Personal Branding: Email Communication

In today’s branding blog, we’re going over some email communication ideas. This rather focused topic is a crucial component as it says quite a bit about your communication skills. Having “Excellent written and verbal communication” on your resume accomplishes little if your email communication skills look like some of the examples to come. By the way, these examples were all inspired by real emails. And on that note, we begin!

Intense usage of punctuation

“I’m sorry I missed your call! This job sounds great! Please call me when you have a moment! I’ll be available today between 3 and 5 pm!!”

There’s nothing inherently wrong with our good buddy, the exclamation point. However, if used too much, it can feel like a caffeine overdose. Overall, it just starts to lose its professional feel, which is something that will be important to your brand.

The ALL CAPS method

“I AM INTERESTED IN THIS JOB AND WOULD LIKE TO HAVE THE TIME TO SPEAK WITH YOU ABOUT THE DETAILS. FOR THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS, I HAVE WORKED IN A SIMILAR JOB AND KNOW I CAN HANDLE ALL THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THIS ROLE. LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU ARE AVAILABLE.”

There really isn’t anything terribly wrong with the content of that email, but the caps make it rather difficult to feel anything but overwhelmed when reading the text. Again, we return to the question, “what message does this send about my brand?”

Too many issues to count

“i am good at customer service and have working in call centr for like 3 years call me if you like my resume”

The only way to make it more hilarious would be to mention that I also have excellent attention to detail. Proofreading and proper use of basic punctuation and capitalization will always be important.

“Sent from my iPhone. Please excuse any typos”

This disclaimer is another key moment for that question about your brand. Let’s reflect on what this actually says. You’re essentially giving yourself license to lack attention to detail in the execution of your message. And why? Because you’re typing it on a smaller screen.

From mobile device or not, a professional email is still a professional email. And unless you’re driving while emailing (which I know none of us would EVER do, right?), it’s not terribly challenging to make edits to emails on mobile devices.

In the end, this comes down to asking yourself that question of “what message does this send about my brand?” Every email you send gives someone a glimpse of your brand. Using this question to self-reflect will ensure you’re aligning your email communication effectively.

Written by Adam Lafield, Recruiter & Marketing Specialist