9/1/2017 30 Email Etiquette Tips to Avoid Writing Sloppy Emails

SALES | 20 MIN READ

30 Email Etiquette Tips to Avoid Writing

Sloppy Emails
Written by Anum Hussain

One of the simplest yet most important characteristics of a great email? It follows
basic rules of email etiquette.

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While pickinga standard font and signing off with an appropriate signature might
not be the most scintillating activity you do at work all day, these choices have a
huge impact on how your message is received -- not to mention, how your
colleague, prospect, or contact thinks of you.

Send a sloppy email, and your professional reputation will take a hit. Send a properly
worded and formatted one, and your credibility will rise.

We've compiled the ultimate guide to email etiquette. Familiarize yourself with the
following 30 rules to ensure your emails are helping -- not hurting -- you at work.

Punctuation, Grammar, and Copy

Proper sentence structure may sound overrated, but think of this way: After someone
reads our email, do we want the main takeaway to be the core message, or the fact
that we misused a semicolon? Were guessing the former.

We'll start with six punctuation-specific tips, then dive into other copy advice. Dont
worry, we wont use any fancy grammatical terms such as clauses or compound
adjectives -- just plain English tips.

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" " Quotation Marks

We all know when to use them, but the most common mistake is where to place
them. Periods and commas go inside quotation marks.

His book, Design for Puppies, releases tomorrow.

His book, Design for Puppies, releases tomorrow.

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( )Parentheses

Periods and commas go outside the parentheses, except for when the parenthetical
sentence stands alone.

I got a bonus last week ($150.)

I got my bonus last week ($150).

Ithink youre one in a minion. (Ha, get it)?
I think youre one in a minion. (Ha, get it?)
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: Colon

A colon can connect two independent sentences. Many people, however, dont
realize that the latter sentence should be a capitalized with Sentence case.

Her conclusion was simple: the ducks are mad cute.

Her conclusion was simple: The ducks are mad cute.

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; Semicolon

A semicolon can also connect two unique, but related, sentences. Itcannot act as a
comma.The Oatmealhas a great comic on its proper use.

She can call me tomorrow, she can give me an answer then.

She can call me tomorrow; she can give me an answer then.

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; Commas

Many people go comma crazy. A comma is used to mention additional details or

build a list.

The author Sam Smith, was very nice.

The author, Sam Smith, was very nice.

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! Exclamation Points

Hey!!! Are you trying to exclaim in your email? If not, it may be best to avoid the
exclamation point. Not sure? Use the flowchartbelow.

(click to enlarge)

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Grammar

In a world of acronyms -- omg, btw, lol -- its easy to let proper grammar fall to the
wayside. Don't use acronymswhen communicating with external contacts and,
depending on whom, some internal contacts. Grammarly is a free tool that helps you
avoidfundamental grammar issues.

That said, there are workplace appropriate acronyms. Here are some common ones
to know:

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For a complete list of 20 email acronyms you should know, click through the
presentation below.

1 of 40

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Emoticons

Use emoticons sparingly. The only one typically accepted in business email etiquette
is the standard smiley face. :)

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Subject Lines

Interestingly enough,our dataon one-to-one email correspondence has shown that

emails with no subject all together were opened 8% more than those with a subject
line.

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While this may be worth testing, our general recommendation is to still use a brief
subject line thats descriptive of the core contents of your message. If youre looking
for more pointers, this presentation has 19 stats to help:

1 of 40

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Sentence Case

While email correspondence with our friends or peers can neglect sentence case
and be written in all lowercase, business emails are a different story. To maintain
professionalism, stick with sentence case (just like every sentence on this page).

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Tone

Tone is the most misunderstood aspect of business emails. Many writers end up with
a far-too-formal tone. Others end up overcompensating with extra exclamations or
emoticons. The best approach here is to use friendly language with simple
punctuation.

Here's a sample email with basic, proper punctuation that still conveys a friendly
tone:

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LP update

Hi Rex,

Thanks for looking at those landing pages today. Pumped to see how they perform in our ad
sets.

- Lina

The word "pumped" is all it takes to convey a positive tone in this message.

Fonts and Formatting

Take a look at this email and think about how much it pains you to read it:

Lets help make inboxes everywhere a better place by avoiding any of the faux pas in
the email above and instead keep the basic formatting tips below in mind.

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Font Size

Stick to the standard email font size. This includes font choice as well. If you're
questioning a font choice, refer to this guide to email typography from MailChimp.

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FontColors

Refrain from using multiple font colors. Our email clients default to the standard
black color--in HEX codes, #00000-- we see on this web page. Some people try to
mix it up with a navy blue or by emphasizing a word in red. Stick to simplicity to
keep the focus on your actual message and not on your funky formatting.

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Highlighting

Avoid highlighting the copy of your message as you would avoid font color
variations.

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Hyperlinks

Rather than pasting full URLs into the email body, a better approach is to either
shorten the URL or hyperlink a set of words.

Check this out:http://getsidekick.com/blog/vacation-emails-inbox-zero

Check out this article.

Check this out:http://getsidekick.com/blog/vacation-emails-inbox-zero
Check this out:http://bitly.com/1Gn6pN0
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Underline / Bold / Italicize

Each of these font formats are used to provide further emphasis.Examples:

No matter what we do, one person justhasto leave a negative comment.

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Ineedthose french fries on my desk by morning.

Using them in excess can clutter our message. Using more than one at a time can
harshen our tone. Using one when necessary can keep our message clean.

Attachments

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Theres an old rule that says we should request to send an attachment before
actually sending one. That email etiquette tip is outdated. For internal contacts, we
shouldnt worry about including a quick document or Excel sheet.

When communicating with external contacts, it may be worth a quick heads up. This
could be as simple as the following:

Next steps for Acorn project

Glad the project is moving forward. Ill forward some documents later today to help us get
to the next step.

Bonus Tip: We all get irritated when someone adds us to an email chain and says,
"See the attachments Rachel sent below!"

Then you look below and realize there's nothing there -- the attachments must not
have gone through. That's because email attachments don't remain attached when
we reply in thread. This issue can be easily resurrected with email forwarding.

Greetings and Signatures

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Email Salutation

We all know we should start our emails with a greeting. Depending on who were
communicating with, this greeting can be formal or informal. Most of the time, an
informal greeting is perfectly appropriate. Occasionally, a more formal tone is
required. Here are some examples of the difference:

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EmailEnding

The formality or informality of your email ending should match the tone of the
greeting. If you use a formal introduction, use a formal ending.

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EmailClosing

Even when the rest of our email is formal, we usually never need a formal email
closing. Simply signing off with -Name suffices.

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EmailSignature

One of the core problems with email signatures is that we overthink them. If your
signature does any of the following, its likely distracting recipients from the actual
content of your email:

Includes every possible way to contact you.Were already emailing someone, so

shouldnt the best possible way to reach you to be to email back at the same address?
Why do include emails in email signatures? The only contact information needed in a

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signature is a phone number -- which if youre not in a services role, can often
beexcluded. Share your number in an email if you want the person to call you.
Uses an image of any kind.Not only can images get blocked by image blockers, but
images typically render much larger on mobile opens than desktop. Highly visual
signatures can also distract our contacts. Headshots are not critical elements of an
effective signature.
Includes heavy marketing information.While including a web URL or a quick call-to-
action for an upcoming event can be helpful, an email signature is not the most effective
placefor mission statements, business pitches, or detailed bios. Save that for the social
profiles or website URLs that you can link to in the signature -- just be cautious of how
many links to include. The more options, the less likely any will be clicked.

Fall into any of the above traps and your email signature may end up looking like
this horrendous example:

BCC, Replies, and Forwarding

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Email Sender Fields

Every email has three main sender options for including an email address: To, CC,
and BCC.

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To: This field is simple. Its simply where we place the email address of whom
were trying to contact.

CC: If wed like to include someone else on the message, but not necessarily
indicate that this is message is being sent specifically to them, we can CC -- or
carbon copy -- them. Sometimes this lets a CCd recipient know theyre not
obligated to respond.

BCC: A BCC -- or blind carbon copy -- copies someone on the email just as a CC
does. However, BCCs cannot be seen by anyone in the To or CC field.
Example use cases:

Protect an email: Sometimes a BCC is used to protect someones email from being
exposed to others. For example, if youre emailing a group of people about an
upcoming event, you may opt to BCC all emails so youre not exposing emails without
permission.

General FYI: Sometimes a BCC is just a way of letting someone see a message without
actually including them on all the threads to follow.

Common Courtesy: Sometimes a BCC can help you simply be polite in email threads.
For example, if your boss is introducing you to someone, its common courtesy to BCC
your boss in the response. That way, they can see you responded to the thread, but
dont have to see their inbox flood with the back and forth responses in the thread.

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Reply vs Reply-All
Incorrect usage of the reply vs reply-all is among the biggest pet peeves in email
etiquette. Everyone thinks they get it, but do they?

Reply:When you click reply, you respond directly to the last person who emailed
you last. If you respond directly to the initial message, your reply will go to the

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original sender of the email. But if you respond to someone elses email in the
thread that follows, you will end up replying just to that person:

Reply-All:When you select reply all, you email back everyone who is either in the
To or CC fields. The benefit of reply all is letting those in the thread know that
a certain issue has been addressed. The irking factor is when people choose
reply all for emails where everyone on the thread does not need to see the
response.

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Email Forwarding
Theres a few key pointers to keep in mind for proper email forwarding etiquette:

Some emails are not intended to be forwarded. If a contact is sending you private or
sensitive information, use high caution before forwarding it along.
When forwarding a long email thread, a common courtesy is to summarize whats being
discussed below so the recipient knows exactly what you want from them. Theres
nothing worse then getting forwarded a 50-chain thread with a note that just says, see
below.
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If youd like your forwarded email to start a new email chain (rather than being a part of
your current thread) simply include your own commentary in the subject line.

Same Thread Subject Line: FW: notes from Tuesday

New Thread Subject Line: Check this out! FW: notes from Tuesday

Follow-Ups and Mobile

Email Response Time

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We all have overwhelming inboxes and busy schedules, so its not always possible to
respond to emails right away. We try to think of email response times in the
following buckets:

Immediate Teammates:

Respond within 12 hours. Our team relies on us to work quickly and efficiently.
Most often our team is emailing us about day-to-day tasks that require our
attention. Everyone on the team is more productive when communicate is quick
and crisp.

General Colleagues:

To all other colleagues at your organization, a 24-hour response time is

considered appropriate. If you honestly do not have time for a particular request
that comes over email, respond and say so. Its better to respond with
transparency than to let an email go ignored and leave your colleague in the
dark.

External Contacts:

Unless marked as an urgent email or one that needs an ASAP response,

responding to external contacts by the end of the week in which it was sent is
perfectly appropriate - so if you received the email Tuesday, respond by Friday
of that week. For high value contacts, it may be worth responding within a 24-
hour time frame.

The exception here is for any emails to customers. For more on an acceptable
response time to customer emails, refer to this HelpScout post.

If you truly cant respond properly to any of the above categories within a respectful
time frame, send a quick email that acknowledges youre busy and will get back as
soon as you can. Example template:

Saw your note

Hey Brian,

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Just an FYI that I got your note. I have my hands tied in a few projects right now, but will
respond properly as soon as I can.

Out-of-Office Replies

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If youre going to be unavailable for an extended period of time, an automated

OOO reply -- or out of office reply -- can let whomever is contacting you know that
you wont be able to respond to their message until the date youll be in the office
again.

Some do's and don'ts for OOO replies:

DO:
Include how long youll be unavailable.

DONT:
Create an OOO response for one day.

DO:
Include another person to contact for more urgent matters.

DONT:
Include a colleagueto contact without letting that colleague know theyre in
your OOO reply.

DO:
Include OOO in your subject line so people can easily identify the
automated response.

DONT:
Include more detail than needed -- such as the exact location of your
vacation.

If you're taking a vacation for an extended period of time, it may be helpful to have a
way of earning your attention for truly urgent, require your attention, situations.
Here's an emailHubSpotter Beth Dunn sent before her month-long sabbatical:

Emergency Hippo -- on sabbatical during February

Hi all,

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This is just a friendly reminder that I'll be on sabbatical for the whole month of February. If
you have any pressing microcopy needs while I'm gone, the designers on each of your
teams stand ready and willing to serve in my stead.

If there's something you still want me to review when I return, rested and refreshed on
March 2, please email me the details and put the word "hippo" (or if it's super urgent,
"emergency hippo") in the subject line and I'll take a look at it just as soon as I get back. Yes,
seriously.

And remind me to tell you the story of how I learned once and for all why you should always
have an emergency hippo on hand at all times.

Lots of love and see you in March,

Beth

Beth makes it clear she won't be responding to email, but since she's out for an
extended period of time, she shared a clever and easy way to grab her attention
when needed.

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Email Follow Ups

With the response times from point 25 in mind, follow up to unresponded emails
when appropriate. If three days has gone by and youve yet to hear from a colleague,
it may be worth nudging them again with a follow-up.

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Email Tracking
Repeatedly sending our contacts the, did you get this email? email can be
obnoxious. Meanwhile saying nothing and waiting on a response for satisfaction that
our email delivered is equally stressful. To avoid getting irritated -- or irritating
others -- simply track your emails.

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Mobile Autocorrect
While some go as far as turning off predictive text when emailing over mobile, we
recommend at least trying to avoid using autocorrect when typing a message on
your phone. Since our mobile devices are smart in understanding the various slang
words or acronyms we type repeatedly, it's easy to have autocorrect change an
innocent word to something with a meaning inappropriate for your correspondence.

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Mobile Email Tracking

Since emailing from a mobile device can lend itself to innocent errors, a custom
email signature can help cut us some slack. The classic, but simple and effective,
example we all see is "Sent from my iPhone." Employing a similar technique can let
email readers know you're typing the note on your mobile device.

Don't give your recipients the wrong impression. Follow these email etiquette
guidelines to maintain your reputation as a professional.

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Originally published March 20 2017, updated September 01 2017

Topics: Sales Emails

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