At the Coleman Center we know business owners and student-entrepreneurs are in need of finishing tasks and projects quickly and efficiently, but good communication practices is an area that can't be overlooked. Becca Berkenstadt, Marketing Intern, discusses some best practices when it comes to email communications.

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DePaul offers a course called Effective Business Communication. Dr. Whalen created this course to help students effectively communicate with their peers and members of the business community. I am taking this class this quarter, and one of the topics we discussed in class was how to write a good email that will provoke a reply from someone when you want a favor. Below is a summary of what I have learned so far.

Steps to writing a good email:

1.    Make sure you have a greeting. Most likely it will be “Dear”.

2.    The first sentence of your email should be a motivating sentence. This is a sentence that includes “you” and/or “your”, and never “I”, “me”, or “my”.

Ex. It was a pleasure meeting with you yesterday. 

3.    The next few sentences go on to ask for what you want like it is a great favor to you.

Ex. If you have time, could you possibly do me a favor? Could you please help me design a logo for my website?

4.    If you are asking for multiple favors, use bullet points or numbers to organize your questions. This insures that all your questions will get answered.

5.    Make sure to thank the person at the end of your email and do not forget to have a farewell, such as “Best” or “Sincerely”.

6.    You need an automatic signature after your farewell. The signature should look like this:

• Your full name
• Your title (if you have one)
• You phone number
• Your email address
• Leave a space
• A quote that means something to you

7.    When you are replying to an email always change the subject line to something interesting. This will keep your email on the recipient’s radar.

8.    All your emails should be written in a surf font to make them easier to read quickly. Surf font is a font with “feet” at the bottom of each letter, such as Times New Roman.

Writing emails using this format has helped me obtain faster, more concrete replies. If you would like more information on how to write a good email, read Dr. Whalen’s book, Professional Communications Toolkit.
 

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