Email Best Practice Etiquette provides many unwritten rules for sending out emails, especially for business. As a business owner or employee, you should understand the email best practices that need to be followed.  It is also a good idea to set up your own standards and templates so that you have the basics ready to go:

Basic email best practice rules

Include a greeting and a signature

Include a proper greeting and sign it off professionally.  I recommend using an email signature and you can set one up in any of the programs that you use including Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail etc. Every email you send out should include a suitable greeting, and you should always close with your signature. It doesn’t have to be formal unless the situation calls for it – use your best judgement. I always like to be that slightly more formal though. When you see how the recipient responds you can certainly adjust your correspondence accordingly.

Check grammar and spelling

This should probably go without saying but you absolutely must make sure your grammar and spelling are impeccable if you want to be taken seriously. This is really important because if this is the first time that a client is hearing from you, then this is their first impression of you. Most email clients include a spellchecker these days – use it! If you don’t consider yourself a good writer, just keep it as simple as possible. If it’s a particularly important email ask someone to check it over before you send it.

Simple formatting and font

Try not to use hard to read fonts (scripts) or colours, backgrounds or anything that is going to take away from the message that you are trying to say. First of all, it can look quite unprofessional. Second, the recipient could come back to you saying that they can not read it as it may display differently in their email program that they are using. It’s best to stick to the basics!

Keep attachments small

Whenever you attach files to an email, make sure you’ve compressed or zipped them so they are as small as possible. Attachments should always be kept below 5 MB, as some email clients can reject them. If you include images in your email, the same rules apply, resize them to take as little space as possible, and don’t include too many of them in the same email.  The other option is to send multiple emails which can be annoying or you can direct the recipient to a file sharing folder or link such as Dropbox or Sugarsync.

Keep it brief!

Finally, understand that most emails should be kept short or as brief as possible. We all spend way too much time reading emails so getting a 5,000 word novel isn’t helpful. This is especially true when you’re making a first email contact with someone. If you make it too long, chances are the person receiving it will only skim the email and won’t read it all so they could essentially be missing some vital information.

We have discussed here 5 really simple email best practice rules to keep your emails professional and simple.  Happy emailing!