Every email you send is a point of customer contact. The emails you send deserve the same attention and professionalism you give to an expensive brochure. Remember, you are presenting yourself and your business every time you send an email. Every email offers clients another opportunity to judge your competence and professionalism.

Points to remember:

1. Begin with a meaningful subject line: Always identify the purpose of the email in the subject line. If your outgoing message has a missing or ambiguous subject line, you risk having your email deleted.

2. Avoid Run-on replies:

3. Always include a salutation: Even if you’ve sent multiple emails in a row, don’t neglect to insert a “Dear John:” salutation. Your politeness won’t go unnoticed.

4. Keep lines short: Keep line length to approximately 40 characters. Short lines are easier to read and the recipient will appreciate the white space.

5. Keep paragraphs short and well spaced: Limit the number of sentences in each paragraph. Hit enter twice at the end of each paragraph to force more white space between each paragraph.

6. Chunk you message: With multiple topics, use subheads to identify different topics; insert bold formatting where appropriate.

7. Provide a table of contents: If your email covers several topics, copy and paste the subheads within it to the top of your email thus creating an easy-to-read description of your email contents. The topics your email will cover will be seen the instant it gets opened.

8. Use your spell checker: Spelling errors are very noticeable in email messages. Always spell-check before you press send.

9. End your email at your signature: Always insert a personal closing, i.e. “Warmly” or “Best Wishes”, even, “Sincerely”. Avoid inserting anything after your email signature as it probably will get ignored.

Email is as much a presentation tool as a letter, phone call or face-to-face meeting. Treat it with respect and you will be taken seriously.

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