Entrepreneur published, “How to communicate effectively over emails at workplace.” The article states that, “Email is the most widely used tool in the workplace,” therefore making it imperative to use our emails to communicate well-written, clear and effective messages.
A key focus of mine when starting at Communiquè was watching how my colleagues communicated by email to our team internally, as well as how they communicated with our clients. Through my observation and research, here are several tips for developing an email:
- Have a compelling subject line. This is the first and possibly the most important step for developing an email, especially in the world of public relations. Subject lines either engage people further or cause disinterest, leading to either the email not being read or being deleted. It’s also a best practice to include the most important words at the beginning, as different platforms (i.e. desktop computer, mobile phone) read differently, says Dmitri Leonov, vice president at SaneBox, an email management service.
- Keep tone in mind. A study conducted by Psychologist Justin Kruger, PhD, and his colleague, Nicholas Epley, PhD, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology shows that people misinterpret tone over email more than 50 percent of the time in comparison to 75 percent of time when speaking in-person. The study also found that interpreting tone improves significantly when senders read their emails out loud.
- Include all elements. If your email indicates there are attachments, double check that the correct attachments/images are included and clearly label them, so the attachments are easily identifiable to the receiver.
- Direct your message to the appropriate audience. It’s important to assess who the intended audience is before sending an email. For example, an email to a whole company about an idea for a product will be received and interpreted differently than the email announcing that fresh cookies are in the kitchen. Keep in mind, every company is different in how it operates, and one form of communication is not the same for all.
- Proofread before sending. Typos can be easily missed when responding hastily, even sometimes after re-reading the email multiple times. There are multiple resources for online spelling and grammar checks, including Grammarly and Grammar Check that you can utilize in advance of sending messages. If you’re using Microsoft Outlook, you can also leverage its “Read Aloud” tool to have your email message read back to you.
- Remember that email is not meant for everything. Simply put, some things are better said in person. Forbes’ contributing writer Liz Ryan provided a list of things to never convey over email including the expression of unhappy feelings towards a person or that someone’s opinion is the wrong one, among other topics. Email is also a target for hackers, so it’s a best practice to keep private conversations for secure spaces, in-person.
Knowing that this form of communication is widely used in the workplace, crafting effective email messaging is a critical ingredient to bring to the broader messaging table.