Email's Seven Deadly Sins

Email is the primary vehicle for business communication. Recent surveys estimate that the average worker spends more than four hours per day either reading or drafting emails. That's more than half an average workday. "Email is a to-do list you don't control," claims Aye Moah co-founder of the productivity software Boomerang. 

Because of its ease of use, email is often abused or taken advantage of when you send undeveloped messages and nonsensical and unnecessary replies. That's part of the reason that the average American has 199 unread messages in their inbox. How can you gain more control of email and help to assure that the messages you send are opened and read? Avoid these seven deadly sins of electronic communication:

1. Unclear subject lines. Want to get the recipient's attention? Use the subject line to let the reader know why you are writing. Avoid vague or cute phrases like, Hi. Hope You Are Well. Just Checking In. The subject line should make a crystal clear statement to recipients why they should open and read your correspondence.
2. Don't use all CAPS in the subject line because it connotes yelling, and no one likes to be yelled at. There's also a practical reason to avoid all caps. If you need to grab someone's immediate attention, let them know in the subject line.
3. Not taking advantage of CC and BCC. If you are copying coworkers, subcontractors or others merely to keep them in the loop, then do not include their email addresses in the "to" space. Instead, CC them which indicates I am sending you information, but you don't need to respond. Taking advantage of the CC and BCC tool will cut down on the number of unnecessary responses.
4. Be judicious sending emails on Mondays. The reason: A majority of people are cranky on Mondays according to recent studies and more likely to be error-prone. A Boomerang study found that Monday is the day of the week with the most negative email subject lines and negative subject lines are least likely to get a response.
5. Brevity and verbosity. The content you develop should correspond to the seriousness or complexity of the topic. If you want to grab a beer after work, you don't need to provide a dissertation on fermentation. However, if you are proposing a new concept or project, make sure that the reader has the content to evaluate what you are suggesting.
6. Missing opportunities to show appreciation. When appropriate use the closing to thank the reader for their attention, when you say thank you at the end of an email, your response rate is likely to increase by 36 percent versus other language used to close an email, according to Boomerang.
7. Expecting an immediate response. Don't confuse text messages with email messaging. If there is not a call to action in your email, consider that the reader has other things to do during the day and may not get around to responding to you immediately.