In the past couple of years, email has become a haven for casual communicators. We’ve seen brevity take precedence over clear writing, the emoticon migrate to the inbox, and, little by little, the Compose page turn into a glorified IM window. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when sending an organized, well-formatted email went by the wayside, but this reduction of expectations presents a bit of a catch-22 for us – we want to have a meaningful, open dialogue with clients, but email itself has become a difficult way of doing so.
Of course, we still conduct the majority of our business via email (alongside tools like Basecamp and Ballpark), but we’re always surprised by some of the emails we receive, especially the ones that prospective clients use to kick off our relationship. The first email always sets the tone for the coming days, weeks, and months, so why not make it count? After all, first impressions are still everything, and that isn’t likely to change. Here are some ways that you can help make it easier for both of us when emailing MetaLab (or any company that you want to engage):
Use Your Full Name
- We want to talk to a person, not a screen name. Aside from being an odd exclusion to an introductory email, it’s just confusing as to why I should receive an email from “Chris” as opposed to “Chris Smith”. We aren’t going to track you down on LinkedIn or see if your Facebook profile is up to snuff, but it is nice to know who we’re talking to. It’s totally reasonable to want to protect your identity if you’re flaming a forum or spewing vitriol on a TechCrunch thread, but if we’re going to be doing business together, there’s undoubtedly a need for us to know who we’re dealing with.
Respect Our Time
- Even though it’s easy for you to send an email after a 2 AM flash of brilliance telling us about your grasp at web immortality, we’d prefer to hear about your idea once there are some supplements that would allow us to start a real dialogue. Send us something tangible: wireframes, a creative brief, or even some rough sketches to help us understand what your project is about. We receive a huge amount of email every single day, and a thread with a potential client, no matter how kind (or sycophantic) they might be, can fizzle out pretty quickly if there aren’t real concepts on the table.
- We’re more than happy to provide some basic advisement – but only to a very limited extent. If you have a functioning app that you’d like to demo over the phone, that’s approaching reasonability; if you want our feedback on your game-changing new Twitter desktop app that you conceived yesterday while high on peyote, then we’re not on the same page.
Type in Complete Sentences
- This runs deep. A good writer – or at the very least, a thoughtful one – is a good communicator, and a good communicator has respect for the recipient of their message, in addition to the ability to get their ideas across in a humane and understandable way. The irony is that this isn’t even a matter of comprehension – we don’t look at an email with improper grammar and complain that it’s too difficult to decode. What we’re looking for in your email is some indication that a certain degree of thought was put into the presentation, and that it wasn’t simply on a whim that you sent the message. Keep in mind that you’re not only representing your project, but yourself as well. Even if your idea is revolutionary and brilliant, we’d be wary to reply enthusiastically if it didn’t seem like you put any thought into the first contact. Maybe we’re just old fashioned, but if you’re not taking the time to send us a thoughtful, well-structured email, then you aren’t taking us seriously, and your project probably isn’t that serious either.
Be Patient
- Email is not an IM thread. Even though we work primarily in email, this is not the be all and end all of our tasks. We have meetings, client work, and a day that ends just like everybody elses. After an appropriate amount of time, gentle nudges are in good form; Facebook messages, Twitter replies and bothering our other clients regarding our whereabouts are all ill advised. Just because we didn’t reply to your email within 72 hours does not spell disinterest, apathy or irritation – it means that we’re working to finish up something else, so we can send you a reply that means something. We’d rather take the time to write you a thoughtful reply that will move the conversation forward, as opposed to one that will just assuage you for another 72 hours.
Ultimately, these are just a few of the day-to-day gripes that we have with bad emailers. Even though it might seem antithetical and senseless, we firmly believe that you should email as if we were sitting across the table from one another. You’d never make any of the mistakes listed above if we were sitting together at a coffee shop, so why should they be disregarded when writing an email? It’s no stretch to say that basic social skills and some sense of human decency will go a long way in being a good online communicator.
