Tips to write a professional e-mail

Writing an e-mail is one of the very important means of business communication in every organization in these days. Employees often write e-mails to their reporting supervisors or fellow team members to discuss daily work updates or business processes. Professional way of writing e-mails definitely essential in terms of career growth in an organization. We should always remember certain rules and key elements while composing an e-mail message. Let’s discuss certain tips of writing a good & professional e-mail and improve written communication skills.

Always use the subject line field to indicate the purpose and content of the mail. Subject line is must as it gives basic idea of the content which you want to convey or explain. If your mail requires an urgent reply from the receiving person, you can mention words like ‘urgent ‘, ‘please reply’, ‘need your inputs’ etc. in subject line along with the major subject point. It makes the other person to read your mail on priority and revert immediately.

Message should be concise and straight to the point. Message should be written in short and to the point so that your action point or purpose of the mail can be conveyed easily and the other person will not feel frustration in reading and it won’t lead to small grammatical errors as well. If it is necessary to write long message, then only go ahead and write long text.

Phrase the sentence with case sensitive and positive approach. Never write mails with upper case letters. Mails with uppercase letters may be a warning or shouting sort of messages. It is not a professional way of writing. Also the sentence should be written with a polite and positive approach, avoid using harsh or hard words. A negative sentence can also be written with soft and positive sense. Words for example: instead of writing ‘highly impossible’…write it as ‘possibilities are less due to so and so reason’. Instead of using ‘quite difficult’…use ‘seems to be a bit difficult’ etc. Hence it is good to follow that strategy. Use such hard words only if situation is extremely not supporting.

Grammar and spell check. Before sending a mail, always check spelling of words and grammar twice to ensure that the mail is perfect in terms of content.

Use the signature. While completing the mail, end with polite words like ‘Regards’, ‘Best Regards’, ‘Thanks & Regards’ etc. Write your name and contact details along with that at the left side bottom of the mail.

Don’t write short form of letters. While writing an official and professional mail, don’t use short letters such as ‘r’ in place of ‘are’, ‘Plz’ in place of ‘please’…etc. Always write complete word instead of short forms.

Addressing e-mail to one or more recipients. Before sending e-mail, mention the main e-mail recipient mail id in the main address filed and keep the other team member e-mail ids in cc field. Cc the mail only to the relevant teams. While replying to an email, check it once that if the reply is required for all then reply to the mail by clicking ‘reply all’ button. If reply is required only to the main recipient then click on ‘reply’ button only so that it can be sent to only that particular mail id.