How to Keep Your Emails Short and Effective

In AirSafe Media's online marketing business, customers and vendors are located around the world, and email is the most effective way for everyone to communicate. Since a particular advertising deal may be active for months or even years, it helps everyone if emails have a similar and predictable style and format. By following a few basic rules, AirSafe Media staff and affiliates can ensure that their emails provide clear and concise information. Even if you are not involved with AirSafe Media, you can use these basic guidelines to make your own emails more effective.

Use a AirSafe Media email account
This is one of the easiest rule to follow. By using an AirSafe Media email account (ending in airsafemedia.com), it makes it much easier to go back and reconstruct a conversation. If for some reason this account is not working, it is likely that the problem is only temporary. Send a copy of any email to that address so that it can be recovered once the account is working again.

Use a consistent subject format
Because many email programs display only the subject line of an email, make sure that the subject includes the following key pieces of information:

• A web site URL (if the email deals with a particular web site)
  
  
• The date the email was sent (using the format DD MM YYY, for example 16 May 2010)
  
  
• One or two keywords that describe what the email is about
  
  
• The words "AirSafe Media" to indicate the source of the email

An example subject line might be "New advertising offer for mortgage311.org - AirSafe Media 16 May 2010"

Include only key parts of previous emails
Often, there could be several emails going back and forth on a particular subject. For example, negotiating the placement of a particular ad, or dealing with a technical problem with a web site. When replying to an email, most programs attach the body of the previous email. After a few exchanges, you could have a two page email where only about four or five lines have all the information that you need. Take a little bit of time to cut out what you don't need. Leave in enough to say what needs to be said, and leave out the rest.