Email Business Writing Etiquette

As the world becomes more and more hurried, it seems that etiquette falls by the wayside. However, keeping the rules of business letter writing alive and applying them to your email communications is a great way to present yourself in the most professional light possible and to make your clients and associates feel respected. Here are a few tips to write professional and polite email business letters.

#1 The salutation and greeting. Remember when you were in school and learned how to write a letter? The first thing you learned was the salutation – the “Dear so and so.” While “Dear sir,” isn’t likely to be the greeting you use in an email, you do still want to include a salutation. Common salutations, if you are communicating with this person for the first time include:

Dear,
Hello,
Thank you,

Grammar for a salutation will include a comma after the salutation or a period at the end depending on the greeting. For example, “Dear Anne,” or “Thank you, Anne.”

#2 Complete words and phrases. While it’s common to use acronyms or text speak like LOL and TTFN, don’t. This is appropriate for friends and family, not for business associates. Even if you become friends with your customers in general keep the use of acronyms to a minimum and even then use them only after your customer or associate has.

#3 Use spell check and proper punctuation. It takes five seconds to hit the spell check button on your email toolbar. If you have frequent misspellings and poor grammar you’re making an indelible impression on your associate or client that you may not be able to remove. Do your best to put your best foot forward in your email communications. A quick spell check and grammar check just tells your client you take the time to communicate effectively and correctly, you’re a professional and your communication with them is important to you.

#4 Keep it short and to the point – respect the time of your associate. That doesn’t mean you jump right into the meat of your email; a friendly sentence or two to inquire about how the person is doing or to introduce yourself is professional and courteous. However, it’s also important to get to the point of your email as quickly as possible.

#5 The closing. Finally, once you’ve wrapped up what you have to say, it’s time for the good old-fashioned closing. Sincerely is considered a bit too old-fashioned in this day and age, but the following are quite acceptable:

Regards
Best
Best regards
Thank you

When writing an email to a client, prospect, or business associate, it is important to make sure you present yourself in the best light possible. That means spending a little extra time on your communications and following a few simple email etiquette rules.

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