Billions of e-mails are sent through Internet everyday. Internet marketers send millions of e-mails everyday to potential customers, hoping to make a sale.  However, how many customers bother to read these e-mails let alone respond ?

While relevance of product offered, quality, price etc. may play important role behind such customer apathy - more often, its quality of e-mail that matters most. Great majority of marketing e-mails are not even opened - let alone be read or responded to.

There may be many reasons why an e-mail goes unanswered, such as server down, spam filter or recipient’s mailbox full - but mostly the reason lies in its format, content and style. Chances of an e-mail eliciting any kind of response is indeed poor when recipient thinks the e-mail as 'waste of time' or 'there's nothing more to write about'. Obvious destination for such e-mails is the trash folder.

To be successful in e-business and saving your e-mails from trash folder - its extremely important to understand what's acceptable in business e-mails in terms of writing style, format and content.

You may have high quality product at competitive price - but that may not be enough to reach buyers unless your communication style is as good. Your communication must be able to attract recipient's attention through such acceptable style and content.

1. Acceptable Format

A business e-mail must have a business address as its sender. A mail from sales@rama-exports.com is far more effective and acceptable than rama_exports@hotmail.com This is an extremely important requirement in any business e-mail format for obvious reasons.

Here, we are discussing business not inviting friends for birthday party ! If your business can not afford a business e-mail but offers million dollar products - you really can not blame the recipient's cynicism. After all, you do not visit up-market automobile showroom in shorts and slippers as sales people may not take you seriously.

In the anonymous world of Internet - establishing trust is the bedrock of any business relationship. Anonymous e-mails do not convey a positive image about your company – and possibly harms your cause.

Business e-mails come from web-sites at no extra cost. So, the natural corollary of this point - to be successful in e-business, your business should have a professional web-site.

Other important requirement of any business e-mail is a meaningful signature line that contains your company name, address, tel, fax, internet home etc. All e-mail clients (such as Netscape, Outlook etc.) offers facility for creating signature files that gets attached to every outgoing mail.

2.  Meaningful Subject Line

E-marketers often underestimate the value of subject in an e-mail.In a typical e-mail client - the Inbox displays few items of informationsuch as date, from, subject etc. More often, decision of user to read or send the e-mail to trash folder depends upon two pieces of information -From: and Subject line. 

That is why these two pieces are so important and need special attention.A Business e-mail - as already discussed - help your mail to stand outover free mails. An attention grabbing subject line does the rest Secondly, wording of your Subject line can be key in your emails ability to get through spam filters. Write the wrong Subject line and spam filters will never let your e-mail travel to Inbox !
So, what should you look for in writing a good Subject line ?

Firstly, personalize it as much as you can, such as adding recipient's name in subject line (e.g. 'Kind Attn: Mr. John Hopkins, responding to your requirement for salted cookies',  'John, I think you will find this very interesting')Such customization gives your email a personal feel and tells the spam filters that you know the person you're writing to so it's much less likely to be flagged as spam.

3. Acceptable Style

Politeness, readability and easy comprehension are cornerstone of effective business communication. Politeness demands that you first write about you and your business before requesting the same from your recipient. Avoid words which may be construed as pushy, impolite or even rude such as ASAP, prompt,at your earliest etc.

4. Readability

Readability demands that you write in short sentences in direct conversational mode. Avoid using cumbersome sentences that so many businessmen in Indian sub-continent are so fond of (perhaps colonial legacy). Examples of such sentences - 'Would you be so kind of as to..', 'please find enclosed' etc.

Instead, use direct conversation mode such as 'I have attached below copy of my last mail'. Never use abbreviations such as "pls", BTW, "u" etc as you would normally do in a telex or telegram. Such abbreviations and acronyms not only make your letter difficult to read but may even lead the recipient to think you are lazy. You may be quite conversant with cryptic abbreviations and enjoy SMS lingo - certainly not everyone!

5. Professional Style

Professional style demands that your mail is precise, to the point and free from spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. Your content should run coherently from beginning to end, neatly organized into paragraphs and ideally should not exceed 3-4 paragraphs. Instead of writing about your product or company in details - touch important points and direct the reader to concerned sections in your web-site through links

6. Persistence

Writing effective e-mail is not sufficient unless you are prepared to follow them up. There may be many reasons why the buyer has not responded and the best person to answer the question is - obviously, the buyer! So go ahead, pick up the phone and politely enquire about your offer. You will be surprised to know the reason - which may be as simple as the buyer not in town or the e-mail never reached him/her or as complex as your negotiation style, product quality, pricing, payment terms etc. In any case, you will get valuable feedback which can be used to sharpen your business process.

Conclusion - Why Communication is So Important in E-Commerce?

In the anonymous world of Internet, often the only way your customer can evaluate you or your business is your communication - your language, presentation and style. Your e-mail, web-site, presentation etc. are your faces to the world - and these must inspire sufficient confidence in your buyer to transact business with you or at least take you seriously. This is a marked difference from traditional business and you should be aware of this feature of e-commerce.

You may be well known in your own country but the overseas customer has no way of knowing how true your claims are. The only touchstone he/she has is your communication - you must make sure they are really professional looking. The professional visitors must immediately know from your offer that it has been written by another professional.

So, take your communication style seriously and take professional advice wherever necessary. Without good communication style - your e-commerce venture may not take off the way you have planned.