Meeting invitations are crucial for a meeting’s success. Besides all other meeting preparations, it is necessary to send proper meeting invitations on time. Suitable meeting invitations help to get maximum members on board.
This article is all about drafting and writing perfect invitations. The formal invitation looks professional, and informal invitations should seem friendly.
How to Craft Meeting Invitations?
Before writing a meeting invitation, you must make a rough sketch and decide your thoughts. Decide an invitation tone in your mind to write in a formal, informal, friendly or polite tone. To invite the chief guests or higher management, you should adopt a respectful tone.
Then you should decide from which account you will send an invitation mail. Research proves that the receiver is more likely to read an email if it is sent through a personal account.
When the receivers read that email is received from a particular person, they show more interest in the message and read them instantly. Instead of this, if the message is sent in the organization’s name, there are more chances the receiver will ignore an email or decide to read it later.
So, choose a sender account wisely and keep in mind the receiver’s psyche before choosing a sender account. After selecting an account, start working on email content.
1- Write a Subject Line
A subject line should be based on the purpose of sending an email. The subject line should be specific, catchy and deliver the process comprehensively. The subject line should be neither too short nor too lengthy.
A short subject line will not be able to deliver the main idea of an email, and a lengthy one will lose the receiver’s attention. Research says 34% of people decide to open an email after reading a subject line.
A subject line shouldn’t be between five to seven words. It is similar to the headings and topics of essays. The subject line shouldn’t include explanations. Examples of some specific subject lines are;
- Meeting to discuss the project results
- Meeting to discuss Manager’s farewell essentials.
- Appraisal fixing team meeting
2- Write Time, Duration and Venue
After sharing the main idea, you should share the essential details of the meeting, like where it will be conducted and the timing and duration of the meeting. These details could be shared through a link. If the details are attached to a link, you should mention the link in the email. These are the primary details of meetings and should be addressed in the first half of an email. The details should include.
Date and Time
The date and time of the meeting should be convenient for members. Avoid choosing the days on which the workload is more than usual. And also decide the timings wisely. It should not be too early at the start of the day. And it should not be too late at night. You should select the time wisely, especially if the meeting duration could be too long.
Duration
The invitation should include the meeting duration. Because people usually have tight schedules and back-to-back meetings and very common. So estimated time duration should be mentioned in the body of the email.
Venue
The invitation should include the venue details. If the meeting is conducted online, the invitation link should be mentioned along with the platform details. Many online platforms allow you to conduct meetings. Choose a platform and mention it in the invitation. So the receiver could install it before the meeting.
3- Write the Purpose of the Meeting
One or two lines of description of the purpose of the meeting should be added in the body of the email. The explanation is usually the elaboration of the subject line.
An invitation should involve comprehensive details about the meeting. The receiver will feel engaged by reading this in the body of the email. Receivers will also understand their role in the meeting through this description.
Let’s look at some examples of the body of email invitation.
- You are invited to an employees meeting that will be held on 6th September from 4 p.m to 6 p.m. to discuss last week’s appraisal reports.
- Our project management duties will be assigned in this meeting. We will also distribute the task details to each member in the meeting.
4-Describe the Meeting’s Outline
In the body of the email, you should comprehensively describe the online meeting. It will include the elaboration of the purpose of the meeting. You should be specific about the meeting’s agenda because the invited members will prepare for the meeting by keeping in view the agenda of the meeting.
Every member could assess the importance of their presence in the meeting by reading this part of the email. You can add bullets in the body of the email. So the receiver can easily understand them.
If you think that extra elaboration is crucial for the receiver to prepare for the meeting, you could add an attachment like a PDF file or an excel sheet. Here is an example of the elaboration of the purpose of the meeting.
“We will take a look into the last month’s performance of employees, time taken to complete the project and performance comparison will also be done”.
5- RSVP
If you seek the acceptance of the email receiver, you should ask for an RSVP. You should also mention a response deadline. It could be written as,
“We will be happy to receive a confirmation reply from your side to add your name to meeting attendees.”
Response deadline should be given to avoid the mess at the last moment.
6- Add Sender’s Signature
It is a professional way to add a company logo at the end of the invitation with the sender’s signatures. If you are a company representative, you must add the link at the bottom of the invitation. Your name, position and signatures should be mentioned. So a receiver could recognize that the invitation has come from a particular member at a specific job.
Add an organization’s page link at the bottom. So the receiver could take more information about the organization through the link.
How to Write a Perfect Meeting Invitation?
An invitation should be engaging and attractive to obtain the desired response. You should write an invitation by keeping in view the following things.
Remember the Purpose of Meeting
An invitation can sound polite, friendly, formal or informal based on the purpose of the meeting. Suppose the purpose of the meeting is to give final comments on the last project; the invitation should be in a light tone. If the purpose of the meeting is to discuss the current project, the tone of an invitation should be formal. So tone depends on the purpose of the meeting.
Create the Sense of Engagement
Develop a sense of engagement by using the name of the recipient. Also, develop a tone of direct communication. Using the recipient’s name will personalize the invitation and develop the recipient’s interest in the meeting. Add some catchy words to seek the attention of the receiver. For example
- We praise the excellent performance of your team in this project.
- We hope that you will give similar performance in future. To discuss the performance report in detail, we seek your presence at the meeting.
Write Comprehensively
An invitation should be specific and comprehensive. Describe all the essential details but keep it brief because no one has time to read extra elaborations. And if someone starts reading the explanations, the reader will surely lose his interest slowly and will not complete it. So an invitation should be brief but should include all the necessary details.
Meeting Invitation Examples
We have discussed all the necessary elements of an invitation email. Now we will see how it looks. We have included two examples: a formal invitation, and the other is an informal one. You can decide on an invitation tone according to the situation.
Example# 01 Formal Invitation Email
This invitation is for a board of directors meeting with recently merged company representatives.
From: Adam Marker
Subject: Welcome to a successful merger
Dear members,
We are happy to announce our first meeting after a successful merger. We are impressed by both companies’ cooperation. We will now be identified as a single company. We have scheduled a meeting on April 6, 2022, to discuss the recent subject matters at 2 p.m; on zoom.
Click the link below to join the meeting.
We have attached a file including all the details that will be discussed in this meeting. We will discuss the following key points.
- Selection of management department members
- Announce the promotions
- Our mutual goals
- Developments to make this merger successful
The estimated duration of the meeting is 3 to 3.5 hours. We hope that you will join the meeting. Please send a confirmation email if you will attend this meeting. We seek RSVP by April 2, 2022 because we need to issue an attendees list on 2nd April.
Thank you for your time. We hope to have you in the meeting on 6th April.
Kind regards,
Adam Marker
(CEO)
noteplay@happyhome.com
Example#02 Informal Invitation Email
The informal invitations are given to your team members and people you know well. This invitation can be written informally.
From: Diana Souza
Subject: Performance evaluation meeting on Tuesday, 3/15
Hi team,
I thank you all for making this project one of the most successful projects in the history of our organization. I appreciate your efforts to increase the team’s productivity. It is an appreciation meeting, but we will also discuss our lacking areas to give improved performance in future.
It will be great to have you all on Tuesday, March 15, for the performance evaluation meeting at 11 a.m. The meeting will be held on the ground floor in the auditorium. The duration of the meeting will be about 1 to 1.5 hours.
Please revise the recently completed project’s outline. We will evaluate our performance as a team, and the evaluation of individual performance will also be done. We will also discuss how we can improve the performance in future.
The recipient sheet has been generated. The link is attached to this email. Confirm your name on that list. Add your confirmations by 10th March.
Thank you all for enhancing the team’s productivity. I hope you all will show the same dedication in future.
Greetings
Team representative,
Diana
Meeting Invitation Email Templates
Suppose the examples don’t work for you. You can use the templates. You can put your information in the templates, and you are good to go.
Template #01: Formal Invitation Email Template
If you want to invite recipients you don’t know well, you can use this template. It will seem like a formal invitation.
Hello<invitee name>
I hope you are doing good in your life. We are conducting a meeting for<purpose of meeting>. We have scheduled the meeting on<date> at<time>.
The venue of the meeting will be<location>./meeting will be conducted online on<online platform>. The meeting will be approximately<number of hours> long. The details are attached with the mail. The outline of meetings is,
- <Agenda 1>
- <Agenda 2>
- <Agenda 3>
Please send a confirmation email by<due date> So we can upload a list of attendees on time.
Regards,
<Your name>
<Your Position in organization and contact details>
<Organization’s name>
Template #02 Informal Invitation Email Template
If the meeting is with your team members or people, you are more familiar. You can use this template.
Hi<Invitee name>,
I hope that everything is going well. Let’s discuss<your topic> in detail. I hope to see you all on<date> at<time>. It will be convenient for all of us to attend the meeting on<date>. The meeting will be held at<venue, online platform>. The meeting will be<number of hours> long. In which we will discuss
- <Topic 1>
- <Topic 2>
- <Topic 3>
Let us know whether you will be able to attend the meeting or not. So I can confirm the attendees’ list on time. Looking forward to having you all.
Greetings
<Your name>
Final Remarks
Nowadays, most invitations are sent through social media platforms. A meeting could be on an important or a less significant topic. So we choose the tone of email by keeping in view the topic and purpose of the meeting. Meeting invitations are a crucial element of meeting preparations. After all, a meeting is nothing without the invitees. So we should wisely choose a tone for writing a meeting invitation.
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