Our inboxes lately have been full of great reminders that we all need to wait just a minute before hitting the send button.
Whether you’re sending a quick note to a colleague, an e-newsletter to hundreds of subscribers or anything in between, the following reminders serve as a good refresher:
- Check your address line. It’s a huge timesaver to let your address book populate an address but make sure to confirm you are sending the email to “Jane Doe” and not “Jane Smith.”
- Run spell check. It won’t find every mistake, but it will find several and give you a little extra time to look everything over.
- Read the email out loud, one word at a time. It’s a good way to make sure you catch any spelling errors or omitted words.
- Test and retest, especially if you are using graphics or an email service company. This will help you troubleshoot any image issues and possibly catch other mistakes along the way. If you can, test by sending the email to several different email services. (Gmail, Yahoo, cable-based provider, etc.)
- If you are sending an html email, make sure you have alternate text enabled for those who have images turned off in their email preferences.
- If you’re using a greeting, double check it. In one day earlier this week, I receive two emails with my name misspelled and one addressed to “Dear Dear Summer.”
Mistakes will happen. Information moves fast these days and we can only try to keep up. But by following these six steps before sending that email, perhaps you can prevent a few along the way.