6 simple tips on how to improve your email communications

Tips on how to write Emails

I had never thought I would write something about how to write an email in this blog. But recently came across few necessary tips on writing email and thought about sharing them here.

We do all write emails, to our friends, family and mostly for our official communications .Yet, we do not actually worry much about how we write them.

I have got few tips for you on writing emails to the point and not letting the email reader or recipient confuse on why it was actually written.

Tip #1:
Does your mail pass the "So What?" question

 Emails are written with a specific reason in mind. While writting you need to keep it concise and enough information for the reader so that they wont get lost. To make more sense out of your email, re-read your email once its drafted completely and ask yourself, does it answer "So What?" question. From reader's perspective: 'you told me all these info in your mail, so what?", ' do I need to do something about it or take any action item' , 'or will you be doing something about it?'

Make sure you address this information in your mail and change the information as needed.

Tip #2:
Change the Adjectives to Actual Data

Noone likes half cooked information! And if you are just vaguely saying, 'Sometimes it happens' OR 'Few of the items..' OR ' it had improved and its faster now..' , you are trying to express something but not enough to impress. If you dont give the data points with the information, it's not going to leave a major impact on the readers mind. Data is important while you express the staus. 

It would make more sense if you say ' The quarterly results have seen surge of 40%' instead of 'We have improved the quartely results'

Tip #3:
Actually... not to use them

Continuing to Tip number 2, do not use the fillers like "Actually", "Basically", "Generally". They don't make much sense and adds vagueness to the writing. If you can put data here that is well and good, if not, try not to use them at all.

Tip #4:
Listen to your Active Voice

The active voice sentence are described as sentenses where the subject performs the action stated by the verb. It follows a clear Subject + Verb + Object (SVO) construct that's easy to read.  The more you complicate the sentense, the more confusing it would sound to the reader.

Tip #5:
Explain the short-forms

Remember to explicitly explain the short forms when writting them for the first time. For Example, if you are using a jargon CPR , CPC, CTM try to explain elaborate them if needed or mention the fullform next to them like Clickthrough rate (CTR), Cost-per-click (CPC), Cost-per-thousand (CPM).

It would not confuse them and would help the reader understand it better.

TIP #6:
30 or Less

Last but the important tip, try to keep the word count in a sentence under 30. Its not a rule of thumb but just a precautionary measure. If you want to write something like, "due to the fact that.." you can easily replace it with "because..". 

You do not want to have a sentence like below one from the book "Blindness" which itself is 97 words long. If such sentenses are included in the mail, the reader might get lost in the words and might have to re-re-read to understand it.

Jose Saramago, “Blindness.” 97 words:

“On offering to help the blind man, the man who then stole his car, had not, at that precise moment, had any evil intention, quite the contrary, what he did was nothing more than obey those feelings of generosity and altruism which, as everyone knows, are the two best traits of human nature and to be found in much more hardened criminals than this one, a simple car-thief without any hope of advancing in his profession, exploited by the real owners of this enterprise, for it is they who take advantage of the needs of the poor.”

Few more quick one line tips before I wind-up this post...

• A meaningful subject line.
• Identify yourself.
• Be kind.
• Write it precise.
• Always Proofread before sending.
• Don’t assume that your email will be not be forwarded/shared.
• Seperate formal and informal situations. 
• Show Respect and Restraint.
• Prompt Response. 
• And add the senders names (i.e To list) only after proofreading

Do let me know if you like this post in the comments and share some other Tips if you've.