Ending Your Email

Usually, I don’t give a second thought to how I sign off on emails. They usually come easily to me based on the content of my email. But last week I was stumped! 

I was writing an email to a client requesting they follow up on an issue for me. My email was light enough but I got unstuck when it came to ending it. I needed a line that made it sound like I wasn’t hounding yet communicated that the issue required attention.

My bout of writer’s block had me consulting Google. During my search I came across a lot of articles about email signoffs and what’s acceptable and what people should steer clear of. I actually found it interesting and couldn’t stop reading!

So, I present to you the dos and don’ts of email sign offs.

The most common and professional sign offs

Most people use email as a work tool, so it goes without saying that the sign off needs to be professional. Here are the most commonly used professional email sign offs.

·      Kind Regards

·      All the best

·      Best

·      Best regards

·      Regards

·      With appreciation

·      Many thanks

·      Cheers (if you’re looking for a professional yet friendly tone)

·      Thank you for your assistance in this matter

·      I look forward to hearing from you

·      I look forward to working with you on this project

Email sign offs you should avoid

There are some sign offs that should be avoided especially if you are writing your email in a professional capacity. These include: 

·      Love (save it for family and friends!)

·      Thx or rgrds (you’re not texting!)

·      Yours truly

·      Have a blessed day

·      Xoxo

Other things people do at the end of their emails but probably shouldn’t

I’m sure, like myself you have probably received an email with a quote at the end. Whether it’s a movie quote, a philosophical quote or an inspirational quote, it can come across as a bit cheesy.

Another thing to potentially avoid is the use of emojis. Yes, they’re cute but unless you’re overly familiar with the person you’re emailing probably not a good idea.

The subject of email sign offs can go on for days. What are some of the best or worst that you’ve seen?

Social Media: What Do you Post?

With so many social media platforms, it can be hard to distinguish what you should post where. Generally, as a business, your social media messages are probably the same across the board, but should you be differentiating them?

If you look at the most popular platforms, it’s safe to say that most businesses would have a presence on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn as a minimum. 

I generally post the same message across platforms but recently I realised that some of my posts aren’t necessarily relevant across all channels. Why? I believe each social media platform has its own personality. You might think this is a strange term to use but it’s probably the best term I can think of to describe my thoughts and give credence to those same thoughts. My findings come from my own experience.

If I had to compare mediums, I would say Facebook and Instagram are more casual. If I look at followers on my business page, they are made up of personal friends and acquaintances, business acquaintances and business owners. 

LinkedIn is, in my mind, solely professional with some water cooler humour thrown in at times. The followers of my LinkedIn page are predominantly businesspeople who I may have worked with in the past, current business associates and anyone who may be interested in what my business has to offer.

So, why would I communicate a different message to each group? The main aim of social media is to engage with followers so it’s important that your messages encourage those they have reached to engage. 

I mainly communicate messages that are applicable to both groups. Whether its communicating changes on my website, a new blog post or even a motivational message. These I post to all my social media accounts. 

But, if I look at my Facebook page, I know that most of my followers are mums in business. Being that I consider Facebook a more casual social media platform, I at times post messages that may be targeted towards working parents, for example wishing those parents in Victoria all the best for home learning (we’ve had quite a bit of that in VIC!) etc.

I guess I feel that social media should be treated as you would treat any social event. LinkedIn would be your business conference or networking meeting where most conversation veers on the professional side with a little personal thrown in for good measure. Facebook and Instagram on the other hand could be considered a bit like Friday night drinks, work will be discussed but there will be talk of weekend plans with the family or home renovation projects.

Whichever mediums you are using, the right message will go a long way to getting you that coveted engagement.

Do you tend to post differently on each platform?

Does It Make What You're Saying More Important?

Tautology is saying the same thing twice. We don’t often realise we are doing it, but we commonly emphasise a word by adding another word with the same meaning either in front or after the word we are using. 

Common examples are:

• Past history 

• Near future

• Completely finished

• False illusion

• New innovations

• 8am in the morning

• Foreign import

• True facts

 If you pull the words apart, you see how the words are different yet say the same thing or that common sense says you don’t really need both words!

Example: 

Past history – history refers to the past and the past is history so there is no need to use both words. You could use either as: 

History tells us ….

OR 

In the past …

Tautology doesn’t make what we’re saying more important, we’re just using more words to say what we mean. By eliminating tautology, we can make our writing clear and concise.

Are they any examples of tautology that you commonly use?

Working on My Business. What I've Learnt.

While taking my own advice from my last blog article and working on my business rather than solely in my business, I finally managed to set up my business LinkedIn page. I must say I learnt a lot.

While I know about LinkedIn and its power as a networking tool, until I created a company page, I wasn’t in a position to view the interactions between followers and the content posted.

 Since having my LinkedIn page, I can see exactly how many organic visitors view my posts. Why is this important? Organic visitors are visitors to your site or content that are unpaid, so they are not captured through paid advertising campaigns. They are captured through the quality of the content, SEO etc.

The number of organic visitors can help you gauge the type of content that works. Whether it be the topic or keywords. This is useful when it comes to planning your content as you will be able to focus on topics that are of interest to your audience and further enhance engagement.

Follow us on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/absolute-marketing-communications

Clickbait. What is it?

How many times have you scrolled through your social media posts and come across a headline that sounds intriguing, if not possibly ridiculous? Chance are every time you visit your socials you will encounter one of these headlines and as ridiculous as the headline may sound, you will most likely click on it. 

Once you finish reading the article you may find it has nothing or very little to do with the headline you clicked on and in most cases you may think it’s the most silly or irrelevant story you have read. But you clicked on it and that’s what the poster wanted. That’s clickbait! 

Why is Clickbait used?

Clickbait is very common and used by brands to entice readers to click on the post and through to their website. You may come away thinking that was an interesting read or you may think it was a waste of time. Usually comments on the article will give an indication of what other readers thought. Over time you will come to recognise who the repeat offenders are and possibly just scroll past. 

 Needless to say, over the last few months, a lot of clickbait articles have centred around Covid-19. Articles related to this are nothing more than scare mongering and posters have been called out; not only for not disclosing all the facts but also for it not being relevant to Australian readers.

Do you encounter clickbait often? If so, what are some of the headlines or stories claiming to be about? Do you think clickbait is a fair way to entice audiences to read content?

Speak Our Language

Often we forget that we are not the target audience when it comes to what we communicate. While our target audience may require our services, we need to remember that we may be providing them with a service because they do not have the expertise to carry out the function that they hire us to provide. 

When we correspond with our clients we need to remember that we are possibly talking to a lay person when it comes to our field. I am guilty of making marketing and consumer behaviour references that my clients don’t understand. It’s great we know what we are talking about but if your client doesn't know A from B then we need to be mindful and give them the main points in easy to understand terms.

Don’t ever treat your client like an idiot but keep in mind that they may not know what an AB demographic is or what a HDMI cable is. They just need to know that you are developing a campaign targeted at white collar, high income earners or that there is a cable that will give you a great quality image on your TV.

Using easy to understand language can eliminate a multitude of problems down the track. How many times have you thought you were getting one thing but ended up with another simply because you didn’t understand what you were being told. 

So before talking to a client think about what you need to tell them and whether you are using technical terms or if you using terminology that is easy to understand.