1. Know why you are writing

Before you type anything into a new message, have explicit answers for two questions:

1. Why am I writing this?
2. What exactly do I want the result of this message to be?

If you can’t succinctly answer these questions, you might want to hold off on sending your message until you can. People get dozens, hundreds, even thousands of emails each day, so it’s only natural for them to gravitate toward the messages that are well thought-out and that clearly respect their time and attention. Careless emails do not invite careful responses.

Think through your email from the recipient’s point of view, and make sure you’ve done everything you can to try and help yourself before contacting someone else. If it’s a valuable message, treat it that way, and put in the time to making your words count.

2. Get what you need and keep your friends

Although the possible topics and content of messages are theoretically endless, I’d propose that there are really just three basic types of business email.

1. Providing information - “John Tate will be in the office Monday at 10.”
2. Requesting information - “Where did you put the ‘John Tate’ file?”
3. Requesting action - “Will you call John Tate’s admin to confirm our meeting on Monday?”

It should be clear to your recipient which type of email yours is. Get the details and context packed into that first sentence or two whenever you can. Don’t be afraid to write an actual “topic sentence” that clarifies a) what this is about, and b) what response or action you require of the recipient. Keep it concise, and assume that no one will ever read more than the first sentence of anything you write. Making that first sentence strong and clear is easily the best way to interest your recipient in the second sentence and beyond.

Which is better?;

‘Please make sure the Executive Suite has been reserved all day and that the caterer has been notified of the location change. I need a reply today by 5pm. ’

‘Since John Tate’s meeting on Monday has been moved from the Board Room, could you please make sure the Executive Suite has been reserved all day and that the caterer has been notified of the location change? Could you please reply to me today by 5pm. Thanks’

The second version, although slightly longer contains a reason for the action required plus some ‘relationship’ language that makes the request more reasonable.

3. Write a meaningful subject line.

Recipients scan the subject line in order to decide whether to open, forward, file, or delete a message. Remember -- your message is not the only one in your recipient's mailbox.

Subject: "Important! Read Immediately!!"

What is important to you may not be important to your reader. Rather than brashly announcing that the secret contents of your message are important, write an informative headline that actually communicates at least the core of what you feel is so important: "Emergency: All Company Cars in the Visitors Bays Will Be Clamped in 1 Hour."

Consider the following subject lines:

1. Subject: "Meeting"

The purpose of this e-mail might be a routine request for a meeting, an announcement of a last-minute rescheduling, or a summary of something that has already happened. There's no way to know without opening the message, so this subject line is hardly useful.

2. Subject: "Follow-up about Meeting"

Fractionally better -- provided that the recipient recognises your name and remembers why a follow-up was necessary.

3. Subject: "Do we need a larger room for meeting next Fri?"

Upon reading this revised, informative subject line, the recipient immediately starts thinking about the size of the room, not about whether it will be worth it to open the e-mail.

The average e-mail account get dozens of virus-bearing junk mails each day, often bearing a vague title such as "That file you requested," or no title at all. You'll get a faster response if your recipient can tell from the subject line that it's a real message from a real person.

You can make it even easier for your recipient to immediately understand why you’ve sent them an email and to quickly determine what kind of response or action it requires. Compose a great “Subject:” line that hits the high points or summarises the thrust of the message. Avoid “Hi,” “One more thing…,” or “FYI,” in favour of typing a short summary of the most important points in the message:

• Lunch rescheduled to Friday @ 1pm
• Reminder: Monday is "St. Patrick’s Day"–no classes
• REQ: Please resend John Tate zip file? eom
• HELP: Can you defrag my C drive?
• Thanks for the new liver–works great!

In fact, if you’re relating just a single fact or asking one question in your email, consider using just the subject line to relate your message. In some organisations, such emails are identified by adding (EOM)—for end of message—at the end of the Subject line. This lets recipients see that the whole message is right there in the subject without clicking to the view the (non-existent) body. This is highly appreciated by people who receive a large volume of mail, since it lets them do a quick triage on your message without needing to conduct a full examination.

4. Keep the message focused and readable. 

Often recipients only read halfway through a long message and immediately "reply" as soon as they have something to contribute, and forget to keep reading. This is part of human nature.

If your e-mail contains multiple messages that are only loosely related, in order to avoid the risk that your reader will reply only to the first item that grabs his or her fancy, you could number your points to ensure they are all read (adding an introductory line that states how many parts there are to the message). If the points are substantial enough, split them up into separate messages so your recipient can delete, respond, file, or forward each item individually.

Keep your message readable.

• Keep your message concise. Remember that the view screen in most e-mail programs shows only approximately one half of a hard-copy page. Save longer messages and formal reports for attachments. On the other hand, do not keep your message so short that the reader has no idea what you’re talking about. Include at least a summary (action or information?) in the first paragraph of your message.

• Use standard capitalisation and spelling, especially when your message asks your recipient to do work for you. If you are a teenager, writing a quick gushing "thx 4 ur help 2day ur gr8" may make a busy professional smile at your gratitude... but there comes a time when the sweetness of the gesture isn't enough. i dont think u want ur prof r ur boss 2 think u cant typ LOL ;-)
• Skip lines between paragraphs.
• Avoid fancy typefaces. Don't depend upon bold font or large size to add nuances -- many people's e-mail readers only display plain text. In a pinch, use asterisks to show *emphasis*.
• DON'T TYPE IN ALL-CAPS OR USE ITALICS OR USE EXCESSIVE PUNCTUATION!!!!!!!!?????. Online, this means shouting. Regardless of your intention, people will react as if you meant to be aggressive.
• Don’t type in all lower case. If you violate the rules of English grammar and usage, you make it difficult for the reader to read.
• Don’t “spam” your readers. Don’t send them unnecessary or frivolous messages. Soon, they’ll stop opening any message from you.

Brevity is the soul of getting a response. It’s completely depressing to check your email at 4:55 in the afternoon to discover a gothic novel of a message waiting for you, spilling down your screen the distance of 2 or 3 scrolling pages. It’s certainly not the kind of thing that excites the desire to engage and respond. I mean just look at all that!

There’s one visual trick most likely to improve your message’s success: fit it onto one screen with no scrolling. There’s a reason internet ads placed “at the top of the page” cost a lot more than the ones stuck down at the bottom; it’s the only part of the page that you’re virtually assured that anyone will see.

Whenever you can, try to distill your beautiful epistle down to just one or two points about a given topic, and then whittle that down to the point where there’s plenty of white space left underneath your closing. Got more to say? Put it in separate emails with—again—excellent Subject lines, and a descriptive, concise opener.

5. What’s the action here?

If your message includes any kind of request—whether for a meeting, a progress update, or what have you - put that request near the top of the message and clearly state when you will need it. Do not, under any circumstances, assume that your overwhelmed recipient will take the time to sift through your purple prose for clues about what they’re supposed to be doing for you.

Depending on the style of your team and the volume of mail they create, you might even consider adding functional text headers to the top of the body outlining the exact nature of the message.

This email is:            [ ] actionable           [x] fyi                      [ ] social

Response needed:    [ ] yes                     [x] up to you            [ ] no 

Time-sensitive:          [ ] immediate           [ ] soon                   [x] none

Sure, it’s techy, but how many minutes have you wasted panning through a sloppy “project update” email only to completely miss the changed deadline or work request buried in the penultimate paragraph?

6. Avoid attachments. 

Put your information the the body of your e-mail whenever possible. Attachments

• are increasingly dangerous carriers of viruses
• take time to download
• take up needless space on your recipient's computer, and 
• don't always translate correctly (especially for people who might read their e-mail on portable devices).

Instead of sending a whole word processor file, just copy and paste the relevant text into the e-mail (unless of course your recipient actually needs to view file in order to edit or archive it).

7. Identify yourself clearly. 

When contacting someone cold, always include your name, occupation, and any other important identification information in the first few sentences.

If you are following up on a face-to-face contact, you might appear too timid if you assume your recipient doesn't remember you; but you can drop casual hints to jog their memory: "I enjoyed talking with you about PDAs in the elevator the other day."

8. Be kind. Don't flame.

To "flame" someone is to write an abusive personal attack. If you find yourself writing in anger, take a break. Take some time to cool off before you hit "send." Don't "flame" without weighing the consequences.

The "flame" is a long-established Internet tradition. 

When groups of people gather, they signal status by who gets the comfy chairs, who can talk and who must listen, etc.  Online communities don't provide these physical signals, so the words you use become even more important.

Flaming anyone who (intentionally or otherwise) threatens the cohesion of the group helps online communities uphold hierarchy, define membership, and forge allegiances.

But the relationship between boss and employee is not primarily social. Because the power differential complicates the situation, the rules of etiquette are stricter. 

If you flame your boss that message will probably surface someday when you're up for promotion or you want a letter of recommendation. 

If you flame a subordinate (especially in public), then you damage that person's trust in your leadership, and you probably won't get that person's best work in the future.

Praise in public, criticise in private. If you want to complain about someone, do it in person or by telephone, so there won't be a permanent record.

9. Proofread. 

If you are asking someone else to do work for you, take the time to make your message look professional.

While your spell checker won't catch every mistake, at the very least it will catch a few typos. If you are sending a message that will be read by someone higher up on the chain of command or if you're about to mass-mail dozens or thousands of people, take an extra minute or two before you hit "send". Show a draft to a close associate, in order to see whether it actually makes sense.

10. Don't assume privacy.

Unless you are Alan Sugar, praise in public, and criticise in private. Don't send anything over e-mail that you wouldn't want posted - with your name attached - on the office notice board. 

E-mail is not secure. Just as random pedestrians could easily reach into your mailbox and intercept the envelopes that you send and receive through the post office, a curious hacker, a malicious criminal, or MI5 can easily intercept your e-mail. In some companies, the e-mail administrator has the ability to read any and all e-mail messages (and you may subject to disciplinary action if you write anything inappropriate).

11. Distinguish between formal and informal situations. 

When you are writing to a friend or a close colleague, it is OK to use "smilies" :-) , abbreviations (IIRC for "if I recall correctly", LOL for "laughing out loud," etc.) and nonstandard punctuation and spelling (like that found in text messages, instant messaging or chat rooms). These linguistic shortcuts are generally signs of friendly intimacy, like sharing gossip with a family friend. If you tried to share that same gossip with a visiting dignitary, you would give off the impression that you did not really care about the meeting. By the same token, don't use informal language when your reader expects a more formal approach. Always know the situation, and write accordingly.

12. Respond Promptly. 

If you want to appear professional and courteous, make yourself available to your online correspondents. Even if your reply is, "Sorry, I'm too busy to help you now," at least your correspondent won't be waiting in vain for your reply.

13. Show Respect and Restraint

Many a flame war has been started by someone who hit "reply all" instead of "reply."

While most people know that e-mail is not private, it is good form to ask the sender before forwarding a personal message. If someone e-mails you a request, it is perfectly acceptable to forward the request to a person who can help - but forwarding a message in order to ridicule the sender is unprofessional.

Use BCC instead of CC when sending sensitive information to large groups. (For example, a university lecturer sending a bulk message to students who are in danger of failing, or an employer telling unsuccessful applicants that a position is no longer open.) The name of everyone in the CC list goes out with the message, but the names of people on the BCC list ("blind carbon copy") are hidden. Put your own name in the "To" box if your mail editor doesn't like the blank space.

Be tolerant of other people's etiquette blunders. If you think you've been insulted, quote the line back to your sender and add a neutral comment such as, "I'm not sure how to interpret this... could you elaborate?"

Sometimes E-Mail is Too Fast!

A colleague once asked me for help, and then almost immediately sent a follow-up informing me she had solved the problem on her own.

But before reading her second message, I replied at length to the first. Once I learned that there was no need for any reply, I worried that my response would seem pompous, so I followed up with a quick apology:

"Should have paid closer attention to my e-mail."

What I meant to say was "[I] should have looked more carefully at my [list of incoming] e-mail [before replying]," but I could tell from my colleague's terse reply that she had interpreted it as if I was criticising her.

If I hadn't responded so quickly to the first message, I would have saved myself the time I spent writing a long answer to an obsolete question. If I hadn't responded so quickly to the second message, I might not have alienated the person I had been so eager to help.