Dr. E-Mail Wishes You A Happy New Year

E-Mails that are saved for reference to NOT belong in your Inbox. Create E-Mail folders for different references or sources and move these E-Mails to the relevant folder. The objective is to have no more than one page to scroll. If your in box is becoming bulkier by the day, you will soon find yourself lost in a sea of information and you will find it more difficult to prioritize what needs to get done.

Remember: Do not have more than one or two pages of E-Mails in your Inbox.

No Attachment is the Best Attachment!

Today's tip is regarding attachments that can be sent by E-Mail. The first rule is: No Attachment is the Best Attachment!

Attachments take time to download. The bigger the attachment, the longer it takes to download. If you mail a big attachment to many people, bandwidth could be clogged or wasted. They would also take up disk space on the recipient's computer.

Some E-Mail attachments may not be necessary. Consider faxing lengthy documents that might otherwise be E-Mailed. Or, if time is not really an issue, use regular mail services, UPS or Federal Express.

The Subject Line is your Message

The subject line is the most-read part of an E-Mail. Often, the E-Mail recipient decides whether to read your E-Mail or send it to trash based on the subject line. Not having a subject line or forgetting a subject line is even more of a guarantee that your E-Mail will not be read.

E-Mail marketing professionals live and die by subject lines. A good subject line will sum up what the message is all about, but still entice someone to open the message, read it, and take action. For E-Mail marketing, personalizing a subject line with your company’s name or the recipient’s name or other information can also lead to higher message open rates.

According to Jupiter Research, including the company name in the subject line can increase open rates by up to 32 percent to 60 percent over a subject line without branding.

E-Mail and Humor

E-Mail is a medium where communication is through words. This is just not the best medium to express emotions or use humor. The reason is because they don’t come across very well in an E-Mail. You may use emoticons to get over some of these shortcomings but there’s just no way to express tone, inflection, etc. Further, you will not be able to judge whether the recipient really understands that you are only joking. When you are having a conversation in person and happen to say something that the other person does not really appreciate, you can always say that you were only joking. This may not happen over E-Mail as never get to see the recipient's reaction, unless he or she writes back to say so. In that case, you can try and limit the damage already done.

So, the basic rule would be to avoid humor unless the recipient knows you well well enough to understand that you’re joking. It just is not worth the risk.

Anticipate

As email is a back-and-forth method of communicating, and it can take a day or more for a response (in some cases), you want to limit the number of times a message has to go back and forth. To do that, use “if … then” statements, anticipating the possible responses to your question.

By anticipating the possible responses, and giving a desired action for each possible response, you’re cutting a lot of wasted back-and-forth time.

One Screen Fits All!

Remember to keep the length of your E-Mail within one screen. Long, drawn out E-Mails can be cumbersome to your reader. They also could result in your E-Mail being on multiple screens. This would result in your reader having to scroll up to reread your message. Making it difficult for your reader to read your E-Mail is not effective E-Mail writing. Avoid long E-Mail messages. Avoiding long E-Mail messages is another way of stating that conciseness is important in effective E-Mail writing.

Email for Specific Audiences

Being aware of audience means taking a moment to think about the perspective of the person receiving the email - plus being focused on the purpose of the E-Mail. It helps to consider whether the message is being sent to a family member, a friend, a potential employer, or someone else encountered in the course of business. An E-Mail message to a family member or close friend usually does not require the same level of formality that would be used in a business setting.

If the person receiving the email appreciates brevity over formal grammar then it might be appropriate to abbreviate or add things like smileys. E-Mail sent as part of a business message should be brief and to the point, but should avoid abbreviations and grammar should be checked for obvious errors.

Out of Office Notification

If you are leaving on vacation or will be away from office for any reason, do not forget to redirect your E-Mail to another person who can deal with the E-Mails you received. Further, leave an Out of Office notification that will be sent as a reply to the E-Mail sender with details on who will be dealing with your E-Mails and when you are expected back. You may also give out the E-Mail and/ or telephone no. of the person handling your E-Mails.

If there is no one you can forward your E-Mails to, just mention in your Out of Office notification that you are out on vacation/ whatever reason. Mention the date you are expected to return. Also, customers would feel reassured if you tell them that you will contact them as soon as you are back.

Most importantly, do not neglect to deactivate the Out of Office notification as soon as you are back. People won't be impressed if they mail you and receive a reply saying the recipient will return on a date that has already passed.

Avoiding Spam

E-Mail has become ubiquitous as a communication tool today. With the rising usage of E-Mail comes the rising occurrence of spam. Here are some basic tips for avoiding or at least reducing spam in your in-box:

• Do not use your primary E-Mail address on message boards, online forums etc. Use a second 'disposable' E-Mail address for these websites.
• Avoid opening E-Mails from someone you do not know or do not trust. These could contain software or script which might harm your computer.
• Do not reply to a spam E-Mail. You are unknowingly just validating your E-Mail address as being currently live.
• Use anti-spam and filtering software. However, keep in mind that even the best anti-spam software cannot stop all the spam and some may even mark legitimate E-Mails as spam.
• If you are using an E-Mail client like Outlook or Thunderbird, instruct your antivirus software to scan incoming E-Mail.
• Install a spyware / malware checker and run it once a week to detect and remove any spyware or trojans.

Using a Signature File

You may attach a signature file to every outgoing message you send. , usually containing contact details and other relevant information. If you are in business you should almost certainly use an email signature in your communications. It is a great way to draw attention to products or services you offer, and you are making yourself easier to contact as well. Other uses for an email signature include:

• confidentiality statements
• drawing attention to web site addresses
• promoting something
• adding other contact details such as telephone or fax no.

Resize Pictures to Handy Proportions

Do not send multi-megapixel sized images weighing in tens of megabytes as this will only lead to the E-Mail server getting overloaded. Try to keep images to sensible proportions. E-Mail is not a high-resolution medium and you do not require anything more than 640 to 800 pixels width for an image to look good in E-Mail.

If you do need to send high-resolution images (maybe for printing), just compress them using ZIP or RAR formats to make them more portable and easy to handle.

Assume Nothing

Never assume that the recipient is familiar with the thinking behind the E-Mail at hand. If not, make sure that you let the person know the background and the issues. When following up, don't assume everyone remembers everything you've said earlier. If you've got any worries that an acronym, term, or reference is going to elicit a confused moment, it is better to explain it rather than having the recipient confused. Ask yourself if you are hiding anything from the reader unintentionally.

Using Filters to Sort E-Mail

If you receive a lot of E-Mail and your Inbox is getting too cluttered to focus on the important E-Mails, it would be a good idea to use filters in your E-Mail client to sort incoming E-Mail automatically.

First of all, you need to create new folders in your E-Mail client. Give them easily identifiable names like Friends, Work, Golf etc. Now you need to create filters which will act upon incoming E-Mail. You could set up a filter to send all incoming E-Mails from friends to go to the Friends folder. To do this, you need to tie your fiends' E-Mail IDs to the filter that forwards them to the Friends folder. Similarly, with other categories like Work, etc. You will find that your Inbox does not look too intimidating soon enough!

E-Mail is Asynchronous

The great element of E-Mail is that you read it when you want to read it. Those who check E-Mail every five minutes are using E-Mail in an undisciplined fashion. Reading and responding to every E-Mail immediately sets false expectations for those who send you E-Mail. It may be valuable to set a time within your E-Mail systems or through policy on when people should use E-Mail, thus establishing some clear disciplines on using E-Mail effectively.

E-Mail Contains Thoughts

E-Mail contains the thoughts of those who write the e- mail. As I have studied it more, I have come to realize that E-Mail contains attitude, issues, requests and knowledge on the writer. By employing business intelligence, these thought forms, embedded in E-Mail, can be extracted to serve many uses from security to customer care to analytics.

Avoid Sending Unnecessary Attachments

Use attachments sparingly. If the recipient has no need to view the whole document or edit it anyway, just use the text of the document as part of your E-Mail body. Attachments can be very heavy and have the potential to send an E-Mail system crawling on its knees. Also make sure to have effective anti-virus so that the documents you send are not infected.

Identify Yourself

If you are the person initiating E-Mail contact with someone, do not forget to include your name, profession or organization where you work, or any other important information to identify yourself. You could have this information in the first few sentences of your E-Mail as an intro.

If you are just following up on an earlier conversation or contact and are not sure whether the other person will remember you, drop a few casual hints or bring up a reference to the earlier conversation.

If you are E-Mailing someone outside your organization, it helps to have a signature line that includes your full name and/ or telephone number with a link to a blog or website.

Use a Meaningful Subject Line

A meaningful subject line is an important prerequisite of any E-Mail. The recipient most likely has many E-Mails in his Inbox. He or she is going to scan the Subject line quickly to narrow down the list of E-Mails on which to take action or read. If you do not have a meaningful Subject line, the recipient may not read it or worse, may even trash it without reading.

Take a moment to see whether the Subject line conveys the essence of what is in the actual E-Mail body before hitting that "Send" button.

Prioritize your E-Mail Content

If you have a lot of action points to discuss about, try to spread them over a few separate E-Mails. If it is a very long E-Mail, recipients may only read partway and hit "reply" as soon as they have something to contribute. It is quite common for them to forget to keep reading. This is part of human nature.  Spreading them over a few E-Mails reduces that risk. Alternatively, you may inform the recipient first up that there a lot of action points and you need them to read through all of them before replying. You may also consider numbering them and presenting them in order of importance.

Read Your E-Mail Before Sending

This is the most simple and basic rule one must follow before hitting that Send button. However, this is rule that is often ignored. Take time to proofread before your E-Mail and you avoid errors and misunderstanding. You can correct any mis-spelt words or wrong grammar. More importantly, you can also delete any inappropriate comment that might have got in inadvertently, saving you a lot of grief later on.

Avoid All-Capital Words and Abbreviations

Capital letters should be reserved for the beginning of sentences and proper nouns. Capital letters are akin to shouting on the web. It is not seen as a polite thing to do, and certainly not professional.

The same rule applies for abbreviations. They do not make for easy reading. Some abbreviations (like 'lol' for 'Laughing Out Loud') are considered juvenile and are not suitable at all for a professional environment. Likewise for smileys and emoticons, which are best avoided in a professional environment. You may, of course, use them when the recipient is someone you are very close to.

'High Priority' and 'Reply to All'

Do not abuse these functions in your E-Mail client or program. An email marked 'High Priority' could have a feeling of being more aggressive than it actually is. Moreover, excessive use might actually end up with the recipient not looking at your E-Mail.

Use "Reply to All" only if it is absolutely necessary for all the original  recipients to receive your reply.

Listen

Read phonetically

Dictionary - View detailed dictionary

Respond to E-Mails Quickly

People send you an e-mail because they expect a quick response. The rule is to respond to an e-mail within 24 hours and preferably the same day. If you can not immediately respond to a question, send an e-mail saying that you have received their E-Mail and that you will respond as quickly as possible. Thus, the person knows that you will get back soon.

Structure Your E-Mail

Reading on a screen is harder than reading a printed document. So be sure to structure your E-Mail. Use a clear layout. Short sentences and paragraphs make an E-Mail easier to read. If you are using a list, make sure to have bullets to delineate each point in the list.

Using the BCC Field

Use the BCC field when you do not want recipients to know who else you have sent the e-mail to. The BCC field ensures privacy of your contacts since recipients can not view this field. If you use the BCC field, but be sure to leave the 'To' or 'Reply To' blank, or your e-mail may be considered spam.

E-Mail Has Limits

Do not use E-Mail to avoid having a conversation. Do not send angry potentially inflammatory E-Mail when a heart-to-heart conversation either in person or over the phone is needed. E-Mail is not good for debates, accusations or personal attacks. E-Mail is really designed for convenience, not for urgency.

E-Mail is Not Equal

Not everyone has access to the same technology for viewing E-Mail. This means that some people can view HTML and text-based E-Mail, while others on old browsers and on many wireless devices can only see text E-Mail. Thus, be concise when writing E-Mail. This will become more and more important for wireless interactions because many have to pay by character received or sent. If you are participating in E-Mail marketing campaigns, ensure that your outbound message can be read by various browsers.

Anything You Send via E-Mail Could Be Used Against You!

As a medium of communication, E-Mail is not secure. Sure, E-Mail is fast and convenient. Suppose you have sent e-mail to a friend which also contains personal information about yourself. Your friend could easily forward the e-mail to someone you would never have sent your personal information to yourself. This could be inadvertent but the damage is done. There is no UNDO command for this! Therefore assume that everyone can read your e-mails. Do not send confidential information via e-mail.

Offensive language, racist or discriminatory language also could end you up in trouble, even if you meant just humor. Remember the bottom line: Anything You Send by E-Mail Could Be Used Against You!

E-Mail is Personal

E-Mail, whether formal or informal, is a very personal medium similar to personal conversation. If you send an E-Mail to someone and he/she does not respond, you will feel anxious and disappointed. Use auto-acknowledgement and out-of-office replies appropriately to let people know you received their E-Mail communication. If you are using auto-responders, avoid E-Mail loops by using varying "from" addresses. Use clear signature names at the footers so everyone knows exactly who is writing to them and how to contact the sender.

In an e-mail campaign, use personalization features for your mailing list in the program you use. "Dear John" sounds more intimate that "Dear Customer". Sometimes, it may mean the difference between the recipient reading your e-mail rather than consigning it to Trash.

E-Mail Is Not Free

One of the erroneous assumptions is that E-Mail is free. E-Mail is not by any means free. There are many direct and indirect costs associated within this medium. As mentioned in previous articles, it costs money for an organization to handle an inbound customer E-Mail. However, beyond this there are other costs. Spam or junk e- mail costs money to read, process, store and delete. E-Mail containing viruses has many side effects including loss in productivity and potential destruction of valuable information. Large attachments require additional space. Chain letters, forwarding of jokes and participation in flaming debates via E-Mail add to these costs.

Recognize that every E-Mail interaction has a cost including your time, computer hardware and software costs and IT personnel time to maintain the systems. Be frugal with E-Mail; if you're not paying for it, someone is.

E-Mail Can Be Confusing

While E-Mail is great for communicating fast and easily, it can be confusing because the sender and receiver of such communications only see words ­ not gestures and emotions. Therefore, precision is central to E-Mail communications. Do not use capitalization unless it is necessary. Avoid sarcasm, as this can be very dangerous. For example, "What are you talking about?" can be construed in many ways: a joke, an attack or a sarcastic remark. Use a clear subject line, signature line, header, body and footer in all E-Mail communications.

Fowarding A Chain of E-Mails

When you forward a chain of e-mails to someone, add a note of explanation before the series of forwarded messages. Do not expect them to burrow through your e-mail and read every linked message if you just forward them without any explanation. Take the time to explain your reasoning or what you want you to focus on. It is then easier for the person to whom you are you sending the e-mail to respond to the question at hand rather than be puzzled about what exactly you require or expect.

Be Safe When Sending Jokes or Sarcastic E-Mail

Sending jokes or sarcastic e-mail to people you are not too familiar with could create unpleasantness, when the other person is offended by or misunderstands your jokes or sarcasm. In general, avoid sending such e-mail to people you do not know very well.

Use your address book. It is there for a reason! Create a group and add only people you know very well to this group. If you really have that urge to forward or send a joke to a friend, just send them to this group alone.

E-Mail Has Permanence

Each E-Mail you send is more than likely saved or archived on your computer system or on the recipient's system; therefore, do not assume that an E-Mail message no longer exists, even if you delete what you received or sent. Your thoughts and interactions with others, via E-Mail, are archived and saved, potentially for posterity.

In financial services organizations, all data must be saved for a minimum of seven years. Think about what you are writing and what legacy you are leaving through such communications. E-Mail communications can be presented in a court of law.

E-Mail Reflects You and Your Organization

When you write an E-Mail, you are mirroring your thoughts and feelings in the electronic medium. It is important to understand the difference between writing an informal and a formal E-Mail. Sometimes it is okay to be funny and joking; that is the nature of the E-Mail medium. However, in business communications, err on the side of formality by spell checking, grammar checking and following proper etiquette of writing with proper headers and footers on all E-Mail communications.

For organizations, every E-Mail sent to a prospect or customer reflects your organization's brand. Set standards, protocols and templates to ensure that the millions of E-Mails that are sent do not erode your brand, but rather enhance it through each communication. Within each communication, be concise with clear objectives and the result you hope to achieve.

E-Mail is not "private."

You may think that any E-Mail you send is only intended for the recipient; however, E-Mail can be easily forwarded, or the recipient of your E-Mail can reply while copying or blind copying a host of others. On a different level, following 9-11 and the Homeland Security initiatives, all of our E-Mail is accessible by the government at any time and any place regardless of the level of security and encryption. From a corporate perspective, the company owns any and all E-Mail transactions made on the company's server. Also, those sending E-Mail must be aware of hackers and thieves. Be particularly careful to avoid sending passwords, credit card numbers and other personally identifiable information via E-Mail.

Contacts List - How Real Is Yours? Part 2

As I told you yesterday, your contact list of E-Mail addresses may consist of any of the below, resulting in your Mailings reaching fewer contacts than you would have thought:

• Invalid E-Mail Addresses
• Duplicates
• Bounce-backs

I told you about Invalid E-Mail addresses yesterday. Duplicates are simply what they seem: same E-Mail addresses repeating in your list. This is typically the result of gathering your Contacts from multiple sources. Nevertheless, they need to be eliminated from your Mailings lest users accuse you of spamming their inbox.

Bounce-backs are a totally different ball-game. These are addresses in valid E-Mail format, but messages do not get delivered to them for various reasons. Some reasons are that the E-Mail address does not actually exist, the user account is deactivated, the user's mailbox is full etc.

Situations like the E-Mail address not existing are more permanent and are typically called hard-bounces. Those like the user's mailbox being full are more temporary and are typically called soft-bounces. The point is that soft-bounces can be re-tried later for delivery, while hard bounces will seldom be delivered unless there is a manual intervention.

[ I am using the rider typically as there is no standard definition of what constitutes a hard vs soft bounce - some advocate using error codes, some to base it on at what point it happens etc. However, the basis of how permanent it is a reasonable indicator of the distinction.]

Watch out for such invalid addresses in your Contact list. They effectively bring down your list size by that many.

Contacts List - How Real Is Yours?

You may think you have a contact list of E-Mail addresses, numbering say 5000. Does that mean when you send out a Mailing to these addresses, it is going to be delivered to 5000 people? Most likely not!

Depending on the process you followed to gather these E-Mail addresses, your list may consist of any of the below:

• Invalid E-Mail Addresses
• Duplicates
• Bounce-backs

Invalid E-Mail Addresses: If you have customers registering via a form on your website, and the form does not contain appropriate validation code, you may end up with invalid E-Mail addresses. In some cases, they are mistyped, and in others, people just give it intentionally in order to quickly get over the form and access whatever you have on your website that follows the submission - say a white paper download.

Watch out for such invalid addresses in your Contact list. They effectively bring down your list size by that many.

I will tell you more about the other types of 'non-Contacts' tomorrow.

10 Principles of E-Mail

V.A. Shiva

Q. Our organization uses E-Mail extensively, and I am becoming increasingly concerned that we are not using E-Mail responsibly. What is your advice on when to use E-Mail and when not to use E-Mail?
A. E- Mail is fast becoming the primary means for both business and personal communications; however, as with any powerful capability, there also comes an equal amount of professional responsibility. Relative to your question, I will offer you Dr. E-Mail's 10 Principles of E-Mail as the basis to build your corporate E-Mail best practices. There are hundreds of "E-Mail best practices" statements; however, by understanding 10 key principles, you can develop and customize the particular policies best suited to your organization.


1. E-Mail is not "private." You may think that any E-Mail you send is only intended for the recipient; however, E-Mail can be easily forwarded, or the recipient of your E-Mail can reply while copying or blind copying a host of others. On a different level, following 9-11 and the Homeland Security initiatives, all of our E-Mail is accessible by the government at any time and any place regardless of the level of security and encryption. From a corporate perspective, the company owns any and all E-Mail transactions made on the company's server. Also, those sending E-Mail must be aware of hackers and thieves. Be particularly careful to avoid sending passwords, credit card numbers and other personally identifiable information via E-Mail.

2. E-Mail reflects you and your organization. When you write an E-Mail, you are mirroring your thoughts and feelings in the electronic medium. It is important to understand the difference between writing an informal and a formal E-Mail. Sometimes it is okay to be funny and joking; that is the nature of the E-Mail medium. However, in business communications, err on the side of formality by spell checking, grammar checking and following proper etiquette of writing with proper headers and footers on all E-Mail communications. For organizations, every E-Mail sent to a prospect or customer reflects your organization's brand. Set standards, protocols and templates to ensure that the millions of E-Mails that are sent do not erode your brand, but rather enhance it through each communication. Within each communication, be concise with clear objectives and the result you hope to achieve.

3. E-Mail has permanence. Each E-Mail you send is more than likely saved or archived on your computer system or on the recipient's system; therefore, do not assume that an E-Mail message no longer exists, even if you delete what you received or sent. Your thoughts and interactions with others, via E-Mail, are archived and saved, potentially for posterity. In financial services organizations, all data must be saved for a minimum of seven years. Think about what you are writing and what legacy you are leaving through such communications. E-Mail communications can be presented in a court of law.

4. E-Mail can be confusing. While E-Mail is great for communicating fast and easily, it can be confusing because the sender and receiver of such communications only see words ­ not gestures and emotions. Therefore, precision is central to E-Mail communications. Do not use capitalization unless it is necessary. Avoid sarcasm, as this can be very dangerous. For example, "What are you talking about?" can be construed in many ways: a joke, an attack or a sarcastic remark. Use a clear subject line, signature line, header, body and footer in all E-Mail communications.

5. E-Mail is not free. One of the erroneous assumptions is that E-Mail is free. E-Mail is not by any means free. There are many direct and indirect costs associated within this medium. As mentioned in previous articles, it costs money for an organization to handle an inbound customer E-Mail. However, beyond this there are other costs. Spam or junk e- mail costs money to read, process, store and delete. E-Mail containing viruses has many side effects including loss in productivity and potential destruction of valuable information. Large attachments require additional space. Chain letters, forwarding of jokes and participation in flaming debates via E-Mail add to these costs. Recognize that every E-Mail interaction has a cost including your time, computer hardware and software costs and IT personnel time to maintain the systems. Be frugal with E-Mail; if you're not paying for it, someone is.

6. E-Mail is personal. E-Mail, whether formal or informal, is a very personal medium similar to personal conversation. If you send an E-Mail to someone and he/she does not respond, you will feel anxious and disappointed. Use auto-acknowledgement and out-of-office replies appropriately to let people know you received their E-Mail communication. If you are using auto-responders, avoid E-Mail loops by using varying "from" addresses. Use clear signature names at the footers so everyone knows exactly who is writing to them and how to contact the sender. In outbound broadcast e- mail marketing, the more you segment, target and personalize your mailing lists and your content, higher clickthrough, open rates and sales will be realized.

7. E-Mail is not equal. Not everyone has access to the same technology for viewing E-Mail. This means that some people can view HTML and text-based E-Mail, while others on old browsers and on many wireless devices can only see text E-Mail. Thus, be concise when writing E-Mail. This will become more and more important for wireless interactions because many have to pay by character received or sent. If you are participating in E-Mail marketing campaigns, ensure that your outbound message can be read by the different browsers.

8. E-Mail has limits. Do not use E-Mail to avoid having a conversation. Do not send angry potentially inflammatory E-Mail when a heart-to-heart conversation either in person or over the phone is needed. E-Mail is not good for debates, accusations or personal attacks. E-Mail is really designed for convenience, not for urgency.

9. E-Mail contains thoughts. E-Mail contains the thoughts of those who write the e- mail. As I have detailed in a previous column, E-Mail contains attitude, issues, requests and knowledge on the writer. By employing business intelligence, these thought forms, embedded in E-Mail, can be extracted to serve many uses from security to customer care to analytics.

10. E-Mail is asynchronous. The great element of E-Mail is that you read it when you want to read it. Those who check E-Mail every five minutes are using E-Mail in an undisciplined fashion. Reading and responding to every E-Mail immediately sets false expectations for those who send you E-Mail. It may be valuable to set a time within your E-Mail systems or through policy on when people should use E-Mail, thus establishing some clear disciplines on using E-Mail effectively.

V.A. Shiva, also known as Dr. E-Mail, is the chairman and CEO of EchoMail, Inc. Shiva created one of the world's first E-Mail systems for which he was recognized with the prestigious Westinghouse Science Award. Shiva founded EchoMail in 1994 to provide advanced business intelligence technologies for E-Mail management.

Shiva may be reached at dremail@dremail.com