Composing Effective Emails

Summary

Because it is so extraordinarily efficient, email has infiltrated our lives and elevated the importance of writing clearly, persuasively, efficiently, and quickly. But email is more than mere prose; its electronic incarnation and existence makes it a new written medium demanding a new kind of writing. Thus the time-tested principles of sound business writing, though still valid, need to be leavened and supplemented by new etiquette and new techniques.

Features of email as a transmission medium

Email as a medium is not traditional business writing because of six unique features:

1. Free. Email transmission is functionally free; there is almost no overhead cost of delivering a message. Hence it lends itself to think-write spontaneity ... and to blurting out infelicitous expressions before you should.
2. Instantaneous replication and redistribution. Any email can be instantly duplicated and distributed, and the original author cannot control that distribution. Once blurted, never recaptured -- email spreads and can even take on a life of its own.
3. Public. Email can travel instantly (through however many intermediaries) to anyone. Gossip-mongering assures that if someone can be offended by an email, that person will receive it with blinding speed. Authors should assume every email is public ten seconds after Send is hit. (This also encourages tact, of which our world has too little.)
4. Permanent. Email leaves electronic footprints. Unlike a telephone call, it can never be forgotten or blurred with time; it is always precisely and permanently what it was at its birth.
5. No emotional content or context. Rare is the writer who can convey emotional texture in email. With emotional content lost, email is unbelievably vulnerable to misinterpretation.
6. Anonymous monolog. The biomechanics of composing email -- a writer at his own desk staring at his own computer screen -- mutes the normal I-you connection of writer with reader and replaces it with a more psychiatric monolog confessional quality. People are thus lulled into writing things in email they would never say in writing, much less in person.

Transmission structure

An email should be structured to exploit its replicability/redistribution while minimizing the downside from its lack of emotional content or context:

1. Single topic. Users want to read, process, forward and delete their emails. This gives them a sense of accomplishment. The one-topic email allows this, whereas emails with multiple topics can become cumbersome and are less replicable. You have three things to say to one individual? Write three quick single-topic emails. The cost is negligible and the benefits of subdividing considerable.
2. Internal signatures as back bearings. Emails are a form of advertising and networking -- especially as they propagate through cyberspace. Each email should contain information to enable any recipient, no matter how indirectly contacted, to find the writer. So the signature line should include all possible means of finding the author: name, address, phone, fax, email address, Web site.
3. Date stamps. All emails should make very clear, within the original message themselves, when they were sent. Relying on the transmission system's dynamic time-stamping invites a confused historical record.
4. Encourage replication. Emails are memes -- self-replicating bundles of ideas that travel from host to host. Well-designed emails are goodwill ambassadors for their authors, so good authors want to have their email replicate. The email itself should be designed to encourage replication. It should be self-contained, with appropriate backup and background information.
5. Broadcast and narrowcast. Email is ideal for broadcasts: simultaneous updates to a group (anywhere from 20 to 2,000,000). It is also useful for narrowcasts (anywhere from 2 to 20) because group-names and Reply-All make possible a well-defined closed multilog. Authors should create multiple groups and use group names in transmissions so that everyone in the group receives all communications over time.
6. Bcc's to protect the addressees. An email address is more like a telephone number than a mailbox; cluttering it with spam is rude. So is facilitating other people's spam. Thus most email recipients would prefer that their email addresses not circulate throughout kingdom come. Good broadcasters are thoughtful about protecting addresses either (a) because they pledged to keep them confidential or (b) because the set of contacts is a proprietary resource. Broadcasting via bcc protects email addresses. Recipients appreciate it.
7. Bcc's to avoid Reply-All escalation. When broadcasting email, the author should decide whether he wants recipients to be able to Reply-All: if he does not, using bcc assures that recipients can reply only to the author and no one else. Any provocative broadside sent with a visible recipient set invites escalating "You fool" Reply-Alls from nettled recipient. Flame wars have spontaneously combusted over this.

Content

Email is most effective when its content follows these principles:

1. Subject line organization. An email's subject line is like a newspaper headline -- it establishes the topic and spills the beans. Thus, subject lines deserve great care. If possible, the subject line should have its keyword *first* so that a user searching through old emails can quickly find all those on a given topic. Also, if there is particularly memorable information -- a meeting date or time, say -- include it in the subject line for easier later reference.
2. Bean-spilling. Email is quick and often read with only one eye. Spill the beans up front, establish the reader's interest, get her focused.
3. Shorter is better. Do not waste words. Long-windup circumlocutions invite inattention.
4. Simpler is better. Email is direct, blunt. Use the good old Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, and be clear. (But be tactful; the two can and do cohabit if you practice.)
5. Education and exposition. Since it is fundamentally a one-way communication -- I tell you without interruption -- email is very well suited to educating or expositing. And once something has been thoughtfully explained in one email, it can be replicated to convey the explanation to ever more recipients.
6. Documentation, not negotiation. Email is crude in conveying emotional context and content. Education is about facts, negotiation about emotions and nuance. Negotiation is essentially conversational -- give and take -- and personal -- building trust and confidence. Email is miserable for all these. Instead, use email to create the negotiating environment: set up a negotiation, lay out background facts, state objectives or points to discuss, schedule the meeting, agenda it, or document agreement with the classic "following up on our conversation..." summary. But if you want to negotiate, talk first, write second.
7. Retransmission and context degradation. Any reader other than the first one (different readers or the same readers at a later time) knows less than the target recipient. When context is lost, comprehension degrades. So make sure the email has enough background to establish the context.
8. Complete packages and background attachments. If an email makes reference to documents or calculations, do the recipient a favor and *attach them to the email*, so that (a) saving the email also saves the support material, (b) you reduce the risk of context degradation, and (c) forwarding is facilitated because recipients get the background with the message.

Etiquette

1. Manners
   1. Never reply when wrought up. Angry? Frustrated? Panicked? For goodness' sake, do not hit the Send key! Wait until you are calm. A forty-second keystroke explosion imprudently sent can hang you for years.
   2. When in doubt, be a little formal. An initial email is not a telephone call, it is a letter. "Hey dude!" is rude. Even though it may seem incongruous, "Dear George" or even "Dear Mr. Bush" will seldom go awry. Let your recipient move to informality in his response.
   3. Always be friendly. Never say anything that could be taken as insulting or hostile. If you have written something whose interpretation depends on tone, stick a smiley at its end to tell your reader that you are smiling when you type it :)
   4. Avoid humor directed at others. It may seem funny to you and your immediate target, but anyone else reading it will be insulted on their behalf. Deadpan humor is guaranteed to be misunderstood. The only safe humor is self-deprecating but light. To make *sure* the reader knows something is a joke, follow any such with a joke-pictograph such as our friend the smiley :).
   5. Elaborately tiptoe up to controversy. Remember context-degradation risk. If you are going to say something controversial, *always frame it*, even if the framing is laborious, so that when (not if) it is taken out of context, you can at least point to what you wrote.
   6. Lose the vulgarity. You may curse on the phone; avoid it in email. Invariably it looks coarse.

2. Replies and textual conversation
   1. Make replies shorter than openers. Email's instant-reply perpetual-motion correspondence that continues on momentum without purpose. Guide your conversation toward a goal by making each reply a little shorter than the incoming message to which it responds. (The only exception is when the opener asks a question and the reply is an explanation or exposition. This in effect reverses the normal etiquette and the answer is the opener, to which the asker should politely reply.)
   2. Sometimes decline to reply. If a conversation has been conducted and is clearly over, do not prolong it just for fun or with a "and another thing" new topic. Let it lie or start a brand-new email chain.
   3. Formality relaxes as the Reply tails lengthen. As the tail becomes longer and the replies become shorter, email shifts into something more akin to conversation. Informality may safely increase.
   4. If you need time, acknowledge receipt. Unlike a voicemail, an email sender always has the nagging worry the message failed to get through because someone's server crashed. If you cannot give a substantive response immediately, send an "I got it, need to think about it." This builds goodwill because it alleviates anxiety. And that goodwill buys you time to construct a better answer.
   5. Thank senders and respondents. In email, questions can seem demands, answers dismissive. A little flowery "please and thank you" goes a long way to making your correspondent feel good about the encounter.
   6. Ask permission to send great big attachment files. Not everyone's computer has a fast modem. Some folks, especially personal users, have low-baud modems. Big attachment files can hang their system for minutes while the recipient gets frustrated. And if the attachment file was not essential, the recipient feels as mad as if forced to listen to a telephone monolog. So if you are in any doubt about the recipient's interest or intake speed, drop a one-liner mentioning that you plan to send a big attachment, is that okay?

3. Formatting your text
   1. Go easy on the graphics. Though it is itself merely plain text, email lives in a medium -- the Internet -- that thrives on graphics. But graphical fireworks either degrade over time or merely distract the reader. Resist the temptation to use them, and if you must, use them sparingly.
   2. Use standard characters. Avoid extending into complicated characters or symbols. Avoid font tricks that may not display on other systems. Unless you are sure your recipient's platform supports them, use *bracketed asterisks* for emphasis in preference to underlining, italics, or boldface.
   3. Use standard fonts. The existence of 117 fonts does not mean they are all useful. Pick one and stick with it. Nor is a funky font a fashion statement. The world runs on Arial, Courier, and Times Roman. So should you.
   4. Avoid e-pictographs (emoticons). We have all seen the lists of email pictographs (known electronically as emoticons) starting with the ubiquitous smiley :) and frowny :( . Go lightly on these. Unless you have a good reason to do otherwise, avoid them just as you avoid making hearts of the dots in handwritten i's.
   5. Punctuate and capitalize. These characters did not become redundant just because you can type without them, and you are not e e cummings copping a poetic attitude. Capitalization and punctuation are the interpretive grab-bags of text. They help define prose. Use them.
   6. Avoid over-punctuation. Punctuation assumes greater importance in email because punctuation marks are emotional countersinks. Deploy them lightly but thoughtfully:
      
      • "Thank you." sounds either milquetoast or grudging.
      • "Thank you!" sounds friendly and appreciative.
      • "Thank you!!" sounds wildly enthusiastic.
      • "Thank you!!!!!" sounds orgasmic (and causes the recipient to wonder if you have all your marbles).
   7. Don't shout with solid capitals. Email is not a telegram where solid-caps are permissible: in email, SOLID CAPS ARE SHOUTING AND THAT'S ANNOYING. Better you should use all lower-case than shout. Best, of course, is proper punctuation.

Home

ã Copyright 2002 David Alexander Smith