How To Be a Good E-mailerA guide to e-mail etiquetteBy J.D. Solomon Rule No. 1: Don't let e-mail get you fired. E-mail messages are not private. Do not send or forward any message that you wouldn't want to see posted under your name on the office bulletin board or an Internet Web site. Use a greeting. While starting an e-mail with "Dear Joe" may come across as ridiculous, omitting any greeting seems, well, cold. When I send a business message to someone I haven't corresponded with recently, I try to use the person's name in my greeting: "Hi Mary. Here's the information…" or, "Mary, hello. I'm writing today…" When sending an e-mail to someone with whom I frequently exchange several messages a day, I try to incorporate the person's name in the first message of the day: "Good morning, Dan…" Sometimes I simply start with the recipient's name: "Doris/ Please check with…" When I'm sending an e-mail to multiple recipients, I tend to start the message with "Greetings." Use the Bcc: field when sending a message to people who don't know each other. This protects the recipients' privacy, because they won't see each other's e-mail addresses. Don't ask for delivery or read receipts. It's annoying to get a pop-up notice requesting a delivery receipt, especially for non-urgent e-mails. Many people simply click "No," or program their e-mail reader to block such requests. If you really want to track your e-mail, consider using a service designed for that purpose, such as ReadNotify.com. Use a signature, but keep it short. Include the information on your business card. Avoid cute sayings or quotes. And don't forget to remove or change your signature when sending messages unrelated to work. Don't use Out of Office e-mail replies. First, they confirm to spammers that your e-mail address is valid, which can increase your spam. Second, they compromise your personal safety by telling any sender when you will be away and when you will return. If the period coincides with a holiday, it's pretty obvious you and your family are on vacation. Given how simple it is to find a home address, sending Out of Office replies is like not canceling the newspaper or milk delivery while you're away. Don't be cute. Just as you would never send a business letter on floral stationery with a green, scripted font and a smiley face at the bottom, you should avoid using non-standard fonts, fanciful colors, cute images, animation and artsy stationery in your business e-mail. Don't promote endless e-mail threads. If you don't need or expect a reply to a message, say so in the body or include "FYI" in the subject line. And avoid overuse of the Reply to All button, which can unnecessarily clutter a lot of people's In-boxes. And a few last things to avoid: Marking your messages High Priority unless they really are. (Makes you look like the kid who cried wolf.) Funky spelling, capitalization or punctuation. (Makes you look stupid.) Overuse of the Cc: field. (Makes you look like a tattle-tale.) Forwarding chain e-mails. (Makes you look like a sucker.) Including Instant Messaging-style abbreviations and emoticons. (Makes you look like a teenager.) More on e-mail etiquette: J.D. Solomon is the founder and president of JDS Strategic Communications, a marketing company that specializes in helping small and growing businesses. Information about his
company can be found at www.marketerinabox.com. © J.D. Solomon This article may be freely distributed
as long as it appears in its entirety,
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