Have you ever received an email from a company and wondered, “Dang, Gina…did they read this at all before hitting the send button?” Whether it’s another company or a customer that receives your email, it is extremely important from a professional standpoint to send out emails that are accurate, purposeful, and uniformed.

Accuracy

Of course, almost every email program has a spell check feature. That’s great. But does the spell checker find each possible typo? Nope. For example, what if one of your clients has the last name of Abbot…or is it Abbott? The all-knowing spell checker deems both are spelled appropriately, so it would be helpful to make certain you have the right spelling. The only way to do that is to proofread.

The scope of accuracy in emails doesn’t just stop at client’s names. Some companies like to put a twist on conventional spellings for their business name. Is it “A-2 Copiers,” “A2Copiers,” or “A2 Copyers?” What about promotional emails…did you mean to offer 15% or 25% off of your product?

We can go on and on with various email typos that could cost your company money or weaken its professional image in the eyes of clients and shoppers. I’m not saying that every business needs a copy editing service for outgoing emails, but it would be helpful to have some sort of peer edit or quality control measures in place to ensure that your email message is correct.

Purposeful

Many individuals in the workplace have dozens if not hundreds of emails to sift through each day. Most will not have the time nor patience to read through a long-winded email, so it’s best to keep the content as focused as possible.

As you list items or ideas, the use of bullet points is an effective way of displaying information quickly and neatly. When lists won’t work, try condensing paragraphs into two or three full sentences. Ask yourself if the sentence is pertinent for the reader’s understanding. If not, it might be best to leave it out as lengthy emails are rarely read in their entirety anyway.

Uniformity

In my opinion, one of the most unprofessional email practices is having differing compositional formats within the same email. For example, I have seen an email that had the first two paragraphs written in Times New Roman with a 14-point font, while the ending two paragraphs were bold Arial with an 11-point font.

Additionally, one email I came across had “website” spelled as one word at the beginning, but had it spelled as two words (i.e., Web site) towards the end. Having your email appear as if it has been written by three people at the same time will portray your company as negligent and inexperienced at written communication.

If most of your company emails are templates (i.e., you simply change the client name and date before sending), then have someone take the time to standardize the emails to ensure a better experience for your clients.

Take Pride

More often than not, the difference between sending out professional emails or unfavorable ones is consideration. It takes effort and a little extra time, but the benefits of reviewing and finalizing outgoing company emails cannot be measured (at least by me because I don’t have the proper analytics).

Luis D. Bonilla
luis@wordszilla.com
Wordszilla, LLC