Tips and Tricks: How to Write, Send, Reply, and Forward E-Mail
September 15, 2007 by Lillie
First I saw the “How-To” Group Writing Project at BlueJar.com. Then I read that Daily Blog Tips is sponsoring a group writing project with the subject of Tips and Tricks.
Since I’ve been planning a post to share tips and tricks on how to write effective e-mails, the post seemed to be a perfect match for both writing projects.
Internet-savvy readers may read this advice and say, “Well … duh … everybody knows that.” But look through the e-mails you receive every day, and you’ll realize NOT everybody knows that.
Writing an Original E-Mail Message:
- Write in language and tone appropriate for the subject and recipient – consider your audience. If you’re inviting your best friend to a barbecue, you can use emoticons and ROFLOL all you want. If you’re submitting a query letter to an agent, contacting a prospective client, or participating in a professional discussion in a business group, you want to send a professional letter.
- Create a good subject line for your message. The subject line is the headline that should get the recipient’s attention and make them want to read the message. It may also help your reader find the message at a later date. The subject is not the place to be vague or cutesy: “hi,” “here it is,” or “our conversation” – or worse yet, no subject at all – don’t give the recipient much of a clue about the contents of the message. Examples of subjects more likely to make sense to the recipient are “Query: Romantic Suspense Novel,” “Proposal for Networking Workshop,” “Follow-up on Our Conversation about Book Trailers.”
- If you need help writing the body of the message, look for specific writing advice, such as persuasive writing.
- Spell-check and proofread your message before hitting Send. Spell-check will catch many errors, but it won’t catch it’s for its, they’re for their, or then for than. It also won’t catch missing words (one of my big downfalls) or grammar and punctuation errors, so you need to read your message through – possibly several times.
Sending E-Mail:
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Be careful to type the name and e-mail address correctly. Your brilliant message won’t get results if it disappears into cyberspace because you used an incorrect address. If you’re using an address from your address book, double-check that you’ve selected the right name. Imagine my embarrassment when I accidentally sent a message intended for my husband to another Jack!
- If you’re sending to a group of recipients, consider using BCC rather than putting all the addresses in the To or CC line. In some cases, such as group e-mails within a project team, all the addresses should be public. In many cases, however, it is better to protect the privacy of your recipients.
- You can also send a group message with the recipients hidden. In most e-mail programs, you can create an entry with a generic name such as “My Clients” and include all the addresses. When you send a message to “My Clients,” everyone on the list receives the message, but it is addressed to “My Clients” instead of the clients’ names. This may be appropriate for a generic announcement – your vacation schedule, for example.
- At other times, you may want to send the same message to several people but make the message appear to be personal. Depending on your e-mail program, you can create a draft or send a message again, changing only the address and perhaps a salutation with the person’s name each time.
Replying to E-Mail:
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If the original message was addressed to multiple recipients, usually you want to “reply to all” so that everyone receives your response. For a team collaborating on a project, replying to the sender only will mean that not all members of the team are involved in the discussion. Information will have to be re-distributed, progress may be delayed, and some members of the team may end up working at cross-purposes.
- Sometimes you want to respond only to the sender of the message with a private comment that isn’t part of the general discussion. Make sure you hit “reply” rather than “reply to all.”
- Usually you want to include at least part of the original message in your reply. I have received replies to messages after several days that don’t include any of the original message, and I have no idea what the person is talking about (especially when s/he doesn’t use the same subject). If your e-mail program doesn’t include any of the original message, copy and paste enough of it so your reply makes sense to someone who has read hundreds of messages before receiving your reply.
- If your e-mail program includes the entire original message, consider snipping part of it, especially if it long. Including only as much of the original as is needed for understanding is critical in e-mail lists and discussion groups, especially those with an option for daily digest instead of individual messages. Reading the same message over and over again is annoying as well as time-consuming.
- On the other hand, I include the entire message when trying to resolve a problem or get a result. For example: You send an e-mail to tech support and receive a response that doesn’t solve the problem. Include your original message and the response in your reply – your second message may go to a different person, and it helps if s/he knows what has already been tried. Even if you are communicating with the same person, s/he probably won’t remember the details of your issue. Having everything in a single e-mail will save time.
Forwarding an E-Mail Message:
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Consider carefully before forwarding an original message you receive from another person. The message is the intellectual property of the writer, and the writer may not want other people to know what they wrote. Always obtain permission before you forward. Most e-mail discussion groups have a firm policy that nothing posted to the list can be sent outside the group.
- Although the cute sayings, jokes, photos, inspirational videos, political rants, and other miscellaneous “forwards” are not the intellectual property of the people who send them to you, they probably are the intellectual property of the originator. Two of my friends have had all the words from children’s picture books forwarded around the world in e-mail. The people forwarding the cute stories don’t realize they are violating the authors’ copyrights, but they are. They are also jeopardizing the income of writers who make their livings from books.
- Many of the “forwards” are hoaxes, urban legends, or outdated true stories. If you feel the urge to click “forward” every time you get an e-mail claiming you’ll earn money for forwarding an e-mail or begging you to add your name to an e-mail petition or asking for help finding a missing child, check the facts at Hoaxbusters, Snopes.com or Truth or Fiction. There is no way to track e-mail forwards, so there’s no way you’ll be paid or win a prize for forwarding an advertising message to X number of people. E-mail petitions are useless – every time a new person sends the message out, the petition branches off and just keeps going, with no central collection point. If you want to sign a petition, do so online where the petitions are collected in one central location. While your heart may be touched by the plight of a sick or missing child, you’ll find that many are outright hoaxes; most that are true are long outdated – the child has returned, recovered, or died. Once a message starts its way through cyberspace, it goes on forever.
- When you forward a message, delete all the extraneous information and send only the pertinent part of the message. Often several people will have forwarded the message without cleaning it up, so there are several sets of header information and comments like, “Awesome!” If you want your recipient(s) to know when and from whom you received the message, leave the major items in the headers (to, from, subject, date), but delete all the routing information. The only exception to this is if the header information will mean something to the recipient, for example, an e-mail to tech support for help with a problem or a message to an ISP complaining about spam.
Time-Saving Tips and Tricks:
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Create templates for messages that you send often: answers to common customer service questions, reminders of regular events, recurring messages. Depending on your e-mail program, you can save these templates as drafts or stationery. Just update and personalize the draft and send it as needed.
- Organize your e-mail using folders and filters. You may have to read the Help file (horrors!) to learn how to do this in your e-mail program, but you should find it worth the time and effort to set it up. I have filters on my incoming messages so that newsletters go into one folder and discussion group lists go into another folder. I have far fewer messages in my Inbox, and most of those are messages I need to read and respond to. When I’m rushed, I can ignore the newsletters and group lists.
- Keep your Inbox, Outbox, and Junk folders cleaned out. Every time I check e-mail, I go through my Inbox, read messages, and either reply, delete, or transfer them to another folder: Current Projects for items needing prompt action or the appropriate folder for storage. I have a folder for “Clients,” then subfolders for individual clients; a folder for my church, then subfolders for various ministries and projects; and folders for a number of organizations and projects. When I finish an e-mail session, I follow the same process with messages in the Outbox and delete junk mail. My e-mail program is set to empty trash when the program is closed. Your system will be different, but you may find you save a lot of time by keeping your Inbox empty and your messages organized.
Whether you’re a newbie to the Internet or a pro e-mailer, I hope you’ve found a useful tip or trick here. And I hope you’ll share your own e-mail tips and tricks in a comment.
Note added 9/19/07: Be sure to read the comments for suggested additions to these tips.
[tags]group writing project, how-to, tips and tricks, e-mail[/tags]
Useful tips. How about having your own personalized email account instead of using free email accounts?
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Willy,
Good idea–especially important for businesses and professional people.
Thank you so much for these helpful tips and tricks. I’ll be hoping that you could post more email marketing topics here in your blog.
Thanks,
Vic
Vic,
I won’t be posting any more about e-mail marketing because I don’t know the first thing about it.
I’m glad if this post is helpful in that arena, but I really wrote it for the general public who send personal and business e-mails.
One of my pet peeves is constantly seeing people misuse similar sounding words, such as to and too; they’re, there, and their; affect and effect; your and you’re; it’s and its; etc. We’re too worried about students’ self-esteem and not enough about their academics. We’re turning kids out of high school that can’t do basic math and lack proper grammar skills. That’s enough for my rant. As for emails that have been forwarded around a lot, it’s very simple to cut and paste the body of the message into a new email so you’re not forwarding everyone else’s email address around. Using the blind carbon copy (BCC) feature is always a good idea to protect privacy, though it’s not usually useful in a work situation.
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Carl,
I agree with you. Of course, we all make typos occasionally, but when a document is riddled with errors, it’s almost impossible to read—at least for an editor.
Good tips. Email is becoming one of the biggest distractions of our age…and failure to manage it properly can result in a lot of stress.
tc,
I spend a lot of time on e-mail, but since I do most of my business through e-mail, it’s necessary. If other people would just follow my tips, it would go faster.
Good tips, we are often used to write but do not take some basic care in writing.
Excellent Article
a hug.
Cristiano,
It’s easy to get sloppy in e-mail because somehow it doesn’t seem as important as other kinds of writing. Yet we send important messages, and regardless of how important the message is, it should be easy for the recipient to read and understand.
Hi:
I am looking for a new autoresponder for my company email. Have used icontact, constant contact and swiftpage. Does anyone know about autoresponder +. I like that it is self administering, but afarid of the deliverability.
Thanks for your post – I do a ton of email and this is a great reminder of the things I sometimes overlook!
Mike,
Sorry I can’t help you with autoresponders, but I’m glad you found the tips helpful.
Thanks Lillie
Appreciate you taking the time to answer! Mike
You’re welcome, Mike.
Email could be time consuming. I am using gmail, which is simple and practical. Today I have heard that google collects data, through gmail, in real time. My teacher(college) told me that she was writing a message and could see the advertisements changing according to the message as it was written. That’s Scary! I didn’t check it myself, but even if that is true, it will be hard for me to change my email adress because by now, I’m so used to this platform. Besides it’s such a hustle to inform my contacts, social media, forum etc…
Doron,
It’s interesting that you and so many people find gmail easy to use. I find it very confusing and complicated, and I hate to use it. But I know so many people who love it. I haven’t had the experience of ads changing based on what I type–actually I seldom use gmail except for comments on Blogger blogs and similar situations. However, I have noticed that the ads are related to the topic of the e-mails, so I’m not surprised at what your friend experienced.
Lillie,
This is GREAT advice. I hope you don’t mind if I use some of the content to train some of my employees with.
I have a question of my own though. It’ll probably sound silly and even trivial, but how do you sign your emails? I know just having “Best regards” or “Sincerely yours” is usually enough, but I want something that’s memorable but not too kooky.
Laura,
You’re welcome to use the post to train your employees. I wish more people would train their employees on using e-mail correctly.
As for the signature, I’m not very creative. I have several “signatures” in Outlook, which I use depending on the situation. One with my phone number is for clients prospective clients, and one with a blurb about my novel goes to other people, and a couple more work for specific situations. But that’s not really the signature–it’s contact information and sometimes a little advertising.
I often use “thanks” if that’s appropriate. For more formal e-mails, I will use Sincerely or Best Regards. If it’s a short, informal message to someone I correspond with frequently, I may not use a greeting and signature.
If you come up something catchy and original, let me know. I won’t steal it, but it may give me an idea.
This post is useful for me. Normally I don’t really pay attention in emailing, but now, i see good things by following some tips here
Thanks Lillie
Nurul,
I’m glad the tips made you stop and think. Sometimes we don’t think about what we’re doing and consequently don’t do it the way we should.
Excellent tips, Lillie! About signatures: I always put a few links to my LinkedIn account, Facebook account and Twitter account in it. Do you think that’s too much or just about right?
Angela,
I’m on several e-mail loops that limit signatures to three lines, so I’ve adapted that as my standard. I know some people who are great at promo include everything possible in their signatures–often the signatures take up more room than the message itself. I have to say that I seldom pay any attention to those long, sometimes elaborate with graphics, signatures. I like to see the person’s name and URL of their website and a line about who they are/what they do, such as author of XYZ. I have two signatures I use most of the time. The one I use for clients and prospective clients and other selected recipients includes my phone number; the one that goes to email lists doesn’t have the phone number. I don’t Twitter and figure if people want to contact me via Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. they can click over to my website and get that information. However, if you want to make it easy for people to contact you via social media and think those you email will appreciate and use that information, then by all means, include it.
Once an elderly person said that try to avoid question marks in your emails too. Well, I didnt digest the idea nor I could question him….probably he thinks it is impolite….
On the forwarding point, one can remove the unwanted stuff from a forward chain if its a personal email but when it comes to professional emails, it could be problematic…..
Katya,
I don’t know why you would avoid question marks. I send a lot of questions through email. Re: forwarding professional emails: I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at here. If an email is related to business, sometimes it’s helpful to have the whole history of the discussion. However, typically professional messages are not subject to endless forwards like the inspiring, humorous, or entertaining messages that are forwarded endlessly via personal emails.
@ Lillie
You are right, I dont see the point in avoiding question marks from emails….
Re: removing previous content from professional emails while forwarding: I meant that by removing content from professional emails could confuse people and they might miss something from the conversation……
Katya,
I understand now what you’re saying, and we agree.
I was searching for some tips on “how to explain this to my mom”.. Well, it seems that ever since my Mom read your post, she kinda started teaching me .. well done
Glad to help, Mitake, and thank you for the comment, on behalf of Lillie (on vacation this week).
–Jan
Wow, I should forward this to my mother and grandmother! Seems they have no idea about email, tips, tricks, and knowhow…
Great info on here lillie! Take care!
ryan
ryan,
It seems that the people who send me the most personal emails and lots of forwards are the ones who need these tips the most.
I couldn’t agree with you more about checking (and re-checking) the email add you need to send your message to. I have found myself in pretty irritating ( and completely avoidable!) dilemmas merely because I keyed in the wrong or incomplete email add. Just yesterday, a set of pictures was supposedto be sent to a videographer — my siblings and I are concocting a special gift for our folks this Christmas. I got the pictures this morning and none of the ones I sent were there.
Alex,
I imagine we’ve all had the experience of sending something to the wrong person–such as a message meant for my husband to a client with the same first name!
Thanks a lot Lillie, these pointers on emails was a great help. The most common mistakes get noticed immediately. Among my daily emails, I get many emails which are improper. Upon reading your blog, I’m sure I might be making some mistakes too!
Stan,
Since we’re all fallible humans, we all make mistakes in email (and everything else) from time to time. Just try to avoid the really glaring and obnoxious ones.
Now I just have to forward this article to my father so he won’t have to call me so often about email questions he has:) Thanks!
Steve,
Hope your father finds the article as help as you are.
That was an informational blog! I especially liked using the BCC option, I believe that is true, as there are many who can try to take undue advantage of the listed email-id’s. It can be anyone ranging from smart marketers, spammers, etc. None can be trusted online!
Kelly,
BCC can make a difference in many ways.
If you are asking someone else to do work for you, take the time to make your message look professional. While your spell checker won’t catch every mistake, at the very least it will catch a few typos. If you are sending a message that will be read by someone higher up on the chain of command (a superior or professor, for instance), or if you’re about to mass-mail dozens or thousands of people, take an extra minute or two before you hit “send”. Show a draft to a close associate, in order to see whether it actually makes sense. Keep your message readable.
Good advice, Alex–especially keep your message readable.
Such sensible, Tips, Lillie! Some of them are pretty basic, but, it is surprising to see that even the most basic things can sometimes be neglected. Email addresses, for instance. Last year, my wife and her friend got into a little misunderstanding which escalated into them not talking for almost a whole year. All because of an email which my wife sent to her friend (an invitation, actually), which, apparently, never got to the recipient at all because of a misspelled email address. My wife was very much disappointed in her friend for never even having the courtesy to write back and say she couldn’t come … and her friend felt very much overlooked after hearing about such a great party from the other ladies in her circle of friends which she though she was never invited to.
Jason,
It’s so easy to have these misunderstandings. My mother died nearly eight years ago, yet I remember that I never got anything from one of my closest friends–no flowers at the funeral, not even a sympathy card. She is a very thoughtful and caring person, and she probably sent something that got lost and has probably been wondering why I didn’t acknowledge her expression of sympathy! Yet it hard to bring up and ask if she sent something …
Emailing still is the top activity of internet users world wide. Every one should know even the basic etiquette in sending emails.
You’re right about that, Mel.
That was a lot of good tips, especially for business-related exchanges. Most of the forwarded e-mails are garbage anyway, so I don’t have much concern for those.
I think my biggest and/or most common flaw with e-mailing, is that I often hit ‘send’ before I even re-read what I wrote. It’s always nice to see typos that you made, after you have done sent the message. It is like, “hey, come back here,” as you try to snatch the electronic mail from cyberspace and fail miserably… Ha-ha!
Kevin,
I know what you mean about those typos. Sometimes even if I re-read the message, I don’t catch the typo until it’s sent.
Hello,
nice Article, but im missing the section with Signatures. They can save you a lot of time and for a buisness they are a must have.
Good suggestion, Bella. My focus in the post was on individuals, not businesses, and it was primarily in response to tons of forwarded messages I received all the time back then. Maybe it’s time to re-visit the subject from a business standpoint.
please suggest me how to write reply letter
manisha,
Use the tips in the post above in the section entitled “replying to e-mail.”
We all have something to learn from your tips. Thanks. Really useful and to the point.
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Glad you found the tips helpful, Mariana.
You tips will make me an expert.. Thanks for sharing!
Sally,
I won’t promise you’ll be an expert, but I hope the tips help you.
There guidelines is very important to ensure our emails are done properly. This is also good for newbie in order for them to learn properly how to use emails.
Jerry,
To many people with experience sending email, these tips are pretty obvious. But as we all see every day in our emails, a lot of people don’t know these things.
One may be surprised how many people are unaware of the proper email etiquette. Knowing how to go about sending an email properly can make a difference especially in one’s business or career if this is being used professionally.
Jane,
It is surprising to see some of the emails people send. Most of the worst ones I get are personal messages/forwards from individuals, but not all businesspeople write professional emails, either.
It’s been only few weeks that I have come to know that taking a bit more time and “making message appear more personal” works like a charm!
I had several friends who supported our ministry, and were thinking to quit supporting it. Then all the people from our ministry gathered, signed an email of Christmas greetings and sent it to them using each person’s name instead of “dear brothers”.
I tell you that worked, they continued their support (Praise God!) and we’ve been writing ever since referring ONLY their personal names.
I think that’s a great point.
Thanks for the post and God bless!
Michael,
It’s been said that our own name is the most beautiful word to each of us. As you have experienced, it’s powerful to call people by their own name instead of a generic title.
That’s very much True, Lillie!
Whilst I lot of people may wonder was this sort of email necessary, I would say yes. What often is not realised is just how destructive a badly worded email can be to a business relationship. While I prefer direct or telephone based contact with my customers, for many of us that is not always possible. This is a useful article because it high lights some key things a lot of people do wrong. I would add you need to be aware that people put their own interruption on your written words.
Chris,
Yes, people interpreting your words differently than you intended them can be a problem with email or any form of written communication. The better we write, the less apt that is to happen, but it’s possible in any situation.
The subject is the key so that you can attract the attention of your recipient.
Well, if you could properly write it then it’s a win-win.
Ahe,
You’re right about the importance of a good subject line.
I giggled out loud when I read the part about being careful when typing the email address. I was sending emails to my friend and wasn’t getting a response for days… Finally a person wrote back and asked who the heck I was and why I kept asking if we were going to go out on Friday night… hahaha
Turns out I had one letter wrong and my emails were not making it to my friend.
chris,
You’re lucky you didn’t get an angry spouse or significant other after you.
You totally nailed the spot Lillie, I am around my 50′s I can say that being a baby boomer makes it challenging to use a simple mailing system. Good thing I found your tips, these will greatly help.. Thanks Lillie
Glad you found the tips helpful, Grace.
Hi Lillie, It was so good of you to have taken time to write such a beautiful and helpful post.
Many in general would neglect the post but if you look deep in to the post and read it carefully then this post can be considered as the most valuable.
I must really admit that I was ignorant about this particular knowledge.
I did not knew the purpose of BCC and CC while sending an e-mail.
Your post taught me some of the good technicalities which were unknown to me.
I will keep using your tips in present and future.
Vicky,
I’m glad you found the post helpful.
Hi Lillie,
I can most relate to this tip” Be careful to type the name and e-mail address correctly”. Last week I send 3 important emails to 3 different people.
Since I didn’t get any message notifying me that the message wasn’t delivered I assumed that they got the message and simply ignored it and ignored me. I was angry and furious until I found out that I was to blame.
I wish I read your post two weeks ago. LOL.
Have a great weekend,
Thomas
Thomas,
I learned that tip through experience. A number of years ago, when I was editor-in-chief of an online publishing company, I wrote an email to my husband telling him how much I loved him. Unfortunately, I clicked on the wrong “Jack” in my address book and sent the note to a writer I had contracted to write an ebook! Fortunately I realized it right away and sent him another email apologizing and admitting what I had done. He never acknowledged either email, but I’m sure he thought I was nuts!
Hi Lillie,
“If you’re sending to a group of recipients, consider using BCC…” this is a huge one. I don’t know how often I made this mistake and sent an email using the cc instead. This can be really embarrassing sometimes.
Wish you a wonderful weekend,
Mark
Mark,
We’ve probably all made that mistake — and other embarrassing errors.
This is a useful post to make emails for its purposes. It may be personal or for business purposes. But whichever, what matters most is how you put into words the thoughts that will suit to the person whom you are going to send with your email. Thanks for this post!
Elaine,
I have a friend who puts the recipient’s name and date as the subject: Subject: John Jones, 11/9/12. It makes it easy for her to find messages, but it’s useless to John Jones!
This is full of good advice. I especially liked “When you forward a message, delete all the extraneous information”. I wish people would do that before they forward things to me. Nothing like getting every name in someone else’s address book sent along with a lot of useless information. Big time time wasters. Thanks.
Steve,
It really amazes me when I get an email that has pages of forwards with everyone’s email address visible.
Thanks a lot. Very useful info and helpful tips and tricks when sending emails..:) This is good for newbie in order for us to learn properly how to use great emails.
Brian,
This post is geared for newbies, but I’ve found there are a lot of not-so-newbies who make some of the same mistakes.
Thanks Lillie for these tip and trick. I find them very useful..:). Next time im sending a email i will think of you and your good advice.
Glad you found the post helpful, Lisabeth.
Jeanne,
Good luck with your e-mail organizing project!