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How to Mail a Business Contact for the First Time?
Mail has become one of the mainstream communication among the people. As it is faster than any medium of communication, it has become mandatory medium of communication, but still there are many people who will draft informal mail for a formal purpose, and later will get no reply for the same.
Especially for official purpose, mail has become the essential medium of communication. And I often receive emails from Students, Research scholars, Fresh graduates, etc.Most of the mails are with big blunders and mistakes. Most of them are.
This article will guide the readers who are not aware about the ethics of writing a mail to a first-time business contact. Following the below points will help you draft an email which elicits a reply from recipients.
Sender-Receiver
Before sending the mail, one should understand the receiver of the mail. Understand about the nature and position of the person. Mail should be drafted based upon the person. It is similar to the concept of letter writing, where we have two different types of letter such as formal letter and informal letter.
However most of the emails sent are formal in nature nowadays, as friends and colleagues prefer communicating through messaging apps nowadays. Most of the mails get deleted or unanswered because of the tone of the mail.
When to Send Emails with ‘CC’, ‘BCC’
To is someone whom you directly write the email. CC- Carbon Copy, is someone whom you want to intimate that you are writing mail “To” a concern person. BCC – Blind Carbon Copy, is someone whom you want to intimate about this mail hiding the person “To” whom you mail and “CC”. Kindly please understand this properly and use it accordingly.
Subject of Mail
Subject of the mail is very important part a mail. Reading the subject of the mail should make someone to get idea about what the mail would be. Often many will forget to send mails with Subject. Mails without subject is like human body without head.
Almost many readers will send those mails to the trash. Moreover the subject should be maximum of 4-5 words. Subject of the mail can be considered as keywords of the mail. Kindly avoid too many words in ‘subject’. You subject must be short and simple.
Body of the Mail
Body of the mail is the place where you have full freedom to handle. Following the below points in the same order will help you to draft a wonderful mail.
Salutation – People always confuse in the part of Salutation. If you know the name of the person or if you know the person already, you can directly use the name of the person prefixed with Dear, Hi, Hello. If you feel, you need to give respect to the person to whom you mail, you can add Mr. or Ms. People always have a doubt, whether to use Mrs. or Miss. For safer side, go with Ms.
Short Introduction about yourself (As you’re a stranger). Since your name will be in the mail id and you can add that in signature, try to avoid your name in the introduction. Stating your designation and organization would be fine in the short introduction. Let your introduction be 1 or 2 lines.
Short Background on the reason for your mail. You can write the reason and all the background details which would answers, ‘what for the mail is?’ Let your short background reason be 2-5 lines. Kindly avoid using big words, complicated words and dragging lines in your mail.
Get to the ‘Need’ Need is something you’re looking from the person to whom your mailing. Let your need be open and clear, so that you will get a proper response which you may be looking for.
Thank This is the place where you can show your gratitude. Thank the person who has read your mail. People always have a doubt whether to use Thanks or Thank or Thank you. Using Thank you will be awesome than anything else.
Inserting Signatures
This is the place where you can provide your personal details. Having Signature in the below format would be cool.
- Employee’s Full Name
- Designation in Company
- Contact Number (Optional)
- Alternate Email ID
- Office Address
- Link of Social networking Site(Preferably LinkedIn)
Sending Attachments
Out of 100 at least 50-70 people will forget to add the attachment in the mail, which they might have narrated in the Subject of the mail. Although Gmail has the facility to intimate the user on this, certain official mail services doesn’t have this facility.
Never send an .exe file in the mail as an attachment unless it’s really needed, as .exe files are often treated as viruses by the spam filters, so such emails are blocked. It’s advisable to upload the attachment before writing the email, because people tend to send the email without the attachment.
Most of the attachment will not have valid information. If the attachment is very large, one can use the common storage (cloud storage) than trying to sending in the mail attachment.
Automatic Reply & Short Reply
Most of the mailing service has the option of sending automatic reply to the mail. Automatic reply option has been introduced to help the received to respond to the mails in term of emergency, especially when the person is not available at the desk.
Often people understand this option wrongly and set automatically reply without any proper information. If you regularly check the mail (once in a day or two), it is better to avoid using the automatic reply.
Gmail has introduced instant reply for the mail service. One should be very careful in using this service, as it is often very small and doesn’t convey the required meaning. Based upon the nature of the person who has sent the mail, short reply can be used.
These are some of the points which one should understand and keep in mind while drafting a mail. One should understand that, mail doesn’t convey it also act as the official history of communication. And I hope this article might be useful for the readers on drafting a proper email.
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