How you address your reader sets the tone of the email, and can reinforce the relationship you have with them. There is no single correct way to address others by email, but it's often safest to start off with more formal greetings, and then allow these to develop more or less formally as you engage in conversation.
Here are a few tips to consider as you craft a professional greeting:
- If possible, find out the person's name who will be reading the email (rather than using something generic like "To Whom It May Concern" or "Dear Sir" or "Madam"). Double-check to make sure you spelled the name correctly before you send the email.
- Especially if this is your first time contacting this individual, use a person's most formal title to start off the conversation. This might be something like "Dr." or simply "Mr." or "Ms." Note: Though you might be used to using "Miss" when addressing an unmarried woman and "Mrs." to address a married woman, in most professional settings it is best to use the more generic "Ms." (pronounced "mizz") so as not to suggest that a woman's marital status is relevant to how you address them professionally.
- If you are responding to an email sent to you, it might be strategic to mirror the same level of formality used in the previous email. So, if that person addressed you by your first name, you may feel free to do so with them as well. Note: One situation where you might not want to do this is when you are being addressed informally by someone who is in a management or leadership position in your organization. It's one thing for the boss to be on a first-name basis with an employee; it's quite another thing for an employee to be on a first-name basis with the boss.
- If you're not sure of titles, and you're not sure about using someone's first name, you can always opt to go with a simple greeting such as "Hello," or "Greetings,". In some cases, you can skip the separate salutation, and simply embed the person's name into the first line of the email, especially when you have an established email chain where you've already addressed each other by your formal titles. For example, after a string of back and forth emails, instead of writing "Dear Pam, Thank you for . . . ", it might sound more appropriate or conversational to write "Thank you, Pam, for . . . ". In other words, your choice of how to address your reader can vary depending on the context of your email, your relationship with the reader, and other factors; don't feel as if you have to use the same greeting all the time.
