A Case for Email

Email has fallen out of favor with a lot of people. Some think it's too old-school and/or cumbersome, but I want to state my case as to why it's still incredibly relevant…and why it should be used more. 

Yes, more.

My colleague Fahim and I have written about the importance of professional communication in past articles like “Respectful Responsiveness: How to Be Professional in Email and Text” and “Consistently Clear Communication.” If you haven’t read those two articles, please do so as they have lots of important gems in them that will really make you shine as a more proactive, productive, and prudent professional. I won’t rehash everything expressed in those articles, but there are a two very important—yet often lost—points we make in “Respectful Responsiveness” that I want to re-make here:

1) If initiating communication, choose the medium that’s appropriate. Do not interrupt someone’s day with a text or direct message that is not time sensitive. Instead, with any non-urgent things or updates, simply send them an email so they can check when they have time later and not have to pause what they’re doing to get unimportant information.

2) When responding to communication, respond the same way it was sent to you. Do not text someone back when they first sent you an email unless they asked you to specifically or there’s an overarching circumstance that would require immediate notice back to them. 

I believe stongly that the vast majority of professional communication can and should be via email, including what’s often done by text and what’s often done in meetings. Email is searchable. It’s orderly. It can be labeled and filed. And it’s something most people have a dedicated time of day to sort through, rather than trying to volley back non-time-sensitive messages all day, losing focused, productive time.

In an email, you can CC people who should be looped in but don’t necessarily have to respond or be involved in the conversation. That’s what the CC field is for. Be sure to put those from whom you need a response or those to whom the message is directed in the To section and then use the CC section for heads-ups and loop-ins. This is important in responses too, so in responding simply rearrange the To and CC sections accordingly.

In email, you can install Grammarly or another spelling- and grammar-checking widget. This is very important. Other professionals may not take you seriously if your email looks like it was written by a kid texting their buddy with acronyms, fragmented sentences, and lack of clarity. 

Of course, over-emailing is also a thing. This is where the all-important professional traits of thoughtfulness and discernment come in. Keep notes and consolidate your thoughts into fewer, fuller emails so you’re not firing off messages left and right with every little thought you have. Notes apps work wonders for this type of thing. Just keep a daily note where you write down little things you have to tell someone, then once in a while send them a bulleted email with your thoughts. 

If you use email for marketing, check out a recent article that my mentor, colleague, and BFAM (brother from another mother) Fahim wrote: “The Power of a Monthly Newsletter.” It’s important to not over-saturate your email lists with unnecessary communications. Open rates will drop and you’ll start getting lots of people unsubscribing. Instead, consider collecting and consolidating messages into digest form.

If you do text marketing or notifications, understand that they are not for everyone. I acknowledge that younger generations and select individuals from my generation and older are okay with texts from businesses…and, in fact, many prefer it. So, I won’t yuck their yums, but I will caution that those who use text marketing understand that it’s simply not for everyone and that there’s a large group of people, including Uncle Marty here, who would prefer to opt out of it. Especially obnoxious are marketing texts or appointment confirmations that come outside of normal okay-to-text-someone hours. Why people schedule texts for early mornings or weekends is something I truly don’t understand, and nothing will get me to unsubscribe faster to a text campaign than if the text wakes me up from a lovely morning snooze sesh. 

Can you all do me a solid? The next time you get out your phone to text a vendor, client, or colleague something, ask yourself if it’s really important enough to break their concentration and elicit an immediate response. Could it be better served in an email that they could then read when they’re focusing on communication later in the day or early the next business day? I think, in doing this, you’ll find your productivity and the productivity of your colleagues increasing, your notes and information easier to organize and search, and the anxiety levels across your worksphere abate…just a little bit.

And then also do me another solid. If you’re like me and get thoroughly irritated every time your phone bleeps at you, and, like me, due to responsibilities outside of your control don’t have the luxury of silencing your phone, then put up some hard boundaries. I’ve done this and it’s given me a little more peace. I’ve removed all email and social notifications from my phone; I will check email and socials on my own time and on my own schedule, not when the notification wants me to. I also only initiate and respond to texts during certain windows that I’ve established for my own sanity: with friends and family, between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.; with business-related things, during business hours on business days. This means that if my best friend texts me at 10 p.m. and it’s not an emergency, she won’t get a response until the next day; if a vendor texts me on a Sunday or a holiday, they won’t get a response until the next business day. This, in my mind at least (even if they may not notice or realize it), is doing what I can to not encourage others’ bad habits by texting at personally inappropriate or grossly unprofessional times. Boundaries are so healthy.

Recently, my colleagues at AYM High Consultants and I had a good chat about this. The team members who were handling AYM High’s emails, calls, and texts were answering them at all hours, as people, when given permission (and often without permission), will reach out at odd hours with no regard to the fact that they might be interrupting someone’s sleep, meals, or prayers. So, after a good discussion and an announcement to our clients with our new response times, we successfully put up proper boundaries to not answer emails, calls, and texts outside of business hours. The boundaries we now have put in place for ourselves are awesome, allowing us much more focused time and a much healthier relationship with our clients. It also trains our clients to be more professional in their outreach and response timing, so we feel we’re doing our duty as their business coaches by standing by our own boundaries in hopes that they will put up and stand behind theirs.

All this being said, I acknowledge my bias on this topic. I’m a middle-aged man who is admittedly over-particular when it comes to things like this—a trait that, frankly, makes me quite a good editor and communication coach. It’s my job to notice these things and it’s my personality to be considerably irritated by the same. I don’t have a mind that can keep all the facts, names, numbers, topics, clients, events, and everything else I’m involved with straight, so I instead rely on a detailed system of notes and reminders and conversation chains to keep everything sorted out and accessible when I need to remind myself of something that’s going on.

I also acknowledge the effectiveness of text marketing. I may have disparaged it a bit in this article, so want to make sure I also state that I believe it has its place; there are a lot of people who like it and respond well to it. My colleagues at AYM High communicate with a lot of our clients via text and it seems to be favorable for most people. It’s not for me, but then again I’m certainly not most people. 

I in no way mean to disparage connectedness, technology, multiple platforms, or keeping in touch. I'm simply trying to make an argument for a technology—good ol' email—that some have all but given up on, but I still find to be incredibly necessary in 2024 business. I simply want to make the point that email is still very relevant, and it’s certainly the way to go for anything that’s official, important, of-record, or formal. I love change and progress, but I do fear that we lose some basic professionalism as options for communication become so prolific. 

In non-professional settings, please text your friends and family. Call them. Interrupt their days to share silly things that reinforce your relationships and bring them joy. That’s so important. But just be aware of proper boundaries when it comes to late nights and early mornings if you know they’re not a late night or early morning person. And for professional communication, please keep business stuff to business hours, send emails for non-time-sensitive things, and let’s all do what we can to establish and reinforce essential oft-lost boundaries in our uber-connected entirely-too-accessible world.

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Marty Johnson is the Communication and Vision Coach at AYM High Consultants, a columnist, and an editor, producing the mail and business center industry's leading magazine, MBC Today. In 2023, he sold his popular and growing brand, Uncle Marty’s Shipping Office, and retired from shopkeeper life to focus on writing and coaching. Subscribe to his Ask Uncle Marty™ newsletter and read more at askunclemarty.com; follow him on socials @askunclemarty. #AskUncleMarty