If you don’t put a subject line on your e-mail, you are sending the message that your name in the “from” line is all your recipient should need in order to make it a top priority. That could come across as arrogant, or at the very least, thoughtless. Take advantage of the opportunity to get your recipient thinking about your message even before opening it.

What is important to you may not be important to your reader. Rather than brashly announcing that the secret contents of your message are important, write an informative headline that actually communicates at least the core of what you feel is so important.

3. Avoid attachments.

Rather than attaching a file that your reader will have to download and open in a separate program, you will probably get better results if you get your message into the main body of the text.

It’s the message that matters.

4. Identify yourself clearly.

When contacting someone cold, always include all your contact details, your Company name, telephone number, e-mail address and web address.

5. Proof Read.

Take the time to make your message look professional.

While your spell checker won’t catch every mistake, at the very least it will catch a few typing errors. If you are sending a message that will be read by thousands, take an extra minute or two before you hit “send”. Show a draft to an associate, in order to see whether it actually makes sense.

Use proper spelling, grammar & punctuation.

This is not only important because improper spelling, grammar and punctuation gives a bad impression of your company, it is also important for conveying the message properly. e-mails with no full stops or commas are difficult to read and can sometimes even change the meaning of the text. And, if your computer has a spell checking option, why not use it?

6. Don’t assume privacy.

Don’t send anything over e-mail that you wouldn’t want posted.

e-mail is not secure.

7. Respond Promptly.

If you want to appear professional, make yourself available to your online correspondents. Even if your reply is, “we will reply as soon as possible” at least your potential customer won’t be waiting in vain for your reply.

Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions.

An e-mail reply must answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions. If you do not answer all the questions in the original e-mail, you will receive further e-mails regarding the unanswered questions, which will not only waste your time and your customer’s time but also cause considerable frustration. Moreover, if you are able to pre-empt relevant questions, your customer will be grateful and impressed with your efficient and thoughtful customer service. Imagine for instance that a customer sends you an e-mail asking which credit cards you accept. Instead of just listing the credit card types, you can guess that their next question will be about how they can order, so you also include some order information and a URL to your order page. Customers will definitely appreciate this.