Addressing E-mails with “Dear Sir/Madam”

[ This same article brought some interesting commernts over on my General E-mail Etiquette site, NetManners.com so I thought I would post it hear as well for your consideration and comments.]

When I get addressed as “Dear Sir/Madam” in any e-mail, I know the Sender is lazy. How do I know this? Because my sites are so me. With just one or two clicks you know that “Judith Kallos” is the person behind the site. I’m not a Sir, nor do I really consider myself a Madam!

So, if one wants to contact me with a business related e-mail and uses this greeting, I know they are probably not too discriminating in who they are contacting with their offer. They just want to get their collateral in front of whomever is behind the site.

One would think they would want to know about the person behind the site before e-mailing therefore actually making this small effort to determine my name. Nope — they don’t care about who I am — they just want to get their message, resume, sales pitch across with the least amount of effort. What do you think that says about your offer, prospectus, business or “opportunity?”

Then, there are those who e-mail and address me by name. Some use Ms. Kallos or Judith — either way, I know they took a moment of their time to know who they are e-mailing and to address me by name. Speaking for myself, I am always impressed when this extra effort is made. I also can tell you that I welcome offers or requests from folks who e-mail in that manner much more seriously than the mass form spammers who just want to copy and paste and hit Send.

Particularly in business, this little extra E-mail Etiquette effort goes along way to impressing the other side with the seriousness and professionalism of your request. What is a business person to do if they can’t find a name to specifically address their e-mail to? If you are serious about being taken seriously, why not pick up the old fashioned telephone and ask?

Details matter when it comes to business e-mails of any kind. And, there are situations where e-mail is not the best mode for first contact. Make the extra effort to know who you are addressing and address them personally. Now, that’s how you do business!

Are Your Business E-mail Spammy?

Spammy e-mails get rejected by servers, returned to senders or inadvertently deleted. But when I mention to clients that they need to implement certain details or don’t want (or need) to do certain things in their e-mail so as to avoid being misidentified as spam, they ignore my advice in lieu of doing what they want anyway. Regardless of the ramifications. All for things that have nothing to do with communicating with clarity and professionalism, in fact many times it is quite the opposite. All to often simply because they don’t want to make the minuscule effort to have all the bases covered.

When we are advised of the things we need to consider to avoid having our e-mails get blocked (and be viewed as more professional in the process), we need to embrace this information as it is not one person’s advice, idea or opinion. It is a fact that if you do spammy things, your e-mail risks being blocked by networks both public and private.

Today, I had two clients who I’ve discussed these issues with many times over the years, basically state they didn’t really care about my advice and they will “take their chances.” To risk opportunity in hopes of their competitors lacking the same level of tech savvy is simply not smart business. If they are wrong, what will happen when their competitors e-mails make it through to the intended recipients and theirs do not?

Here is an article on the topic that I posted back in May as a reminder so you can make sure you aren’t sending spamming e-mails and therefore risking lost opportunity.

How To Avoid Looking Spammy

Do You Get E-mails that are Shooting Blanks?

A site visitor writes:

“What does it mean when someone replies to your email with a blank message (i.e., empty message box; no message text, not even your original message)?”

Hmmm… could be several reasons. If the e-mail is from someone you know, they could be using formatting that you are unable to read. Having your e-mail program set to read formatted or HTML e-mail will ensure you can read these email.

Or if you do not have AUTOMATICALLY DOWNLOAD HTML GRAPHICS checked you wouldn’t be able to see an all graphical e-mail. I don’t have this option checked as I don’t want anything to display by virtue of code (some viruses count on this option being available) without my knowledge.

Now, if the code is not properly structured – it is broken – and that has nothing to do with anything on your side. What you can try to do is right click on the blank message and choose VIEW SOURCE. There you will see any underlying code and possibly even the message that the non-standard code is preventing you from viewing. I’d bet it is spam.

There were no attachments from them, nor a return receipt function from me. (If I had to guess, I’m inclined to the view that it’s simply a way of acknowledging receipt of email.

If the e-mail is from someone you know — they probably have a virus generating and sending out these e-mail. If the e-mail is from someone you do not know – a spammer (or a spammer’s virus), this could be a combo of the above and a spammer trying to verify if your e-mail address is valid.

What they do is embed a tiny invisible graphic that when the e-mail is opened the code reports back to their server that your address is valid/live and you are then added to the list to be spammed in the future or have your e-mail address sold to spammers. Nice huh?

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