4 Email Writing Tips That Boost Your Professional Image

Emails are the lifeblood of business communication. A properly worded email is a reflection of your professionalism and credibility. Whether you work in an office or an online business owner, your emails help other people figure out what you're about.

A 2019 study conducted by technology research firm Radicati found there are over 3.9 billion email users worldwide. For the sake of scale, that's half the planet's population that's using email in one form or another. Despite being the earliest mode of electronic communication, emails have retained their place as people's preferred communication method.

Here are 4 tips that will help you craft a great email and convey the right tone to your recipients.

Fix your Signature

The average person receives over 100 emails every day, and standing out from the crowd is tough. Once your recipient opens your email, they're met with a wall of text that they need to decipher. If you're a marketer that sends cold emails, this is a recipe for disaster. Sending text emails is the best way of landing in your prospects' inboxes, but they're less likely to be read.

This is where your signature comes to the rescue. A professional email signature quickly lets people know who you are and what you do. The best email signatures contain a photo, a title, and a motto if you're a business. Recipients quickly figure out who the email is from and whether it's worth their time responding.

It's best to go with a minimalist design with your signature. You can leave a link in your signature enticing people to sign up for your newsletter, which allows you to run better email campaigns. Linking to your website or other web content that you'd like to highlight will drive more traffic to your business.

In short, focus on what comes at the end of your email first. Fix your signature, and you'll instantly project a professional image to your recipients.

Research

There's nothing worse than receiving a poorly worded email or an email that completely misses the mark. It's easy to send an email but almost impossible to recall one. Take your time crafting an email and never send one in a huff or when you're upset. That's the best way to kill your career and business.

Research your recipients carefully before responding to an email or sending them a cold email. Marketers typically spend a lot of time personalizing cold emails to their prospects so that they pack a punch. Everyone loves personalized communication, and research allows you to tailor your emails to the person receiving them.

If you're a blogger who needs to pitch other blogs for guest posts, this point is doubly true. Make sure you read your target blog carefully and evaluate whether your content will be a good fit for that publication. There's nothing worse for an editor than receiving a poor pitch that has no relevance to their content.

So always do your research and don't send an email without finishing this step.

Check Your Tone

Everyone communicates differently, and it's impossible to talk exactly like someone else does. Compounding the issue is that the written word makes it hard to communicate tone and voice well. An innocent sentence can be misinterpreted by the reader and you'll be dismissed from their attention.

Take the time to read your email at least twice once you've composed it. All of us communicate our internal biases when we write emails, and you might be coming across as offensive or unprofessional accidentally.

Worst of all, your sense of humor might be off-putting to the reader. For this reason, it's best to tone down your quirks when sending someone an email the first time. Read their response and match their tone and language patterns. This will help you communicate on the same plane as them.

It's best to avoid sarcasm or extreme casualness in your emails until you're certain the recipient understands what you're communicating. This doesn't mean you should be plain vanilla, but you don't want to veer to an extreme either.

Remember Your Manners

Some people make the mistake of treating an email as a text message and skip the niceties like "hello", "thank you", and so on. Remember that emails are still letters. The civilities that govern letter writing apply to emails as well.

Even if the recipient is well known to you, never skip the niceties. It's jarring to receive an email that reads like a text message. Never abbreviate obvious words. For instance, don't skip vowels or write "shd" for "should" and so on. Go easy on the slang as well. If it's a professional email you should never use such language anyway, no matter how casual your workplace is.

Effective Communication

Emails have their own code of communication, but they're one of the most effective ways of getting your message across. Whether it's for marketing or business communication, emails reflect your professionalism. Follow these tips, and you'll be sending great emails all the time.