That saying, “A picture paints a thousand words” is true. People are visual. What you need to say in an email to a client, prospective client or customer is important but how it visually looks helps determine not only if they read it but with what mindset they read it. Email messages filled with typos, mismatched fonts and other issues don't exactly scream “confidence”. To present yourself in the best light possible, be sure your emails look as good as they sound. 
Speaking of Bodies
- So the surgeon turns to the nurse and says, “Hey, toss me that sharp thingy so I can get to cuttin'”. Would you let him open you up? He may know how to use a scalpel with extreme precision, but if he cannot even remember it's name, do you trust him? The same goes for the body in email writing. While an email is not going to be as formal as a written letter would be, it needs to have correct grammar and punctuation. It will show the recipient that you can be trusted to know what you are doing.
- Keep it short and simple. Paragraphs should be separated by some white space to make them easier to read. You don't want to overwhelm the reader with a sea of text. Each paragraph should contain three to five sentences. This paragraph is a good example.
Because it is on a Computer
Society has gotten so used to sound-bites of information, that people make decisions much more quickly than they did in the past. While a novelist has to hook the reader within the first few pages, an email author only has a couple of sentences to do the same. Failure to do this is one reason why you may lose your email recipient to a quick game of Candy Crush or something equally as tempting on the computer.
Make those first two sentences count. Let them know right away why you have emailed them. Also, put the reason in the subject line. Many people delete emails when they can’t tell by the subject line what it is about.
The Outlook on Outlook
Outlook mail is the bane of existence for many people who deal with email, however, approximately 35 % of all email users have an Outlook account. The problem with Outlook is that it does its own hatchet job on emails. Background images? It cuts them out. Padding, forms and floats? According to Outlook they aren’t needed, so they are removed. The best way to ensure your emails look good when using Microsoft Outlook is to hand code them. Use a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor because it will automatically add your chosen styles to your code.
If you know anything about coding, you can set up your own email using HTML. If you can’t count yourself among the techies, however, you can use sites that will create HTML emails for you, such as Mailchimp or Aweber. You can also use a program such as Premailer or W3C Validator. These programs will alert you to mistakes in your coding or layout.
Before you ever send an Outlook email, do yourself a favor and print it out so you can see what it will look like when the intended recipient opens it.
Now for the Pretties
Your email needs to look pleasing to the eye, but this doesn't mean using background wallpaper patterns or colorful texts. This is a business email and needs to convey a professional tone to create the perfect email. Use a normal font such as Times New Roman 12 or Courier. Stick with black text and a white background. Save your creativity for the way you word it.
If you are going to include tables, graphs or other visuals, paste them directly into the email body. People are very leery of opening attachments on work computers. In fact, many companies have their computer network set up so that employee computers cannot open attachments.
Just as you would never leave the house for work without checking a mirror to be sure you look appropriate, your emails should undergo the same scrutiny. Before you hit that send button:
- Is the subject line relevant?
- Are the paragraphs short, clean and separated?
- Is the text in a uniform font?
- Are visuals pasted in and properly placed?
- Did you sign off with your name, phone number and extension?
- Did you print it out to be sure it looks the way you want it to?
If you must use Outlook for your emails, make sure you’re using a formatting method that renders them the way you want them to. Follow general best practices for email marketing and you’ll produce communications that work for you, regardless of your email client.
*Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
