Essential Email Etiquette Rules When Sending Group Emails

I’m sure many of us know the basics of emailing others, especially when discussing one-on-one communications. We’ve learned from experience. But what about when you have to email several recipients in one message?

That can feel a fair deal dicier, enough so that you might not be sure how to go about it. However, these situations will arise in your professional settings and personal interactions, so how do you handle them?

You must know proper email etiquette to remain professional, courteous, and respectful.

In this blog post, I’ll help you master group email etiquette rules so you’ll know what to say when contacting a company division or a small team.

Table of Contents

Key Takeaways

Understanding email etiquette rules for addressing multiple people in an email message requires urgent attention to clarity, conciseness, and respectfulness.
The best practices for emailing several people are segmenting your audience, selecting a relevant subject line and goal, writing clear subject lines, using honorifics as required, and being respectful.

The Basics of Email Greetings

You can write an email greeting to a single recipient with your eyes closed, but once you try to send a group email, you can find yourself stuck on what to say. How do you greet several people at once?

Let’s review the rules!

Follow their tone

Mastering tone in an email is tricky. In this case, I recommend looking no further than the recipient. Determine the lead contact for the group, team, or division. You can get a feel for their style if you’ve communicated with them before.

Next, mimic that style, but keep it natural so your email doesn’t come across as condescending.

What about if you’ve never interacted with the recipient before? Use your standard, professional language and tone in that scenario, but feel free to relax as you get to know the person.

Use BBCs and CCs carefully

BBCs, which stand for blind carbon copy, and CCs, which are short for carbon copy, are email features that allow you to send a copy of the email to a specific recipient. I’m sure we’ve all sent or received emails that have used BCC and CC before, but replicating them successfully can be difficult.

Here’s the scoop. If you want the email recipient’s email address hidden and don’t need them to respond, use BCC. If you want to copy someone on an email but don’t necessarily require a response, use CC.

Formal Versus Casual Addressing

Formality is appropriate in a business setting, but we’ve all communicated with someone who talks too formally. It’s like chatting with a medieval knight; it can be off-putting.

That’s not the reputation you want to forge, but you’re also anxious about being too casual, so where do you toe the line here?

To answer that question, I’ll ask you another question. How well do you know the email recipients?

If you’re very friendly with more than one person or two people on the team, you can use a less formal tone when emailing them. However, if you don’t really know anyone, defaulting to a formal greeting is best.

As for the colleagues you know but not all that well, you should use a mix between formal and informal that feels natural and comfortable but is still professional.

When to Use Individual Names (and When Not) While Addressing Small Groups

Whether you include names as you greet multiple recipients or the email recipients depends on how many people you’re communicating with. If it’s only two or three people, you can write something like, “Hi, Mark, Nancy, and Steve.”

However, if there’s also Mike, Stacy, Michelle, Adam, Chris, and Alan as part of the team, you can see how naming everyone in your opener is too cluttered. You’re better off using a catch-all like “Hi, team.”

How do you personalize communications for smaller groups besides adding their name? Here are a few suggestions:

Address them by the project they’re working on (such as Project Alpha).
Refer to them by their group title (like sponsorship division).
Call them by a team name you created (such as Team Go-Getters).

The benefit of referring to people by name is clarity, as it’s hard for people to be confused about who your email is addressed to when you use their first and last name specifically. It also creates a more inclusive email environment.

However, the drawbacks include clutter if you use too many names. You can also create confusion if you refer to Mike without a last name and there are three Mikes on the team.

That’s why you must tread especially carefully.

How to Write to Larger Audiences

How to address multiple people in an email example — *Image courtesy of SalesHandy Knowledge Base*

Emailing small groups of two or three is the easy part.

But what if you’re messaging double the number of people? Or even triple?

This can happen when you work on new projects within your corporation. If you’re in a position of power in your business, you might also address large swathes of people, and you won’t necessarily know everyone, either.

That’s the trickiest part, I think, because what in the world do you say to people you’ve never even had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face?

Let’s discuss some strategies for handling this email hurdle with aplomb.

Know the purpose of your email

Why are you reaching out to so many people at once? Is there a companywide announcement you must make, such as a merger or a changing policy? Has your business received an award or smashed a goal?

Or is the email more specific to your sales and marketing professionals across offices? You must know why you’re emailing; it will help you with the next step.

Select who you need to email

The information above determines who should go on the list to receive the email. You can decide this yourself or get a list from a higher-up and be told to email everyone about it. The recipients should be segmented the same way you tailor your customer emails to reach those who need to see them.

Keep your subject line clear

Since so many people receive the same email, you want to do all you can to minimize confusion. That means prioritizing a clear, understandable, descriptive subject line.

Simplicity is best here. For example, if you’re announcing hiring a new manager, the title might read, “Introducing Steve Englewood, Our New District Manager.”

There are no ambiguities about what the email entails, which helps the recipients determine quickly if they should get it. If they aren’t, they can quietly opt-out.

Use general greetings

A simple “hi all” or “greetings employees” work here, provided all your recipients are employees. If you aren’t sure, keep it even more general, like “Greetings, everybody.”

Be inclusive

The key to addressing multiple recipients in your email is inclusivity, even in large groups, which is admittedly easier said than done. It will take practice, but once you master this skill, you will make everyone you email feel more comfortable.

Be polite yet professional

As for your tone, an important consideration of good email etiquette, I echo my sentiments from above. The right tone for emailing a large group is a mix of professionalism and politeness. You want to be approachable yet still firm as needed.

Add BCCs and CCs when necessary

Might you have to CC or BCC a couple of the recipients? Double-check with your team before you send the email. Copying people on an email who shouldn’t receive it is a huge privacy concern, and you can offend those who were expecting to be CC’ed or BCC’ed but weren’t.

Proofread your email

Nowadays, all email tools have basic spelling and grammar-checking capabilities. Those sentences are worth returning and correcting if you see colorful squiggles underneath your words.

The only thing worse than making a careless error in an email to two people is doing the same in an email to 2,000.

Test before sending

On that note, I recommend testing your email for deliverability like you would when emailing customers. Triple-check that the email addresses are valid to avoid a dreaded mailer daemon return email.

How to Use Titles and Honorifics

Another consideration when emailing large groups is how to refer to them. For instance, should you use honorifics? What about titles?

For example, honorifics are titles before someone’s name, such as Lord, Lady, Dame, Sir, Ms., Mrs., Mr., or Dr.

Here are some pointers for when and how to use them:

Skip the honorifics for those you already know well. You can use just their first name when addressing them through email without causing any offense.
That said, if someone has a title like Dr., which they worked hard and spent a lot of money and time earning, you might refer to them that way to respect the title.
If you don’t know the email recipient well, using honorifics in a formal professional email signature setting is appropriate.
When addressing a woman, the rule of thumb is to use Ms. for women under 30 and those who aren’t married. You can use Mrs. if she’s married. If you aren’t sure, referring to a woman as Ms. is safer.
The honorific Mx. is a gender-neutral title between Mr. and Ms. If you aren’t 100% sure of the gender of the person you’re emailing or if they’re nonbinary, use Mx.
If you choose an honorific in an email, you only have to use it the initial time you address the person. For example, you might say Mr. John Smith in your first email, then John in all subsequent messages.

Admittedly, hierarchical distinctions are tricky, but this guidance should assist as you navigate their complexities.

How to Employ Gender-Neutral Language in Emails

Gender neutrality is important if you’re unsure of the gender of those in your email or don’t want to cause offense. That means skipping on the Mr./Ms. honorifics and foregoing sir/madam.

Here are some ways to refer to the email address recipients instead:

Everyone
Everybody
All
Community
Colleague
Folks
Recipients
Team
Friends
Team members

How To Craft the Right Email Body for Multiple Recipients

You worked so hard putting together the right recipients and subject line. Now, you have to focus on the email body itself.

Clarity and relevancy are your two guideposts for writing emails to large groups. Remember how I mentioned using a singular, clear subject line to make it 100% obvious what you’re discussing in the email?

The email body should be more of that. This is not the time to be vague or assume your recipients already know something. Spell everything out clearly without being condescending about it.

Keep the information in the email relevant to the subject line. For example, if you mention hiring a new employee in your opener, the email body should explain more about who the new hire is, what they’ll be doing, what their prior accomplishments are, and when they’ll be starting.

The closing and signature

Email signature example for how to address multiple people in an email — *Image courtesy of Tufts*

I just wrote a guide to professionally and personally closing emails, but it’s different when you’re addressing one recipient versus five or more.

If you want to play it cool and be formal since you’re not close with all the recipients, use these sign-offs:

In appreciation
With gratitude
Cordially
Thank you
Respectfully
Kind regards
Regards
Warm regards
Best regards
With appreciation
Kindly
Best
Best regards to all
Warmly

Here are some closers you can use if you know the recipients well:

Sending good vibes
With all my best wishes
Until we speak again
All my best
Wishing you well
Fond regards
Take care
Cheers
Wishing you all the best
Yours in friendship
Stay well

44 Examples of Openers to Address Multiple People in an Email

By now, you’ve got all the basics of emailing multiple people down pat. It’s time to begin incorporating these examples into your email communications.

Here are some openers/salutations that will help you do just that.

Warm salutations to all
Dear guests and attendees
Hi folks
To our valued partners
Greetings, team members
Hi all
Dear participants
To my colleagues
Hi, group members
Dear community
Hello dear friends
Dear associates
Hello everyone
To the entire group
Good day, everyone
Hello team members
Group members
A warm welcome to all
Hi, everyone in this thread
Friends and colleagues
Everyone on the list
Warmest greetings
Good day, team
Hello friends
All participants
Salutations
Dear friends
Hi there
Ladies and gentlemen
To all recipients
Attention all
Dear colleagues
Hi team
Good morning, all
Good afternoon, all
Good evening, all
Hello everyone
Dear team
Hello friends
Hi colleagues
To all involved
Hello team members
Dear team
Greetings to the group

Conclusion

Proper addressing of email recipients is critical for smooth, streamlined communications. That said, there are many ways to address someone in an email, so reviewing them all and choosing which one best matches your tone and brand will help you strengthen your business emails.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. How should I address a group of people if I don’t know their names?

Don’t mention their names at all just to be on the safe side. Instead, write “Hello, everyone” or “Greetings, team.” Any variation on that type of opener works because it’s not specific to anyone.

2. Is it okay to use “hi all” in a formal business email?

It is, but if you feel this greeting may be too informal, try addressing the recipients as “team” or “colleague” instead.

3. How can I address a mixed group of superiors and peers in an email?

That depends on the size of the group. You can call them all by name if it’s a smaller team, but use honorifics as required. A more formal but generalized greeting is best if it’s a larger group.

4. What’s the best way to handle email communication with diverse groups?

Understand their culture and how they use honorifics, then implement them appropriately, as you don’t want to cause any offense accidentally.

5. Can I use “to whom it may concern” when addressing multiple people?

It’s not recommended. “To whom it may concern” is very vague and is often used by people who don’t want to bother researching the recipient’s name. While your situation is different, that greeting still has poor connotations, so avoid its usage if you can.

6. How do I address an email to multiple people without excluding anyone?

You can include their names if you write to a few people or use “team” or “group” to ensure everyone feels included.

7. What should I do if I accidentally use the wrong title or name in a group email?

Don’t write a second email to everyone apologizing. That kind of message is best done privately between you and the person you fear you offended in a separate email thread.