Netpreneur

In the early days of your online venture, email is likely to be relatively light, but as traffic picks up, so will the email and it can be quite a juggling act keeping up with it all. I've been online now for many years and some days, my inbox just simple overflows and I do drop the balls from time to time.

Email is a vital line of communication with your visitors, clients and associates and the way you approach email communications can make or break your online business. Consider every note as an exercise in marketing.

The following tips can help you in honing your email communications skills:

• Whatever you send can be forwarded to others, so consider your responses carefully knowing that they could be published elsewhere or used against you at a later date.
   
• Email forgery is rampant, so don't assume that any message is from who it says it is; i.e. be careful what information you provide in a response
• Be careful with attachments as these can harbor viruses and other malware; so be sure to have a virus scanner running that's upt to date.
   
• Plagiarism applies to email communications, so cite all references and sources.
   
• Don't let others have access to your email account as you'll be responsible for anything they transmit.
   
• When forwarding a message, don't change the wording of the person you are quoting.
   
• When replying to a message, if the thread is lengthy, quote the relevant parts followed by your responses.
   
• Bear in mind that email communications lack some of the advantages of face to face communications, such as body language and tone; so be careful in using humor or sarcasm that may be misconstrued.
   
• Don't answer emails with single word responses, particularly without any of the original note included; the recipient may be a busy person having multiple conversations and have no idea what you're referring to.
   
• Take care not to respond when angry; once a message is sent, it cannot be retrieved. It's best to write out your response and then let it sit for a couple of hours before reviewing it and then sending.
   
• UPPER CASE LETTERS ALONE ARE CONSIDERED "SHOUTING" and very rude. Use proper casing.
   
• Use a  subject line that is relevant to the contents
   
• Don't use the "high priority" flag unless the email is actually urgent. Some people use this for every communication and in the end their notes are ignored or read later; and one of those notes may actually be important.
   
• Use signature lines, but keep them short. Use at least your first name in your signature; people want to know who they are communicating with.
   
• Always use an easily identifiable "From" name as generic names such as "Customer service" tend to be ignored.
   
• When sending attachments, use a file version which is likely to be supported by the recipient. 
   
• Large attachments over a few hundred kilobytes can really cause a bottleneck for recipients; particularly if they are on dialup. Always ask the recipient before sending a large attachment, or upload it to your site and provide them with a download link.
   
• When sending email to a list of people who may not know each other, use the Bcc (Blind carbon copy) field. This ensures that each person receiving the email will only see their name and not the whole list. 
   
• Read and respond to your e-mail regularly; aim to respond to people within 24 hours.
• Delete unwanted messages from your inbox regularly. This helps prevent important emails from being overlooked or deleted when you decide to purge a large number.
   
• Save important messages in a special folder email communications are considered to be legal documents. 
   
• Using fancy stationery or fonts in your email may look fine on your system, but can look terrible on someone else's. Plain text is the safest bet.
   
• If someone writing to you seems a little arrogant, don't return the tone. It may be that the person doesn't speak English as their first language, has literacy issues or is just having a really bad day. Give them the benefit of the doubt the first time around.

Human communications can be incredibly fragile; one misplaced word can destroy a potentially lucrative relationship - so always check over your responses before hitting that send button to try and ensure the message you're putting across is the one you wish to.

Tags: communications, email, online business