In a world where a quick hit of the send button can result in your public embarrassment, I can’t stress enough the importance of e-mail etiquette and online common sense.  We wrote about this subject a few months back, but a recent “war story” came my way and I couldn’t help but try to drive this message home.

A good friend of mine works for a national non-profit group and I shuddered when he updated me on his co-workers efforts to promote their upcoming charity event.  To promote the event, the group was going to send out an e-mail that needed to be sent to 200 sponsors, friends and co-workers.  For those in PR, this may sound familiar when there is a press release that has to be sent to a very large group of interested press/analysts (hopefully, not that many targets…) 

The employee at the non-profit tried a mass blast Microsoft technique and sent 200 people (all identified in the cc line) the same e-mail addressed to one sponsor, whom we’ll refer to as “Joe Blow.”   Not exactly what you want to do to those that you rely on to keep your business going.  The e-mail looked unprofessional and even worse, impersonal.

However, before I can call this mistake a professional flop, it does get worse. The employee then tried to rectify the situation by mass blasting the same group with the following message:

“I apologize for the e-mail you received earlier which was addressed to Joe Blow. In attempt to save myself time I tried using the mail merge function on Microsoft Outlook. I apparently did not correctly execute the function; hence approximately 200 people got an e-mail addressed to Joe. I hope you do not see my mistake as a personal insult and thus have a negative influence on whether or not you would like to volunteer at the XX Charity event.  We would still love to have you come and support  XYZ charity as a volunteer. Below I have included the original e-mail excluding any attempt at trying to personalize the greeting using mail merge (it is obviously not strength of mine).”

Wow...

I am all for admitting when you are wrong and being honest – there is a need for transparency after all – however, use tact.  Not only did this person try to apologize with the same mistake he was apologizing for, he took it one step further with the phrase “excluding any attempt at trying to personalize the greeting using mail merge (it is obviously not strength of mine).”  Can you imagine receiving a note like that? 

This is just further proof that no matter the tool – e-mail, twitter, blog, whatever – think before you hit send.  Think: “Is this the message I want to get across?  Am I conveying what I want?”  It’s also another painful reminder to never mass blast.  Yes, when sending an e-mail pitch there will be a certain amount of information that will remain the same, but you should always do your best to personalize the e-mail. Yes, it will take longer.  Yes, it may seem like a pain – BUT it will be better for you in the long run. 

The easy way out is never really easy…is it?