How to write an email?

If you write a "raise application" to the boss, even if the other side only reply two words "ok", it is very good to be moved. But if the mail comes from your headache seekers, even if the other side of the mail written in a "Orchid pavilion," may also escape the fate of "report as spam".

Therefore, this article only discusses: In the staff have basic professional quality, no injustice between colleagues and no one to the great aunt, how to write the other people feel professional and happy to respond to the message.

In addition, this is just a blog post, can not be exhaustive, just pick some fur to say. Otherwise, you should have a two-hour training to talk through.

Send out the mail and spill the water

Most of the "mail accident scene" comes from a momentary impulse.

Before replying to any message, please consider the following question: Will my email in court be an evidence against me? If you feel like you're not going to court for the rest of your life, change the question: On Weibo, does this email make me feel like a bad person?

In the digital age, mail is called "White bottom black word". Any screenshot, your email is a long microblog. A lot of "bad son" mail, although from a temporary brain heat, but has become the world's handle, follow a lifetime.

Even if you have a huge dissatisfaction, even to go with people in the conference Room a big fight, do not casually send an angry email.

Do not trust the "recall" feature provided by some enterprise mailboxes. Many people think that the emails they have withdrawn have been pushed to the BlackBerry users ' phones three seconds ago.

If you use Gmail, it is recommended to open a function called "undo". Like a hammer phone, it will delay sending your mail for five seconds. It is the only useful "recall" method in addition to cracking the other person's mailbox and deleting the message.

The best order to write new messages

The best order to write new messages should be: Attachment, body, title, recipient.

First, as its name suggests, attachments are the easiest thing to forget. So stick it in the mail first. Gmail has a "attachment to remind" function, but also need to open your own. If you mention the "attachment" of various languages in your email and forget to post it, it will pop up a reminder after you press "send".

Second, the title is placed after the text, because most mail clients will remind you that "no title is sent", and the recipient in the end, because there is no recipient, this email will not be sent out, which gives you enough time to aftertaste the omission of this email.

And, as the text progresses, you have a great chance of adjusting the headers and recipients of the message. So the order is also relatively good, will not wait for the mail to send out and then add a variety of people come in.

Don't turn words into pictures

In the past few years of observation, I have found that the personnel and administration colleagues like to make the text into pictures, and then posted in the mail.

This practice does not add any useful information, but it brings many disadvantages:

First of all, most people's aesthetic level than professional designers, which led to a lot of red bottom black word or red bottom yellow word, with densely-serrate "Weibei" or "official script" font of the mail, very difficult to read. But the sender also often feel that this is very festive, creating a peaceful atmosphere.

Second, more and more people on the phone to read the mail, which will let the other side of the time to see the message cost and flow costs greatly increased. I have received an email with a total of 500 words, but the other side made five PNG images totaling 2 MB, which made me miserable in driving.

Also, the text on the picture is not searchable, which means that your email is significantly less likely to be found in the future. I have not yet found any mail client or Web version built-in Evernote image text automatic recognition function.

Inverted pyramid Narration

If the most important thing that I learned when I was a journalist a few years ago is how to say something clearly.

The inverted pyramid narrative is very useful: at the beginning of the message, with a paragraph, concise summary of the effect, to explain "four W and a h"--who (WHO), what (What), when (when), why (Why), how (How). " If you can't tell the problem at first, most people are impatient to read the last paragraph and figure out what you really mean-unless you're an absolutely authoritative CEO.

Who--this means that you need to be clear about who your recipients are when the mail starts greeting, and it's best to identify the only person who owns the task (the so-called "owner"). If you are just a "hi" and have several recipients, then no one knows to respond to the email, and if you say hello to more than one person at a draught, the incident will fall through because all the recipients feel nothing.

What-you need to describe your needs or requirements, rather than "Chinese-style thinking" to make ambiguous statements, so there is no benefit to email communication. If you don't know what you want or want to say, don't send this email.

When--Define the time limit for this requirement. "As soon as possible" (ASAP) equals "No due date" most of the time.

Why--please let the other person understand the importance of this matter to the other person (the addressee), or at least to the team or the company, not to you (the sender). As the saying goes: "Who doesn't have anything to do at work?" Even if you are the other person's direct reporting object, in most cases, the ability to write clearly why is better than not to write can be more effective response.

How--all people who have done party B know that it is very difficult to deal with a message that has not been specifically instructed. Unless the sending and receiving parties already have a very clear context, such as telephone conversations a few minutes ago, or an emergency that cannot spend more time in an email, suggest a clear way of doing so.

Speak clearly these, then slowly expand Mail, erudite, list data, deduce flow.

With each other's language and way of thinking

Every company, even if only a five-person entrepreneurial team, there is a division of labor. The so-called "insiders", you can not ask others to your work at your fingertips, and can not assume that they are familiar with the business of other departments.

For example, when the marketing department deals with the operations department, it's time to break down the high-sounding expressions of advertising into business metrics that operations can understand and implement, less "recent growth", and more "the sales of goods with B attributes equal to C in the last 15 months of category A." Rather than the amount of sales) monthly.

When the PR department is dealing with the technology department, as far as possible should be their own needs into technical language, less say "I want to build a blog," said more "we need to be in a company and the main business is not related to the server to build a separate two-class domain name, using WordPress built, with MySQL Small web site for the database.

In my current job, I am primarily responsible for marketing and PR, not operations and technology. This is not a low requirement for most employees, but the requirement is more responsive and more accurate.

By the way, such emails can also give the person the impression that "this man is stronger than the other backseat." Communication is also smooth.

Use more points and use less noodles

I personally most afraid to see the mail, is the vast several large paragraphs (many of the paragraphs have not been separated, you still need to fill the empty line of the brain), need to laboriously pull the inside to dig out the other side of the focus, to digest and absorb.

and easy to understand the mail, is a lot of good points, 12345, concise. And there is no repetition between point and point, logic is clear.

Better mail is to divide complex things into chunks, each below a few dots, in order of importance and urgency, and the emphasis on the leak is marked with a yellow background, clear and happy.

Say more facts and less reason

This is a little hard to do. And that's what foreigners do better than the Chinese do generally.

It's like a debate on Weibo, for example, Liang Huan said that May days singing only 5 points, five fans should take out the May days singing is not out of tune evidence to refute, not to say you know how hard league, or blame Liang Huan want to red think crazy, or greet Liang Huan family. Because of all the speculation behind the motives or reasons, even if no evidence is not tenable, it is easy to be denied instantly and shot to death.

For example, when you send an email to an overdue project, the best way is to ask when you can do it, and the second way is to say that the project is overdue, and the worst way is to say, "Can your technical department not loose fishing such a simple demand?"

May the technical department have more important needs than your needs to deal with urgently? It's possible that the engineer who is responsible for your needs has some accidents in the house. Is it possible that your demand email was actually lost because of the spam business mailbox system?

In the mail "guess" not only easily hurt the gas, but also often let the sender into a huge passive.

And, in other words, many things can be solved by telephone or by meeting, far from the point of being wiped out in the mail.

Don't cc a bunch of people

First of all, in an e-mail, add more recipients, be sure to write at the beginning of the message "+john" and so on. This is respected by both the original recipient and the incoming recipient.

Second, each of the recipients should be related to what is mentioned in this email, so as not to make the addressee confused, not knowing what to say or do. And getting unrelated emails is a problem for most people.

Finally, it is taboo to add the wigs of a department or company to a message when the email discussion is in some kind of deadlock. A mature boss will not react immediately to an argument and will not risk offending a single person to make a decision.

Just like in the school exam, the teacher stood on the stage, nature can clearly see who is tricks, just silent.

The student raised by hand is not necessarily the most favoured in the class.

Ownership of the message

You should understand that in many countries and regions of the legal definition, the mail in the company's mailbox is the company's assets. This means that the company has the power to look at any one of your emails. And, on a company's computer, even letters sent by personal mailboxes may be defined as corporate assets.

This means that you do not use your company's mailbox to send things that should not be sent-including any discussion that violates company rules or local laws.

Punctuation

Finally, I would like to mention the problem that many people feel insignificant but "the speaker is not intentional, the listener intentionally".

Use punctuation marks, do not use Chinese and English punctuation, distinguish between the "ground", do not write typos, English words to space between, special nouns first letter capital ... These are the most basic writing requirements.

Higher business writing requirements also include tips for getting the recipient to read the message faster, such as adding spaces around the English word, such as a shorter clause, such as a uniform font, font size, text color, and so on.

Don't assume that your recipients don't see the details. Not everyone has Van Gogh's standards, but most people can still praise the stars.