Do you know how to send a great email and leave a positive impression? Want to put your best foot forward in the business world?

Part of succeeding in the business world includes knowing and using great email etiquette. The way you write and send emails can greatly impact the way others think about you, so it’s important that you take a professional approach.

Fortunately, we’re here to help. Below we’ll list the 7 email etiquette tips you need to keep in mind at all times.

1. Create a Clear Subject Line

One of the top things you can do to improve your email etiquette is to ensure you’re writing great subject lines.

Subject lines exist for a reason, and if you’re not properly disclosing what your email is about, you may end up causing others a lot of frustration. By writing a great subject line, you’ll immediately let recipients know what your email is about, without requiring them to click on your email first. Your email will also be less likely to go into the spam folder of a recipient.

When writing subject lines, make sure that you keep them clear and simple. Refrain from leaving the subject line blank, writing a subject line that has a lot of special characters, or making it confusing in some way.

2. Use a Professional Tone

While it should go without saying, it’s also important that you write every email in a professional way. While there are times you’ll want to be more conversational in tone, you may not want to seem overly relaxed or personal if you’re communicating for business reasons.

For proper email etiquette, you should aim to use proper grammar and spelling at all times. Many browsers and email clients have spell check and grammar check features, so make sure you’re using them.

Similarly, it’s also a good idea to avoid the excessive use of exclamation points or emojis when communicating with someone over email as well.

3. Avoid Misunderstandings

While email can be incredibly convenient in some ways, it can also be frustrating in others. It’s important to remember that not everything you write in an email will be easily understood in an email message.

Humor, in particular, can be difficult to get across in an email. Because of this, you’ll want to be extremely careful when using humor in any emails you send. They can easily be taken the wrong away if your intent isn’t extremely clear.

Err on the side of caution when using humor in emails and consider all possible angles in which a statement could be taken. Otherwise, you may find yourself harming a business relationship simply because a joke didn’t land well in written form.

4. Stay Calm When Replying

One of the most important things to remember when sending emails is that you should never send an email when you’re overly emotional or angry at someone. Be wary of gut reactions and always wait until you’re calm and collected before you send a reply.

There are times when a business contact may upset you, and if they do, you may have the impulse to reply to them and put them in their place. Refrain from doing this. Instead, wait until you’ve calmed down to reply to them so that you can avoid creating any more tension than necessary.

Also, remember to keep the above point in mind as well. While humor you use may not come across well in an email, you may also misunderstand what someone else means. Be sure to remain calm and look at a message from all possible angles before jumping to conclusions or sending a reply.

5. Avoid Replying to Everyone

Some of the biggest email blunders that happen are a result of hitting “Reply All” when intending to reply to just one person. You’ll want to avoid doing this, so always double and triple check who you’ll be sending an email to.

As a general rule, use the “Reply All” feature sparingly, if at all. If you accidentally reply to multiple people with private information, you may have some significant problems on your hands.

Unfortunately, it can be easy to reply to everyone when you meant to reply to a specific purpose. Because of this, you should get into the habit of checking your recipients before replying. This way you’ll send your emails to the right people every time.

6. Mark Urgent Messages Accordingly

For better email etiquette, you should also make sure that you’re not marking a message as “Urgent” or “High Priority” on regular basis. While you may think that doing this will help your emails to get read and replied to more quickly, it will often end up annoying the recipient, once they discover that your emails aren’t as pressing as you made them seem.

While doing this may help you get you a quick reply once or twice, it will lose its power over time and may end up having the opposite effect. If someone sees that you consistently mark emails as important they may begin to disregard your messages more often as time goes on.

7. Include a Professional Signature

Another way to improve your email etiquette is to start placing a professional-looking signature at the end of your emails.

First of all, a great email signature should include your name. However, it should also include other details as well such as your company name, your position, and your phone number. You may also want to add links to any social media profiles or websites that you have.

Fortunately, many email clients make it easy to create a great email signature and set it to automatically appear at the end of your messages. Be sure that you learn how to add a signature to gmail to ensure you make a positive impression on anyone you send an email to.

Making the Most of These Email Etiquette Tips

If you want to make waves in the business world, it’s important that you keep these email etiquette tips in mind. Be sure that you use these tips if you want to be as professional as possible and make a positive impression on others.

Searching for more tips that can help you succeed? Dig deeper into our blog now to find more useful business advice.