Professional Email Etiquette 101

In the 21st century, technology has taken over when it comes to communication. Professionals rarely pick up the phone or send a letter due to the convenience of email. The real estate world relies on communication via email due to the simple fact of people having the option to respond when they can, and when they want.

Since email comes across as the most common communication source, here are a few helpful hints that will keep your emails professional:

• Keep emails short and sweet: When composing an email, always make sure you state your most important point first, and then you can provide further instruction, if necessary, throughout the rest of your message. The last thing the recipient wants to do is scroll through a long email, only to find the main point scattered at the bottom of the message. When opening a long email most people will scan through not wanting to read all of the content and possibly even set the email aside forgetting about it as a whole.

• Knowing and understanding the difference between "To" and "CC" fields: The people you expect to read and respond to your email should be placed under the "To" field. The "CC" field is for addressing people who should be in the know, but do not to respond. In most cases, the more people you send an email to, the less likely a single person will respond, or even perform any action that you had stated in your message.

• Realize how you are conveying your message: Since sending an email is different than a personal meeting, people can misinterpret your message if worded unprofessionally. Watching your tone is important when sending an email. This way you can avoid your message coming across as lost translation. The more "matter of fact" you can be is best in these types of situations.

• Stick to one subject per message: Recipients want to be able to respond to emails or questions one request at a time. Having multiple questions in one email can result in points getting missed and unanswered. If you need to convey more than one message, send multiple emails. By sending separate emails, you can properly address the subject line and make it easy to find when going back and trying to search for a saved message. This increases your chance of a prompt response.

• Always use an email signature: When emailing clients, it is critical to include a signature containing all of your contact information such as phone numbers, emails, extensions, and business titles. This will benefit both you and the recipient by cutting back on emails back and forth asking how to get in contact with you. This also makes your message professional which is important when talking to clients.

• ALWAYS use spell check: You are a professional – clients do not want to receive an email with grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors. Making this mistake will negatively reflect you and your company. The most noticeable errors are misspelled words. Since every computer has spell check, set it to automatically point out mistakes. Clients may think you are just sending a quick message and not giving it the time of day when responding, which only will look bad on you!

• Proofread your email before sending: As spell check catches majority of misspelled words, it does not catch your lack of wording. It is common for people to type on the spot and forget to add a word or two here and there when needing to send a message. Always observe and re-read messages before sending, even after you have spell check your email. You want to make sure you are communicating clearly to the client and purveying correct email etiquette.

To view the original article, visit the Lone Wolf blog.