Overall these years, emails have turned out to be one of the most valuable gifts from the world of the internet. However, writing an email surely creates some sort of challenges for its writers. Miscommunication is one of the many things that most people face these days. This is mainly caused because of people having different expectations of the messages that they receive or send. So, how do you guess if the message you have sent is the most effective one accomplishing all your communication goals? Here in this article, we are going to discuss in detail some of the best strategies that can be used for effective email communication.
● Subject Lines: Remember email subject lines are much similar to the headlines of daily newspapers. Subject lines should always convey the most important point of your message or your idea to the reader. Therefore, whenever you are trying to write an email, the subject line should be made concise and must be as specific as possible. Avoid one-word subjects such as “HI” or “FYI” as they aren’t too informative and even do not give a proper idea to the reader about the importance of your letter. It is indeed a very good idea to practice concise yet descriptive subject lines whenever you are writing an email.
● Sign-offs And Greetings: Use some sort of sign offs or greetings whenever you are writing a message. Starting just with the text body or ending the text without a nice and polite gesture doesn’t look good. In case you are in doubt, try addressing someone more formally in order to avoid offending them. Some of the common ways of addressing a reader are:
- Dear Professor.
- Hello, Ms. Jane.
- Hi, Mary Smith.
In case you aren’t aware of the name of the person to whom you are writing the email, or in case your message is for a diverse group, try out something more generic.
- Dear members of the committee.
- To whoever it may concern.
- Hello, everybody.
Never forget to close the body of your letter. It is of utmost importance especially for the reader to know who is contacting them. Try signing off with your name at the end of your message. In case you don’t know the recipient of your mail, try to consider your title or the name of the organization that you belong to.
● Make Sure Your Email Is Well Understood: Here are some of the steps that you have to keep in mind whenever you are writing a letter.
- Stay concise and state your needs at the very beginning of your message.
- Try to provide the reader with some sort of previous context.
- While replying to someone’s email, it is always a great idea to restate or include the original message.
- Make use of paragraphs in order to separate thoughts.
- While ending the message always try to write your desired outcome at the end line of your text.
While there might not be any silver bullet saving you from the onslaught of a long message, some common email management practices can easily make your emails more productive and effective at the end of each day.