Five ways to write official emails like a pro

The average employee sends out at least an official email every day. Whether it’s to correspond with colleagues, bosses, or clients, there’s always a reason to draft an email. Unfortunately, what should be a core strength among most employees is done wrongly.

If you’re on this table and cannot seem to draft a satisfactory official email, then you may want to read through this article.

Writing an official email is not as hard as some might think it is, however, it does require paying attention to detail to make sure that the intended message is passed across smoothly and without error.

Here are some tips to help in writing a great email:

• Begin With A Straightforward Subject

One of the important parts of an official email is the subject line. This is the first contact a recipient has with an email and hence, you’d want to keep it as clear as possible.

Do away with subject lines which partially pass across the message intended. For instance instead of using the subject line: “Team Meeting Rescheduled”, opt for; “Team Meeting Rescheduled To Thursday, October 1”. This way, when a recipient looks through their inbox, the subject would motivate them to open up the email.

• Make Your Message Clear And Concise

You’ll agree that even you would not spend more than a few minutes or seconds scanning through emails. As is already established, the average person has a very limited attention span. This means that it will be difficult to expect a recipient to spend more than a few minutes reading through an email thoroughly.

For this reason, it is important to always keep the messages clear and straight to the point. The first step to passing across a message clearly and concisely is to understand the message you’re passing across. For instance, should the information you want to pass across be that the team meeting has been rescheduled to Thursday, October 1. You’ll want to do this with as few words as possible.

Consider words, phrases and clauses which express this idea the simplest and opt for them. Additionally, leave out unimportant information when drafting an email.

• Use An Official Automatic Signature

For formal purposes, it goes a long way to attach an automatic signature to your emails. Signatures are features which contain relevant information about an email user such as name, contact information, designation, and even website address.

As one who’ll be corresponding across several official personas, it is important to make use of official signatures. Make sure to fill out your details correctly. So double-check your name that there are accurately spelt, mind that your contact info is complete and correctly entered, as well as other information.

Oh, quotes look really cool in signatures so you may also try including your favourite quote as well. Only make sure it is appropriate for the work environment. 

• Put The Most Important Info First

Remember how we mentioned that people rarely have a lot of attention span these days? You wouldn’t want to place the most important information in your email last.

Using the illustration we’ve been using so far, an email announcing the rescheduling of a team meeting should convey the rescheduling info and notice in the first paragraph [if at all the email is more than a paragraph].

• Use Tools To Emphasize Important Info

Another way to emphasize the most important details in an information you’re passing across is to make use of writing tools available in your email draft.

Tools like the BOLD feature and coloured text when used on a word or group of words conveying the most important ideas in a message. For instance, this text; “Kindly note that the Team Meeting earlier scheduled for September 31 has now been moved to hold on Thursday, October 2nd. By emphasizing the new date with a red ink and putting it in bold, the recipient would most likely go straight to the group of words in red coloured ink.

Do these tips come in handy? Let us know in the comment section.