How to Write Fabulous Business Emails

To: All Student and Alumni Mu Phi Epsilon Members Subject: How to Write Fabulous Business Emails — Please Save! From: extensionofficer@muphiepsilon.org (Julia Scherer)

Dear Mu Phi Colleagues:

Did you know that the average person in a business setting grinds through over 100 emails per day and spends at least 16 hours per week reading and responding to emails?

Writing clear and effective emails is part of how we present ourselves and how we achieve positive results in our careers. Since Mu Phi Epsilon is a professional music fraternity, we need to hone our non-musical professional skills as well as our musical ones.

Here are three simple goals I think we can all embrace: 1. To write emails that cut through the in-box clutter and are actually read. 2. To get the results we desire by respecting the recipients’ time and clearly stating the purpose of the email and the response needed. 3. To present ourselves in a professional manner.

With these three goals in mind, here are some helpful tips: In the “to” field: • Send your email only to those who need to see it — but do be sure to include everyone who needs to be aware of the contents. • Use the “BCC” (blind carbon copy) field if you simply want to keep people in the information loop but want to avoid being buried in an avalanche of “reply alls.”

In the subject line: • Identify the purpose of the email — and identify the sender, too, if the email address from which it originates does not make this clear. • Indicate if the email is urgent and/or requires a response.

In the body of the email: • Specify the reason for the email. • Specify the action (if any) required from the recipient. • Be clear about any references unrelated to the topic at hand that are not included in the email chain to which you are responding (if you bring in new information, indicate this and explain it). • Be mercifully brief. Help make things easy on your reader by: o Breaking your email into separate paragraphs for separate ideas (a long block of text is discouraging to plow through and hard to decipher). o Using bullet points (if appropriate). o Keep your sentences short.

• Generally, avoid covering multiple issues in one email, especially if they’re unrelated to the subject line. Better to break up different ideas into separate emails. (This also makes them easy to search later on.) • Unless the information is crucial, be aware that when replying to a long chain of emails, the same material can become quoted, requoted and re-requoted. It’s worth a quick look to see if some — if not all — of the quoted portions can be trimmed away without losing information.

Don’t make your reader search for what’s relevant! • Double-check your grammar and spelling, and don’t rely solely on built-in spelling and grammar checkers. These can point you in the right direction but will not tell you definitively if you are using the correct homophone (e.g. “effect” vs. “affect” or “compliment” vs. “complement”). • SPECIAL NOTE: Please spell “Juilliard” correctly. We are musicians, after all! • Take extra care with your tone; in the absence of visual cues and tone of voice, written words can come across very differently than what you intended. • Consider your audience carefully before using (or overusing emojis). • End with a clear call to action. Specify exactly what you need from the recipient (acknowledgment of your email? Information? A commitment?).

How about taking a moment to reflect on your emails? Do you want to be an awesome emailer? Then put yourself in your recipients’ shoes. If your emails honor their busy lives by being easy for them to read and to respond to, they will be forever grateful and will remember you for your consideration and professionalism.

Be awesome!

With warmest Mu Phi greetings,

Julia Scherer, MM, NCTM 1st VP/Extension Officer Mu Phi Epsilon International Executive Board Kansas City Alumni Chapter Yearbook Editor