Rules of emailing
There are days when I want to answer the question “hey Lies, what kind of work do you do?” with “well, I’m an emailer. I send emails.” Now I have a fairly varied relationship with my mailbox, because sometimes I’m really good at keeping up with everything, but more often I don’t get around to it and the marked emails pile up, and I have to schedule an email day to respond to the 130 open items. I had such a day yesterday and while emailing, I realized that what we wrote about Whatsapp, that can also be said about email. So therefore, in random order, The Great Email Regulation.
Keep appropriate distance
As in, know what your relationship is with the person you’re emailing and behave accordingly. I always find it a bit strange when someone I don’t know emails me with “heeeey darling how’s it going, hope work is going well by the way I have a nice little event for you blah blah okay well see you soon xoxoxo.” Huh? Do we know each other? Keep it appropriate, especially when emailing for business.
Keep it short and concise
I’m sorry but I don’t have time to read an email of eight A4 pages, and neither does the rest of the world. If the story you have to tell is very long, send an email with a summary and request to explain the rest over the phone.
Never use emoticons
Seems obvious but you’d be surprised how many emails come in that are filled from A to Z with yellow smiley faces. Incomprehensible. Look, I admit, I sometimes throw a ;-) in there because it can lighten the tone of the text a bit, but do that once and not after every sentence. This especially applies to business emails; what you send to your friends you can of course decide for yourself.
Don’t wait too long to respond
I’m going to print this and stick it on my laptop because I’m also a star at responding a week later. Not because I’m not interested but because I want to take the time to answer you properly, but that time is never there and aarghh then it just doesn’t happen. But that is actually unacceptable, nobody likes to wait 1000 years for a response. What I’m trying (trying!) to do from now on is to schedule an hour daily to keep up with my emails. Outside of that hour, ignore incoming emails because otherwise, you’ll never get anything done, and in that hour, just type at full speed.
Don’t misuse the cc
Think carefully about whether those 18 people you cc’d really need to read that email. It’s sometimes very annoying to be stuck in a pointless email conversation that just keeps going. “Yes, but you need to be aware of this and that” is then the response and that’s fine, but email or call me when everything is arranged or concluded and only cc the people who are indispensable during the process.
Use the bcc
I once received an invitation for something where all the recipients were just openly listed in the to field, so then I had the email addresses of almost all of famous Netherlands. So not chic. Things you email to many people at once, email to yourself, with the rest in bcc. Period.
Send everything in one email
So not at 09:00 an email with part 1 of the piece, then at 10:15 a few additions, at 12:30 the attachments, at 12:35 oops forgot now really with attachments, at 14:15 just a small adjustment and at 17:00 a summary of everything. No. No no no. Just send one email with everything included right away.
Don’t force me to write about your product
Yes, this one is quite specific to the work we do, but I have to get it off my chest, and maybe someone will learn something from it. Because everyone I know in an editorial office knows this frustration, that you receive an email from a total stranger saying “it would be great if you could write a post about this.” Or, “press release blah blah when can we expect the post?” Yes, of course, you would like it if we wrote a post about this, but that’s not how it works. With PR agencies, it’s different; they send interesting news about brands and moreover, we have a lot of contact with those agencies, so they know by now what fits and doesn’t fit with Amayzine. But I have received press releases about a new brand of knitting needles and then a week later casually received an email with the text “I haven’t seen an article about our product, is that correct? Or is it still coming?” For everyone who ever sends a press release: the editorial team always decides what gets published and package your product/event/whatever as attractively as possible so that we think, wow, we have to write about this!
