Hello 'what do I call you?', ...

Well ... what?

It's kind of hard to address your downline in a program when you cannot personalize your greeting; therefore, I am sometimes lost about what to write after writing the hello part.  A lot of times I find other people's emails open like such:

• Hello fellow marketers,
• Hi guys,
• Hey,

Can you see what I mean, addressed to the male gender or to no one?

Where has the language towards the female gender gone?

Did it ever start?

When I was going through technical writing classes in college, the most important point in writing was to remain gender specific or gender neutral.  And, this  point has been carried with me since; therefore, when I either hear people addressing a group of people, "hey guys," it drives me insane.  Then, when I see others open with Hello fellow marketers or Hi guys, I'm driven even more mad.

So, how are we going to include the ladies into the conversation?

Personally, I handle this situation by greeting a group of people with a common time of day greetings, such as:

• Good Morning,
• Good Afternoon,
• Good Evening,

In my emails, I like to use something around the actual days of the week:

• Happy Tuesday to You,
• Welcome to Wednesday,
• T.G.I.F.

Keeping the greeting to a specific time frame eliminates the need to address the group with a gender based term, and it will make some of us older language nerds happy!   Try using some gender neutral openings in your emails and greetings today and see if some long, lost forgotten ladies traveling the Internet start paying attention to you today!

What are some of the types of group email openings, or group setting greetings do you use?

Leave them in the comments below: