7 Ways How to Write Effective Email

Communication is one of the vital attributes of human beings living in a society. Whether you are a working person or simply someone at home you need to communicate with others to give and receive the information you desire or require. Almost everything has gone digital; so is the communication technique.

Email is one of the most used electronic modes of communication among people. Successful emails are those which are clear in their message and prompt a reply without any frustration. On the other hand, we all have experienced a scenario where we opened an email and the glimpse of its length made us feel irritated to such extent that we closed the tab and delayed the thought of going through such stretched email.

To avoid such annoying situation as a sender or as a recipient of such emails follow the key tips given below to write an effective time worthy email.

Write a Good Subject Line

Browsing through the email list, one generally is able to see the sender name and the subject line. Take advantage of this fact and make sure your subject line stands out. A good subject line instantly conveys the context of the email to the recipient. It should be straight forward enough to capture one’s intention without making it boring or cheesy.

An ideal subject line consists of action verbs and is usually written under 6 to 8 words so that the whole line is visible. It is recommended to write the subject line after putting down the whole draft so that the purpose of an email is clearly understood and portrayed well in your subject space.

Show Your Character Credibility

 An effective email builds a credible character of a sender in the eyes of a recipient. The email content should work in favor of portraying a trustworthy image of the writer. Pay respect to the receiving party by using apt openings and greetings.

The message should represent your tone as being polite with writing down thank you and please wherever necessary. Slangs, smiley emoticons and exclamation marks should be avoided as they can make the recipient cringe with annoyance.

Keep it Simple and Brief

Before writing down an email it is wise to go through a brainstorming session and ask yourself; why are you writing this email? What outcome do you expect from this email? And how important this email is for you?

By having all these answers it would be easy for you to write down an effective email which is both short and to the point. It is wise to make usage of suitable greetings in the beginning along with the main purpose of the email in the first paragraph. Organize the paragraphs in such a way that the least important information comes in the last paragraph.

Keep the paragraphs short with simple everyday words and short sentences. Avoid excessive use of acronyms because there is a bright chance that your email recipient is not fond of difficult words and cumbersome terms. Stick to the main idea by restraining the number of issues discussed in the email and avoid adding extra or irrelevant information.

Good Formatting Helps

Make it easy for your reader to scan email by keeping the context organized. In other words, the only way to ensure this easy readability is to apply the accurate formatting and layout without being over the top. If something needs to be prominent in the text make use of highlighting feature.

If there are many important points then one can always make use of numbering or bullets so that it is easy for the reader to go through them quickly. Do not use cursive fonts, bold colors, and all small or all capital fonts. Master the technique of using a combination of capital and the small font to make your email scan-able while presenting an overall good look.

Practice Proofreading

Whether it is in terms of spelling mistakes or out of context sentences; human typing is prone to errors. Slipups and stylistic blunders in emails can make you look quite incompetent and unprofessional. The only solution to avoid such imperfections in emails is to practice proofreading. There are a number of spell-checking features available online to reduce errors; make use of them.

After writing down your respective email always read your content twice or thrice to make sure that your message is free from typos, have correct names and titles, has right wordy phrases and all the necessary documents files are attached. As there is no crying over spilled milk, there is clearly no coming back from an email presenting an altogether wrong idea with piles of mistakes.

Gain Recipient Empathy

While writing an effective email it is very important to connect at a human level with the receiver of the email. Keep in mind the likes and dislikes of the recipients and avoid stating any incidences that could cause a bad feeling in their mind or heart.

Time is money for every person; therefore keep the content both simple and short to show the recipients that you value their time as well.

Recipient Response is not Mandatory

An effective email is written with the understanding that getting a response out of this message is not necessarily on the cards. A request can go both ways; fulfilled or unfulfilled without any guarantee. Your email context should clearly transfer your notion behind making this effort; rest it depends upon recipient if he/she wants to reply you back or not.

The trick that helps to extract a response from the receiver is to keep the email focused on the main question and one point. This will make it easy for the person at receiving end to digest the idea and process it further accordingly.

Emails are considered powerful if they deliver the purpose clearly to the recipient. Those emails which are extended with irrelevant information lose the interest of the receiving person after a couple of minutes and mostly remain half read.

To write down an effective email it is of vital importance to make use of concise language in easy to read short paragraphs. Also, the subject line holds great importance and should never ever be left blank.

The goal should be to make your email so influential that one glimpse of the electronic mail on the smartphone screen should be sufficient enough to deliver the message to the recipient.