First impressions are usually the last impressions, at least in a professional environment. You wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity simply because your email wasn’t professional enough to create an impact and highlight your abilities.
A professional email must include a subject, greetings/salutations, purpose of the email, strongly-worded body, and a respectful closing remark with contact details of the sender.
Things to keep in mind while writing a professional email:
- Have a brief introduction and short sentences.
- Write the email clearly and such that it doesn’t get lost in the pile of emails of the recipient or once received mustn’t be misinterpreted.
The email should preferably be in this order:
- Greeting
- A compliment or pleasantry
- A good reason for your email
- Closing message
- Signature
One must always follow the greeting with a pleasantry to create a positive persona. The shorter and more concise the letter the better it is, one of the most crucial details one forgets is ‘to avoid excessive use of passive voice’, avoid it wherever and whenever you can. Active voice is easier to understand for the reader since it focuses on the object that’s being acted upon. Consider sending an email without proofreading a crime. Read your email out loud to yourself, look for spelling and grammatical errors. Ask yourself if your request is clear? Could there be any possible misinterpretation?
Keep yourselves in the shoes of the recipient. Write like you speak unless you speak like a child. Your writing must be a reflection of your personality and not something that you find funny or interesting, keep the letter to the point and make sure it’s addressed to the right person/authority. Not getting the person’ details or post correct could either get you into trouble or your letter might be dismissed before they even get to the body.
Once you understand the rules of writing a professional letter and add your own ideas to it, there’s almost nothing that can go wrong.
