letter it is, from whom, whether it is worth opening it. In our era, the abundance of spam is critically important.
3. Describe the essence of your letter in the first line, call for action should be at the end
The main goal of email writing is the recipient's response in the overwhelming majority of cases. Your recipient must quickly understand the purpose of the letter and the action that you expect of him or her. If necessary, you can explain, show or tell, but at the end of the narrative block; there must be a question that requires a response or agreement or an indication of the expected action. Responsible persons, deadlines and the action required from a recipient must be clearly identified. The more general the text of the letter is, the more obvious this selection should be.
4. Format and check your text to make it convenient for a reader
The text in your professional email should be aligned, structured and organized so that the reader can easily perceive it. Semantic blocks should start with headings; it is better not to use more than two paragraphs in one block, and the enumeration must be made in the form of a list, do not forget about indentation, since your text should not merge – this is a generally accepted good email format.
Pay special attention to mistakes and typos – if you write a letter in the editor without a built-in spelling check function, you have to check the entire text, for example, with the help of Grammarly service. If the letter is large and it takes a long time to write, it is necessary to read it from beginning to end. There will always be very long phrases or vague transitions that have to be simplified and corrected.
Now let us consider how to end an email professionally. Your name in the mailbox settings should correspond to your real name; it is better not to use nicknames. It is also better not to use the company name when specifying the name in the mail address settings. The company name can be used only for a general box info@ or for department boxes, for example, hr@ or Dubai@. The first and last name or full name must be indicated for personal boxes.
The signature in the letter should be standard, so in general here is a typical e-mail ending format:
How to write a reply letter correctly?
If you want to use the citation of the questions of the original letter, it should be formatted with indents, signs> or | at the beginning of the line. Answers must be written immediately after the question, the text of the answer can be highlighted with a different color, even if there is a built-in citation function for the author.
Here is the example of a business letter to several recipients
To: John Watson
Copy: Tom Jefferson
Hidden copy: Frank Joyce
Subject: Preparing the materials for DUBAI BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE 2018
So, we looked at the main points which you should pay attention to when writing a business letter and considered the formal email writing example. To get a better idea of all the features of email writing and work out your email writing format, you can visit a specialized course, for example, a course: Professional Email Writing & Etiquette for the Workplace from the Atton Institute in Dubai, the UAE.