Setup Your Email to Look Professional
August 9, 2007 · Print This Article
Taking a little time to think about how your email looks from the standpoint of the recipient can go along ways toward presenting a professional image. Here are eight things you should check to make sure that when you send an email it conveys the image you want.
- Setting Up Your Name to Show up Instead of Your Address - When you send an email, it should show your name in the from field. Sometimes people have it set to just show their email address. The worst setup is when it shows something like NA.
This is an example of what how your emails should not look to someone else:
This is an example of how the to field should appear when someone receives your message:
- Include Your Full Name - Some people like to use just their first name, but when the person receiving your message is scanning a list and sees “Tom” it may be difficult for them to know which “Tom” the message is from.
- Don’t Use a Nickname - I get emails from SmoothGeek and similar names. It is frustrating to try to figure out who the person really is. There might be a reason to use a nickname if you are concerned about privacy, but be prepared for people not to take you seriously because there doesn’t seem to be a real person standing behind the email.
- Avoid Complicated Formatting - Keep in mind that the email that looks really nicely formatted on your email client may get butchered by your recipient’s.
- Use Something Professional for the Username - EvilGoddess@gmail.com might have seemed like a good idea at the time. It might be great for your friends who get the joke, but someone who doesn’t know you may not draw the same conclusions.
- Use Your Own Domain - If you run www.mysite.com you should be able to send and receive mail from yourname@mysite.com. This isn’t as difficult as it sounds. If you like Gmail, you can get a customized version of the service for free by signing up here. The instructions are easy to follow. (If there is interest in seeing a walk through of how to use this, please leave a message in the comments and I’ll try to put something together.)
- Use Templates for Email - If you find yourself sending similar emails, you should probably invest in a template program. (MailTemplate for OS X is what I use.) Instead of starting each email from scratch a template will let you create a reply and automatically fill in certain fields (recipient name, etc.). You can then customize the message, but it is a lot easier to avoid mistakes if you aren’t starting from scratch each time. For example, I use this when people unsubscribe from the Email RSS feed. It grabs their email address from the notification messages and prepopulates an email with a message thanking them for trying the email list. While it would only take a few moments to write the email myself, the template helps make sure I don’t make a silly mistake and it is fast enough that I don’t put the task off for later.
- Avoid Long Signatures - Two to four lines should be more than enough. Resist the urge to include several paragraphs or your biography. Include a link. If someone wants to know more, they can follow it without cluttering up your messages. If you do go with a longer signature, don’t include it on your replies. Let people see it once, but don’t keep throwing it in their faces for the rest of the exchange.
Really good advice for people out there! I’ve found out it always helps to send a test email to myself once I have everything set up, in case I fudged up the signature, my name, or some other important part of my e-mail template.
This is a well thought out post. Professional looking email addresses and professional use of them is a great concept and idea. Its important, especially when putting it on a resume or other related places.
You mentioned the don’t use the first name. I agree, but have noticed a trend, and I have followed it, to have firstname@mydomain.com, for the actual email address. But in the name area it is always a good idea to put FirstName LastName.
I’d be curious to hear others thoughts on the firstname@mydomain.com approach, and whether or not they think a different approach is better. For example, what about first initial, lastname such as mmathson@mydomain.com or the corporate style, mark.mathson@mydomain.com.
I think the firstname, mark@mydomain.com gives a personal touch, and you can give your full name in the other details, including your signature. However, in medium, and large organizations it just isn’t feasible.
What do you think?
My email address is firstname@lastname.us, which is a domain both my husband and I use for email and hosting.
Both of us also use firstname.lastname@gmail.com
I personally agree with you, Mark. My email address(es) are all jason@DOMAIN. i.e. jason [at] jasonberlinsky -[dot]- com.
Jason
@Mark - I think the firstname@domain.com sends a particular message about your organization. I use that for this blog. However, for a business where their perceived size matters, it might be better to use firstname.lastname@domain.com or firstnamelastinitial@domain.com.
Hi, thanks for the great tips on setting up my very own professional look email.
I am currently using gmail as my email provider, keeps things organized, and many people already have this saved as my email. It works perfectly fine. I don’t think there is a need to change it to me.
I will give the template a try, as I tends to start from scratch on every clients correspondences.
Tuan
@Matt - Sending a test email to yourself is a good idea. It is best if you send it to an account without an address book. Many mail clients will replace the name with whatever you have in your address book, so you might not see what others are seeing.
I have been back in a working environment that gets hundreds of emails a week to plough through, and letters that follow a more professional approach to layout really do get my attention faster and longer.
One tip I can pass on is that recently I asked all my direct reports to help me by ensuring that each email is about a single topic, and that the subject line clearly describes that topic or matter. This way I can spend much less time tracking requests, decisions, urgent needs etc.
Wonder what others think?
Mark Taylor, West Sussex, England
At work I deal with a number of clients, and usually how they sign the email reflects the sophistication level of their organization management and operation very well. Sometimes it strikes me to see the manager with hundred people under him having no email signature at all. These are usually the people who answer only 1 question out of 10 in the email, don’t use punctuation, spellchecking and Capitalized Words and never return phone calls…
@Wake Up - Email signatures is an interesting thing to look at. I typically only use a signature if I’m writing to someone who doesn’t know me. If they know who I am, I feel it introduces visual noise. I never thought about it appearing unprofessional. On the other hand I hate getting messages with 20 or 30 lines of signature at the bottom containing a full biography and the blessing of the legal department.
@Wake Up and Mark Shead - I feel that an email signature only needs to be concise and doesn’t need to include a lot of details. Put only the essentials. (I feel adding your title and postal address of business is unnecessary and junks things up; Get that information to the person otherwise) You never should have to include your email address because they will already have it from your message header!
Here is an example of what I think fits the bill and is informative enough not to be intrusive:
–
Firstname Lastname
Company Name
I got cut off, here is my example:
–
Firstname Lastname
Company Name
Great suggestions and comments! Another professional thing to do is to list your attachments at the bottom of your message. Especially if it gets printed or saved w/o the attachments, a list of attachments is a handy (and classy) extra that my clients appreciate. I prefer this style:
Attachments:
– “file-1.doc” (Microsoft Word document, 123kb)
– “file-2.pdf” (PDF file, 234kb)
I use Martin Michel’s excellent Attache droplet to create the list automatically in Mail.app.
Cheers,
Paul Lagasse
I just ran into an interesting article at InformationWeek, via Lifehacker, that applies to this post.
At the cost of repeating earlier responses; This is a well thought out post and includes some very valid and important tips.
Many folks think it unnecessary, but my emails have become known for the way it is laid out / formatted
1. firstname.lastname shows in the ’sender’ to the receiver
2. Subject: [Matter or reference]: Specific description of content of the email. Eg: If I am writing an email to an autorepair shop regarding my car the subject would show: [Nissan Maxima GLE, 2003]: Appointment for 60,000mile service
3. Content: Date is always inserted. (I use Thunderbird and it has a nice extension which inserts the current date on rt click - no need to type the date!) Many folks feel this to be unnecessary, but it has become a habit and IMO, lends to a little ‘professionalism’ to the email.
4. The receiver is always addressed by name, if known. Eg: Tom, or Harry or Ms Smith - as the case may be and the situation warrants.
5. Keep the message brief and to the point. I write my email in the same basic format of a letter. I dispense with the need to indent new paragraphs etc. No ‘all lower case’ or ‘all upper case’ since it’s only an email.
6. Signature:
Firstname lastname
|T: 123-456-7890|C: 456-789-0123|F: 789-0123-4567|
Thank you for an informative article.
The problem with a long signature and showing it only once is that if someone quickly needs your information, they will rely on the fact that you had a signature, but may not remember in which email it was.
So I wouldn’t agree on sending the sig out only once. I think every message should have it, but I’m also in favor of a short signature. If you have the webspace, set up a contact page with exhaustive info, and a downloadable vCard.
@Arjun - Hm. That is a good point. The problem I run into is when you have an email exchange going back and forth every 2 or 3 minutes and one person has a huge signature and legal agreement at the bottom of their email. It just clutters things up and makes it hard to scan through the previous replies.
Well, personally, when I reply to a message, I do two things:
1) Only quote the parts necessary to understanding what I’ve written (cutting signatures, regards, greetings etc.)
2) I top-post, meaning I place the quoted bits above my corresponding reply. This makes for a more logical email, and you don’t have to have overflowing threads.
Back to the first name last name issue. My reasoning for not using my Last name in my email display is the fact that a lot of emails get distributed and forwarded multiple times.
Let’s say you forward a harmless joke email to a friend who then forwards it on to someone else who then replys back to that person with say a link to something unsavory. That email can be sent over and over to hundreds of people and somewhere in buried in that now unsavory email is your first and last name.
Not to mention the privacy concerns. With the pace that emails can get replicated who knows who is going to wind up with your first name / last name and email address.
I know these may be extreme, but in this day and age I’ve elected to keep as much information about myself as private as I possibly can.
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