👋 Welcome to The Influential Project Manager, a weekly newsletter covering the essentials of successful project leadership.
The theme of this week’s newsletter is filed under communication, specifically geared toward communicating clearly and effectively via email. The better we communicate and are understood by others, the more predictable outcomes we can produce.
In project management and business in general, we rely heavily on email to communicate with colleagues, clients, vendors, etc. Some emails are far too long, stringing paragraph after paragraph together, while others are too brief, while some are way too formal, or entirely too informal.
Since we rely so heavily on email, every email we send should be well-written, and serve the intended purpose to spread information, while also being cordial. Effective emails, not only share information in a clear and concise manner, they save time and effort for both the reader and the recipient, which in the long run, impacts the bottom line.
12 tips to help you consistently craft effective emails.
1. Subject Lines are Important
It drives me crazy when I get an email from someone and the subject line is a tease or does not relate to the content of the email. Again, this will add time to my day, when I’m trying to search through my emails for specific content, but the subject line doesn’t match that content.
2. Use Bullet Points and Highlight Call to Action
Bullet points make it much easier for the recipient to read the email quickly and effectively. It also helps the reader identify the main points of the email. If the recipient is expected to do something after receiving the email, highlight the call to action.
3. Keep it Short
No one has the time to read a 10-paragraph email, so don’t sent it. If you have 10-paragraphs, or even four-paragraphs, then you’re likely including unrelated content.
4. Don’t Mix Content
Stick to one content area per email. If you are sending a follow-up email to a colleague after a meeting, then it is unnecessary to add in something about a different client or information about the company retreat, etc. When you muddle content, it makes it much harder for the recipient to find the email in a search because the content they are looking for won’t match the subject line.
5. Be Collegial
Always open your email with something pleasant. I often craft my email, then go back and add in the “I hope you had a great vacation” or “Have a great weekend – enjoy the Fall weather.”
6. Watch Your Tone
The tone of an email is difficult to assess, but more often than not, the reader will assign a tone, even when one was not intended, so be careful not to craft the email with tone by watching the use of exclamation marks, using inflammatory words, or violent communication etc.
7. Avoid Too Many Exclamation Marks and No Emojis
I find if I use too many exclamation marks in my emails, usually to sound excited, but one could also read the exclamation marks as being angry, frustrated, etc. And never use emojis in a work email, to anyone other than a close friend.
8. Avoid Quotes That Could be Offensive to Others
More and more you see quotes at the bottom of emails. Some are benign inspirational quotes, such as “Be the best you can be every day,” these are fine; however, avoid quotes with religious meaning, quotes that could be viewed as excluding others, etc. could offend a co-worker, a client, or a vendor, which could result in the loss of productivity and business.
9. Always Proofread Your Emails
Sending out an email with typos, misspelled words, etc., makes you look bad. Take the extra minute to proofread the email.
10. Never send an email when angry of frustrated
If you need to write the email, do so in a word document, where it is impossible to hit the send button by accident.
11. Email Chains
Email chains can be effective, but sometimes it is more effective to pick up the telephone and have a conversation in five minutes versus four hours of back and forth emails. Also, be careful not to change content areas without changing the subject line.
12. Legal Ramifications
Remember, your email, your colleague’s email, even the vendor’s email is subject to a warrant should illegal activity occur or a lawsuit be filed. Furthermore, emails sent to and from your work email address, are the property of your employer. Thus, NEVER put anything in an email that could compromise you or the company from a legal perspective (or from a professional perspective). This includes, but not limited to slanderous comments, harassment, admitting to wrong-doing, accusing someone of a wrong-doing, and promising something that can’t be delivered.
Countless articles have been written on how to craft effective emails, but I receive poorly constructed one on a daily basis. Part of the reason, the ability to write has been cast aside. We live in a world of 240 character Tweets and text messages, where everyone’s quote at the bottom on their email sent from their phone say something about excuse my typos. Even though we live in this world, writing is still important. These 12 tips offer a guide for constructing a effective email, which ultimately makes it easier.
I hope you will take the time to deploy these tips because your emails will be better written, more easily understood, and less likely to require follow-up. In the end, this saves time and allows you to work on other important tasks.
Until next week,
Kyle Nitchen
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