Email: Love It Or Hate It?

When should you communicate through email?

Effective email can be a great method of communication between 2 or more people. Emails are effective when it is information or a question that you need to send or ask and the receiver doesn’t necessarily need to read or respond right away. If it is an asynchronous email, meaning that it does not require a reply in a set amount of time, then it could be done though an email. If it is an email that needs a reply immediately or both people are exchanging information back and forth, then it is best to use a telephone to quicken the action. Also if it is a delicate communication or a message that is more personal, it is better off to use the telephone or write the message in a letter and mail it to add that extra bit of personalization.

What do I do in the subject line?

Writing an effective subject line can make it easier for the receiver of an email to respond or read the message. When writing a subject line you want to keep in mind the 4 key points of writing; clarity, simplicity, brevity, and humanity. You want your message to be very clear and simple to understand, but short enough for the reader to be able to scan through many emails and find what he/she is looking for. You want to be very precise when writing a subject line, not broad. The reader should be able to read the subject line and know exactly what is in the email. Also you can write key words in the subject line such as “[URGENT]”, but if it is extremely urgent then use a telephone, not an email. Other key words such as , or end of message, can be used if there is no actual content in the email, just a short message in the subject line.

Who actually reads their emails these days?

Many people that use email as a main source of communication don’t have the time to read every single piece of email received, so instead they may just scan through what they receive. You want to be able to send an email that the receiver can read without actually “reading” it. The most basic way to send an email that has many different topics is to do in list form and in each number topic. Write the information needed for each topic and any action needed to follow it up afterwards. If you don’t want to send a list because one topic is more important than the other, then you can send each topic as an individual email. To do this have each message with the same subject line, but after the subject write (1 of 3) i.e. if it was the first of 3 messages. To save time from writing the subject line over and over, it may be easier to copy and paste the subject then add the message number after the subject.