Writing good emails is now easy with these 5 tips!

Email management is often thought to be about the emails you receive. We spend ample time worrying about each email that comes into our inbox. But what about the emails we send? These emails are the most under our control. Thus writing good emails lets your recipients know that you believe in good email etiquette. 

5 tips on writing good emails

Writing good emails is not all about having impeccable grammar and short sentences. It is about having a clarity of thought and intention. Good emails are often a result of writing emails mindfully, with due consideration of time efficiency. With that in mind, let us dive into the 5 tips you need to improve in writing good emails. 

1. Why are you writing the email?

Before you even begin writing good emails, you need to know what your intention is. The following two questions will help you chalk out your exact intention:

-Why am I writing this?
-What exactly do I want the result of this message to be?

Until and unless one can answer these questions satisfactorily, writing good emails is impossible. All of us, including our recipients, receive 100s of emails everyday and it is but natural to pay attention to well written emails. If you need your email to be appropriately responded to, you need to write with a clear intention in mind. Another thing that can help base our intention, is to understand the recipient’s point of view. Wouldn’t we all want to only read emails that know what they want?

2. What do you need from the email?

Though the topic and intention of emails can vary, there are some common topics that most emails surround. These generally include:

-Providing information – These emails are informative and notify the recipient about something that concerns them.
-Requesting information – These emails ask for information, with clear questions.
-Requesting action- These emails are work orders or favors that you ask upon the recipient.

Writing good emails involves telling what you need very clearly. If possible, highlight your need in the first sentence of the email body. This saves time while also ensuring that even if the recipient does not read the entire email, they still know what you need. Let your first sentence establish all that your email is about.

3. Let the subject line work for you

The subject line is the first thing one sees when they open any email. Thus it is necessary to put the most effort into writing good emails with great subject lines. Make sure that your subject line summarizes your email in the simplest form. Just reading the subject line should prove enough to understand the core of your email. Do not waste the subject line space in salutations etc. and utilize it to write good emails.

The subject line space is also often considered by email softwares as the title of the email. Thus one can see the subject line even before one opens the email. This can help immensely when one is dealing with an overflowing inbox and a bigger to-do list. Hence writing good emails with perfect subject lines is a great tool for time efficiency. 

4. Keep it short

The thing about receiving good replies to your emails involves ensuring that your email is entirely read. And no one ever wants to read an email that rants on and on to only deliver one thing of significance. To understand how much is too much, Merlin Mann has a suggestion: fit it onto one screen with no scrolling. Meaning, fit the body of your email such that it all appears without scrolling further. Because, let’s face it, no one is going to read the whole thing through. Might as well save time by writing good emails that are also concise.

Thus it all boils down to writing a crisp subject line and a concise email body. But what if you have more than one important point to cover? Just write another email. This ensures readability while allowing equal importance to all your needs. 

5. What do THEY need to do?

Now that you have written the email down, what do you want the recipient to ultimately do? No matter what the email is about, your recipient is expected to take action as a result of the e mail. Whatever it is you need, it HAS to be the most attention grabbing statement. Make it the highlight of your subject, the email body. You must not assume that the recipient will carefully read through the entire message. If you need to get your work done, make this email as clear as possible.

Writing good emails is now easy!

Emails are a frequent part of the corporate world. But lack of email etiquettes is what results in too many emails. E mail management is the only thing that can save us from this apart from email management tips and email etiquettes. Writing good emails is not only time efficient but is also a sign of professional acuity. Putting conscious efforts in your emails shows that you value your recipient’s time as well as your own. 

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