Business Email Writing: How to write a business email properly

In your career, you will most definitely come across business emails. And it’s important that you know how to write one. Whether you are someone who has no job yet, or someone who is new to the workforce, or someone who has been working for some time now but would like to improve your English writing skills, this lesson is for you!

The Sections of a Business Email

We will be doing this per section, but let me list it down for you below so that you have an idea of what composes a business email. There are six parts that we will tackle in this post.

1. Opening Greeting
2. Social Line
3. Introduction
4. Main Body
5. Closing Line
6. Closing

1. Start with an Opening Greeting

There are several ways to go about this. Some options will sound more formal than the others. But the key point to remember is to always put an opening line. A business email that does not have one doesn’t only read unprofessional, it also sounds a bit rude. Also, include the name of your receiver to make your business email more personalized.

What you can write:

• Dear Gabby,
• Hello Gabby,
• Hi Ms. Wallace,

If you’re writing to a group of people, you can say:

• Dear all,
• Dear teammates,
• Hello new students,
• To: All Faculty Members,

Avoid: Skipping the opening line. That’s unprofessional and impersonalized.

2. Add a Social Line to Engage

The next thing to write is a social line to start the body of your business email before you transition to your main points. It can be in a question form or a statement. The objective is to build rapport and connect to your receiver at the very start.

What you can write:

• How are you?
• How’s it going?
• How’s work?
• I hope you are doing well.

If it’s a Monday or Tuesday, or if a holiday just passed, or if you know that the receiver just came back from vacation, you can write:

• I hope you had a good weekend.
• I’m sure you had a wonderful Christmas break with your family.
• I heard you just got back from vacation.

3. Add an Introduction Section When Necessary

This part is applicable if you are emailing someone whom you just met or someone whom you haven’t had contact in a while. It can also be for someone you haven’t met in person, or you haven’t met all.

If you are emailing a colleague you see every day, this part can be skipped. I’m pretty sure your colleague knows who you are!

What you can write:

• We met last week at the conference,
• We spoke on the phone earlier,
• It was great meeting you last week,
• It was great talking to you on the phone yesterday.
• I got your email address from our mutual friend,

If your business email is a follow-up email to someone who replied to you:

• Thanks for getting back to me so quickly,
• Thanks for replying to my email,

On the other hand, if you are replying late to a business email sent to you, offer your apologies in this section.

• I’m so sorry for not getting back to you sooner,
• I apologize for my late response to your email,
• I’m sorry for not getting in touch sooner,

4. Main Points of Your Business Email

After the opening greeting, introduction, and social line, now is the chance to be more direct to the point.

You can start the body with:

• I am writing because
• This is concerning the
• I’m writing to check in on
• By the way, I’d like to clarify something
• I’m reaching out to you because

Now it happens to the best of us. You write your email so quickly and you send it immediately and you forget a piece of information you should have included.

You can send a follow-up email and say:

• Sorry for the second email,
• Just an additional note,
• I just wanted to add,
• I’m sorry, I forgot to mention,

If you are including information or attachments, it’s helpful to include this in the body of your email.

• I attached the documents for
• Please see the attached files
• Attached in this email is the file for
• Here are the details on the
• Please see the table below
• Here’s the link to the

If you want to highlight something, you can add and use any of these:

• Please note that
• Important:

If you have questions to your receiver, you can write:

• I have a few questions about
• I do have a question on the

If you are answering a question or some questions:

• To answer your question
• Here’s the answer to your question about the

If you want to remind your receiver about something, you can write:

• Just a quick reminder,
• By the way, please be reminded that

5. Wrap It Up Using a Closing Line

This is where you wrap-up your business email. You can thank your receiver, or say you are looking forward to his reply. You can also offer additional assistance or let the receiver know that he can reach you if he has additional information.

• I am looking forward to hearing back from you.
• Thank you, again, for the information you sent.

If you’re expecting to see the receiver at a specific time soon, you can also use that as your closing line.

• I am looking forward to seeing you next week at the conference.

6. Closing your Business Email

This is the last section of your business email. And like the opening section, there are several ways to do this. Here are some alternatives to the commonly used ‘Yours Truly’.

• Thank you,
• Sincerely,
• My best regards,

There you go! You should be able to write a business email now! I gave you plenty of examples and you can now be confident to write a business email to your colleague, boss or future employer.

What’s nice about acquiring this skill is you set a great first impression, even through writing.

You can supplement your learning with this other post and learn about what NOT to write in a business email. This is a great lesson and I am sure you’ll become more confident in writing your email after.

Happy writing!