Copyright 2005 Ronald GibsonIf you want an email campaign to succeed, you don`t want to offend anyone when sending your messages. Turn off a consumer with your email and you can be sure they`ll tune out your message. Don`t let that happen to you
A message that earns respect has a better chance to make sales. That`s why our topic for discussion is email etiquette.
Train yourself to always -- and I mean always -- stick to
rules below when crafting your email messages.
RULE #1 - ALWAYS WRAP YOUR LINES AT 65 CHARACTERS OR LESS
Whenever you write an email, always format
lines so that they`re 65 characters, or less, across. To do this, you may need to do a "hard return" by hitting "Enter" at
end of
line.
Wondering why you should limit your lines to just 65 characters? Good question! There are two reasons why "less is more":
The first thing to remember is that looking at a computer screen for a long time causes "eye fatigue" for many readers. The shorter span of characters across
screen makes reading easier and more appealing to
recipient of your email message.
The other reason to go short instead of long is this: some email clients automatically enforce line-wrapping at 60-65 characters on received messages. If your email is wrapped at 70,
content will arrive all "chopped up." This makes it unattractive...and worse -- unappealing.
How do you get your lines to wrap at 65 characters? Some email clients, such as Outlook Express, allow you to set
line-wrap to any character-width that you choose. That means you won`t have to hit Enter each time after typing 65 characters. Makes life easier. You can also type 65 asterisks or dashes in a Notepad file to create a template. Then paste your email below it to see if any lines extend too far to
right.