How to start an email: Proven greetings and opening lines
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2024 4:08 am
Crafting a powerful professional email sets the tone for the rest of your business communication. However, despite people engaging with around 347.3 billion emails per day worldwide, most still grapple with how to start an email correctly.
We’ve all been there… Taking a little bit too long overthinking is the perfect way to balance out an informal greeting for formal communication, aiming to craft a flawless introduction. That, or second-guessing that opening sentence up till the moment you hit send, and even then, you still double-check it once more, hoping not to find a mistake that sneaked past you, Gmail, and Grammarly somehow.
If this sounds familiar, this article is for you.
You’ll learn 7 key approaches to writing professional emails in different work and life scenarios to elevate not just your business correspondence but the way you think about email in general. Get ready to revolutionize your email writing game and leave a lasting impression with every message you send.
Why engaging opening lines are important
It’s easy to dismiss email introductions as an afterthought phone number database outshined by your email subject lines and core content, but they actually hold remarkable power. Enough to shape the trajectory of your professional email correspondence. And for a good reason, too!
A compelling opening line immediately captures a reader’s attention
Modern email inboxes are flooded, and attention spans are too short. So, if you’re hoping for quick responses, your email needs to stand out. An engaging opening line will grab the recipient’s attention amidst the sea of unread email messages.
It’ll set the stage for the rest of your email content, enticing the reader to keep reading your message.
First impressions count
The opening lines of your email are crucial, much like a firm handshake or warm smile in a face-to-face conversation. They create a lasting impact. A great introduction will show your professionalism, personality, and attention to detail, instantly positioning you as a great communicator.
The result? Your readers will want to hear more from you and your brand!
Fosters strong connections
We don’t simply send emails to convey information. It is also an opportunity to build and nurture professional relationships. An appropriate greeting helps you establish a connection with the recipient right from the beginning. You also demonstrate that you value the reader’s time and have made an effort to make your message relevant and appealing.
Investing time and thought into crafting engaging email greetings can elevate your official communication and help achieve your professional goals faster. Setting the wrong tone, in turn, can ruin your image and discourage the recipient from ever interacting with your email messages again.
7 creative ways to start an email
Now that you understand the significance of engaging email introductions let’s explore seven remarkable approaches to captivate your recipients right from the start. Each approach offers phone number database a unique angle, allowing you to tailor your opening to the specific context and desired outcome.
1. The formal approach
A formal approach is ideal for professional email communication, such as when sending cold emails to potential clients or discussing official business with higher-level colleagues.
Maintaining a respectful professional tone of voice and using appropriate formal greetings and salutations is essential for this approach.
“Dear Dr. Jones”
The perfect general salutation will be “Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms./Dr. [Last Name]”. While you can go with just their name (e.g. “Dear John” – pun intended), it’s safer to add your recipient’s appropriate titles and honorifics, such as “Mr.,” “Ms.,” “Dr.,” or “Prof.” and rely on the last name. to underline the formality of the situation.
This is especially crucial for potential clients. Acknowledging their professional status demonstrates respect and shows that you put effort into learning more about them. Plus, it earns you additional points if their honorary titles are appealing to their ego (people don’t just spend 10 years of their lives hassling for their Ph.D., not to rub it in everyone’s face).
“Dear Hiring Manager”
If you would like to omit mentioning the recipient’s gender, simply use their full name without a title. As a last resort, you can use their job title: “Dear [Hiring Manager/Marketing Director]”.
This is a safe approach when sending a cover letter during your job application or appealing for a case in a governmental institution, but it will rarely help you score any additional points with prospective clients.
P.S. If you are a hiring manager, this approach won’t sit well with most applicants. Nobody wants to be greeted with a faceless “Dear Candidate” opening line. Consider automating your email contacts with a tool that will pull your candidates’ data (you know, like GetResponse!) and personalize the message from there. And take a critical look at your ATS – we’re not in the 1990s anymore.
DON’T keep it impersonal
Avoid overly ambiguous salutations like the old-fashioned “Dear Sir or Madam” or “To whomever it may concern”. Even in formal emails, such opening lines come off as lazy and are generally recognized as a poor email etiquette practice (yes, we did a whole study on that in a separate blog
We’ve all been there… Taking a little bit too long overthinking is the perfect way to balance out an informal greeting for formal communication, aiming to craft a flawless introduction. That, or second-guessing that opening sentence up till the moment you hit send, and even then, you still double-check it once more, hoping not to find a mistake that sneaked past you, Gmail, and Grammarly somehow.
If this sounds familiar, this article is for you.
You’ll learn 7 key approaches to writing professional emails in different work and life scenarios to elevate not just your business correspondence but the way you think about email in general. Get ready to revolutionize your email writing game and leave a lasting impression with every message you send.
Why engaging opening lines are important
It’s easy to dismiss email introductions as an afterthought phone number database outshined by your email subject lines and core content, but they actually hold remarkable power. Enough to shape the trajectory of your professional email correspondence. And for a good reason, too!
A compelling opening line immediately captures a reader’s attention
Modern email inboxes are flooded, and attention spans are too short. So, if you’re hoping for quick responses, your email needs to stand out. An engaging opening line will grab the recipient’s attention amidst the sea of unread email messages.
It’ll set the stage for the rest of your email content, enticing the reader to keep reading your message.
First impressions count
The opening lines of your email are crucial, much like a firm handshake or warm smile in a face-to-face conversation. They create a lasting impact. A great introduction will show your professionalism, personality, and attention to detail, instantly positioning you as a great communicator.
The result? Your readers will want to hear more from you and your brand!
Fosters strong connections
We don’t simply send emails to convey information. It is also an opportunity to build and nurture professional relationships. An appropriate greeting helps you establish a connection with the recipient right from the beginning. You also demonstrate that you value the reader’s time and have made an effort to make your message relevant and appealing.
Investing time and thought into crafting engaging email greetings can elevate your official communication and help achieve your professional goals faster. Setting the wrong tone, in turn, can ruin your image and discourage the recipient from ever interacting with your email messages again.
7 creative ways to start an email
Now that you understand the significance of engaging email introductions let’s explore seven remarkable approaches to captivate your recipients right from the start. Each approach offers phone number database a unique angle, allowing you to tailor your opening to the specific context and desired outcome.
1. The formal approach
A formal approach is ideal for professional email communication, such as when sending cold emails to potential clients or discussing official business with higher-level colleagues.
Maintaining a respectful professional tone of voice and using appropriate formal greetings and salutations is essential for this approach.
“Dear Dr. Jones”
The perfect general salutation will be “Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms./Dr. [Last Name]”. While you can go with just their name (e.g. “Dear John” – pun intended), it’s safer to add your recipient’s appropriate titles and honorifics, such as “Mr.,” “Ms.,” “Dr.,” or “Prof.” and rely on the last name. to underline the formality of the situation.
This is especially crucial for potential clients. Acknowledging their professional status demonstrates respect and shows that you put effort into learning more about them. Plus, it earns you additional points if their honorary titles are appealing to their ego (people don’t just spend 10 years of their lives hassling for their Ph.D., not to rub it in everyone’s face).
“Dear Hiring Manager”
If you would like to omit mentioning the recipient’s gender, simply use their full name without a title. As a last resort, you can use their job title: “Dear [Hiring Manager/Marketing Director]”.
This is a safe approach when sending a cover letter during your job application or appealing for a case in a governmental institution, but it will rarely help you score any additional points with prospective clients.
P.S. If you are a hiring manager, this approach won’t sit well with most applicants. Nobody wants to be greeted with a faceless “Dear Candidate” opening line. Consider automating your email contacts with a tool that will pull your candidates’ data (you know, like GetResponse!) and personalize the message from there. And take a critical look at your ATS – we’re not in the 1990s anymore.
DON’T keep it impersonal
Avoid overly ambiguous salutations like the old-fashioned “Dear Sir or Madam” or “To whomever it may concern”. Even in formal emails, such opening lines come off as lazy and are generally recognized as a poor email etiquette practice (yes, we did a whole study on that in a separate blog