Email Etiquette Part 2 of 3: Do you need a Salutation or a Close?

Emails are a way of sending information faster than sending letters and more common than sending faxes. Even today, email correspondence can be used as business documentation in a court of law. So much has changed in the past several years with emails. I remember a few years back attending an etiquette training which spent a lot of time talking about email etiquette. She had told everyone that email was an electronic form of a memo, so we were to follow all of the same formatting included in a memo document. Today, most of this is still true but recently the trend is now following a combination of formatting from memos and letters. Some examples of this include the tone, salutation, and the closing.

Since emails are considered by many more of an informal way of communicating, they have taken this casual writing to the business place. This is where one’s credibility and professional image can be tainted. If you are sending out an external email for the first time, you would never use any kind of emoticon to communicate your tone or feelings. However, if you have established a great rapport with a customer or business colleague, and they have used emoticons very frequently in their communication to you, it would not be inappropriate to throw one in here or there.

You might have received an email without a salutation. How that makes you feel depends on the context of the situation. If you are communicating internally with colleagues and are using email almost in an “instant message” form, then a salutation is NOT required. It’s also not required when the company is distributing a memo-type email throughout the organization about a recent change in policy or procedure.

It is good practice to use a salutation and create your email in more of a letter format when you are emailing externally. It can appear very curt when emailing someone outside of the organization and not beginning with a salutation. It is very common to see Hi Mary, or Hello Brad, but be careful not to appear too informal during your first email communication contact. Instead, err on the side of being more formal (i.e. Dear Sarah, or Dear Ms. Thompson: ).

It is most important to remember your receiver and the type of relationship you have with them. It is never good judgment to start off formal and then precede with a very informal email the second time around. If they are the customer, prospect, or potential business collaborator, then follow their lead. If they are extremely casual then be sure to be at least one to two levels more formal than their style.

If your email did not contain a salutation and was written as a memo or similarly to an instant message internally, there is no need for a close. However, if you begin your email with an informal salutation, then you should also have a simple close (e.g. Thank you, Best, etc.). If our email started off more formally, then you should use a more formal close, such as Sincerely.