Email greetings: the right salutation for every message, from cold email to reply.

Definition

An email greeting is the salutation at the top of an email: the line that addresses the recipient by name or title, such as "Hi Dana," or "Dear Dr. Reyes," before the message starts. Email greetings set the tone for everything below them.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines a salutation as a greeting in words or actions, or the words used at the start of a letter or speech. The Oxford Learner's Dictionaries add a specialist sense: the words in a letter that address the person you are writing to, with Dear Sir as the example.

Email inherited that line from the letter and loosened it. Grammatically it is a fragment, a greeting word plus a name plus a punctuation mark. Its job is small but real: it tells the recipient you know who they are, and it sets the level of formality for the rest of the message.

In a cold email it is also the first evidence of whether the message was written for this person or for a list. A greeting that is right for a first email to a hospital administrator is wrong for the third reply to a colleague, so the choice moves with the relationship.

This page covers professional, formal and informal email greetings, the ones that fit cold email, follow-ups and replies, groups and unknown recipients, titles, punctuation, greetings inside mail merge tools, and seasonal greetings. Closings have their own pages, linked further down.

Email greeting, salutation and opening line: the terms

Several words get used for the top of an email, and they do not all mean the same thing. Email salutations and email greetings are the same line under two names; the others are not. Keeping them apart explains why searches for this topic return such different articles.

The plural is the source of most confusion. The Cambridge entry for greetings describes a message that says you hope someone is well or happy, with birthday, holiday and season's greetings as examples. That is a different thing from the salutation line, and it gets a short section of its own below.

The opening line is the other common mix-up. "I hope this email finds you well" is not a greeting. It is a first sentence, and it is judged on different grounds, mainly whether it says anything about the recipient. The greeting only has to be correct; the opening line has to be worth reading.

The three parts of an email greeting

Every greeting is built from the same three parts, and most greeting mistakes are one part out of place. The greeting word sets the tone: Dear is formal, Hello is neutral, Hi is friendly, and Hey is casual.

The name sets the distance: a first name for peers and anyone you have exchanged email with, a title and last name for formal first contact. The punctuation closes the line: a comma in most business email, a colon in some formal correspondence.

The diagram was drawn for this page. In this page's view, the name is the part that matters most. A misspelled name is read before anything else in the email, and it tells the recipient the sender did not check.

Names that arrive from a database are the risky ones. If a sequencing tool or a data provider fills in the name, check it against the person's own profile or signature before the first email goes out, and fix lowercase or all-caps names by hand.

Professional email greetings by formality, with examples

Professional email greetings sit on a short ladder, and learner's dictionaries give a usable order for the rungs. The Cambridge grammar of greetings runs from good morning, afternoon or evening at the formal end, through hello, to morning, hi and hi there at the less formal end.

The Oxford entry for hi labels it informal and notes that hello is used in all situations. Its entry for hey marks that word as informal and especially North American when it is used to say hello.

The ladder in the table is this page's summary of those dictionary labels plus advice. The rungs are close together. When unsure, start one rung more formal than you think the recipient expects, then follow their lead once they reply.

The UNC Writing Center gives the same advice: when in doubt, address someone more formally to avoid offending them.

Two greetings that appear on many lists belong at the bottom of a sales ladder rather than the top. "To Whom It May Concern" and "Dear Sir or Madam" come from letters to institutions. In outreach, in this page's view, they suggest the sender did not find out who reads the inbox.

Formal email greetings and titles: Mr., Ms., Mx., Dr. and Professor

Formal email greetings use a title and a family name. The Cambridge grammar of names and titles says we use a title such as Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr or Prof with the surname in more formal situations, and that we do not usually use the title alone or the title with a first name.

That rule excludes two slips in formal email: "Dear Dr. David," which pairs a title with a first name, and "Dear Ms.," which leaves the name out. Write "Dear Dr. O'Donnell," or, if the relationship allows it, "Dear David,". A job title can stand in when you have no name, such as "Dear Hiring Manager,".

The Mr. to Dr. rows follow the dictionaries; the Professor row is this page's addition. Cambridge's grammar explains that Ms does not show whether a woman is married, that Miss is becoming less common among younger women, and that Dr is used for medical doctors and people with a doctorate such as a PhD.

Both the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries define Mx as a title used before a family name, or full name, by people who do not wish to state their gender. Use it when the person uses it in their own signature or profile.

Mr. or Mr: the period after the title

Cambridge's British grammar pages write Mr, Mrs, Ms and Dr without a period. Its American entry for dear writes the example as Ms. Smith, with one. For American readers, use the period. For British readers, Cambridge's own pages show the form without it. Where you can, match the recipient's own signature.

When you do not know the right title

This page's advice: skip the honorific rather than guess it. "Dear Jordan Lee," is correct and formal, and it cannot misgender anyone or demote a doctor. Check the signature, the company bio or the professional profile first. If a title is listed there, use it exactly as written.

Informal email greetings and when they fit

Informal email greetings come from the less formal end of the Cambridge list, Hi, Hi there and Morning, plus Hey and the first name alone. They are fine between people who already write to each other that way, and in this page's view they are where many threads settle once both sides relax.

The risk is that people disagree about what email is. The UNC Writing Center handout on email notes that some people treat email as quick and informal, while others treat it as a more convenient way to send a formal letter and may find an informal email rude or unprofessional.

The same handout warns that opening an email to a professor with "Hey!" might be perceived as rude or presumptuous. The general lesson for business email is simple: let the other person set the informal tone first, then match it.

• Hi there: friendly, but in this page's view it reads like an autoresponder when you know the name. Use it only when you truly do not.
• Morning: fine for a colleague you see every day. Cambridge lists it at the less formal end, below Good morning.
• Hey: for people who write to you with Hey. Never for a first contact or a senior recipient.
• The name alone: "Dana," works deep in a fast exchange. From a stranger it can read as curt.

Cold email greetings: examples that get read

Cold email greetings have one job: to look like the first line of a message between two people. That rules out the institutional greetings and most of the warm-up phrases attached to them. In this page's view, the greeting for a cold email is "Hi [first name]," or "Hello [first name]," with the name checked.

The next line, the opening sentence, is where the work happens. A strong opening sentence in a cold email is usually an observation about the recipient: a talk they gave, a post they wrote, a hire their company made, a change on their website. The cold email opening lines page covers those in depth.

Lines like "I hope this email finds you well," "Allow me to introduce myself," and "I know you are busy" are not greetings. They are filler that delays the reason for writing. Cut them and start with the observation instead.

The four cards were written for this page. Referral greetings are the exception that earns a longer line. "Hi Dana, Priya Shah suggested I write to you" puts the reason for the email into the greeting, and it only works when the referral is real and the referrer expects to be mentioned.

For the full structure of a first message, see how to write a cold email. The greeting is one line of it, and it rarely decides the outcome on its own.

Email greetings for follow-up emails and replies

Email greetings for follow-up emails change little across a sequence; the opening line does the work. In a follow-up, the greeting stays "Hi [first name]," and the first sentence ties the message to the previous one: "Following up on Tuesday's note," or "As promised, here is the checklist."

The Purdue OWL email etiquette page says that once you have exchanged emails with someone on a subject, it is probably acceptable to leave greetings out of your follow-ups. That matches how long threads behave: the greeting thins out, then disappears.

The stages above are this page's model, not a rule. For the sequence itself, the follow-up email after no response page covers timing and wording when the first message gets nothing back.

Email response greetings

When the prospect replies, the greeting can drop a rung and the first line acknowledges them: "Thanks for getting back to me," "Thanks for the quick answer," or "Good to hear from you." Mirror their greeting. If they wrote "Hi," write "Hi." If they wrote only your name, you can answer with only theirs.

Starting a new topic in an old thread is the one time to bring the full greeting back. A fresh "Hi Dana," plus a line of context tells the reader this is a new question, not the next step of the old one.

Greeting a group or a recipient you cannot name

For two or three recipients, name them in the order they appear in the To line, or by seniority: "Hi Dana, Priya and Tom,". For a larger group, greet the group: "Hi all," "Hello everyone," or the team by name, such as "Hi Sales Team,".

Cambridge's grammar lists everyone, everybody, folks and guys as ways to address groups, notes that ladies and gentlemen is more formal than folks or guys, and says guys is used more and more for groups of both sexes. In business email, everyone and all are the safest of those.

Formal groups get a formal noun: "Dear Board Members," or "Dear members of the selection committee," which is one of the UNC Writing Center's own examples. Listing ten names in a greeting reads, in this page's view, like a mail merge that went wrong.

When you cannot find a name

Cambridge's grammar makes a useful point here: English lacks a standard polite form for addressing strangers. Email has the same gap. The UNC handout offers "To whom it may concern," as a generic but polite choice when you do not know the name, alongside group forms such as "Hello, everyone,".

For sales and outreach, this page recommends addressing the role instead: "Hi Hiring Manager," "Hello Customer Support Team," or "Dear Admissions Office,". A role greeting shows you know who handles the inbox. Treat it as a last resort in prospecting; a message to a named person is easier to make relevant.

If several people will read the email but only one should act, greet the one who should act and mention the others in the body. The email CC page explains who belongs in To and who belongs in CC, which decides whose name goes in the greeting.

Time-of-day email greetings: good morning, good afternoon, good evening

Time-of-day email greetings are warm and specific, and Cambridge places them at the more formal end of spoken greetings. They carry a risk the standard greetings do not: they can be wrong. "Good morning" read at 6 p.m. in the recipient's time zone tells them the message was scheduled or sent from far away.

Both Cambridge and Oxford note that Good night is not a greeting. It is used only when leaving someone at the end of the day. Never open an email with it, even when you send late.

• Good morning: for messages you send by hand early in the recipient's day.
• Good afternoon: for messages read after midday, in a time zone you know.
• Good evening: rare in business email, because many people read work email the next morning.
• Hi or Hello: never wrong about the time, which is why they are the safer choice in any sequence a tool sends.

Punctuation and capitalization in email greetings

A comma after the greeting is the usual choice in business email: "Hi Dana,".

Every greeting in the UNC Writing Center's list of common ways to address a reader ends with a comma. A colon is the formal alternative; the Purdue OWL etiquette page shows "Ms. Smith:" as one of its examples. Use the colon only where the rest of the email is equally formal.

There is a second, optional comma. Cambridge's punctuation grammar says vocatives, the names of people you address, are usually separated by commas. UNC's examples follow that rule: "Hello, Ms. McMahon," has a comma after Hello.

The shorter "Hello Ms. McMahon," is what this page uses. Either is readable. Pick one and use it consistently across a sequence, so the greeting never looks like a template that changed halfway.

Capitals follow the normal rules. Cambridge says capital letters begin proper nouns, including titles before names, so write Dr. Reyes, not dr. reyes. Cambridge's greetings page writes Good morning with a lowercase m; this page writes "Hi all" rather than "Hi All" for the same reason.

The first word after the greeting starts a new sentence on a new line, so it takes a capital letter. An exclamation point after the greeting, in this page's view, makes a business email read like a promotion. Save it for people who already write to you that way.

Email greetings in mail merge and sequencing tools

When a tool writes the greeting, the name comes from a field, not from your eyes. That changes where mistakes happen. The two mainstream email suites both build the greeting from data, and their help pages show where it can go wrong.

In Gmail, mail merge lets you type @ in the message and insert merge tags such as @firstname, @lastname and @fullname. Each recipient gets a separate copy with the tags replaced. Google's help page notes that the feature needs an eligible Google Workspace plan.

The same page explains where the name comes from. If the recipient is not in Google Contacts, Gmail takes the first and last name from what you typed in the To line. If a recipient has no first name, Gmail shows an error and lets you enter a default, giving "Hi friend" as an example.

In Microsoft Word, the Greeting Line is a collection of merge fields. You insert it from the Mailings tab, then choose the name style and other options. Microsoft's guide to sending bulk email with mail merge uses the same Greeting Line step.

The table was written for this page; the failures are examples, not measured frequencies. A default such as "Hi friend" avoids an error, but in sales it reads as generic. For outreach, this page's advice is to remove records with no first name rather than send them a default greeting.

The same checks apply to dedicated sequencing tools. Whatever the product, the greeting is only as good as the name field behind it. Read the first few merged emails before the whole batch goes out, and the cold email templates on this site show where each placeholder sits.

Holiday and seasonal greetings in business email

Many articles on email greetings are really about the plural sense: messages for the new year, holidays and birthdays. Cambridge's grammar groups these as expressions for celebrations, such as Happy New Year and Happy birthday, and notes that you do not say congratulations to wish someone a happy birthday.

In business email, a seasonal wish works best inside the message rather than in place of the salutation. Keep "Hi Dana," as the greeting and put "Happy New Year, and thanks for your help this year" as the first line. The recipient still sees their name first.

• Neutral wording: "Season's greetings" and "Happy New Year" fit when you do not know which holidays the recipient observes. This is this page's advice, not a rule.
• Keep it short: one line of good wishes, then the reason for the email, if there is one.
• Not in a cold email: in this page's view, a holiday line in a first message to a stranger reads as filler.
• Reply in kind: if a client wishes you well, return the wish in your first line before answering the rest.

Email greetings to avoid, and why

The list below is this page's view of the greetings that cost you the read in professional email. Each has a situation where it is acceptable; the reason given is why it fails in a typical business or sales message.

• To Whom It May Concern: acceptable in a formal letter to an institution, but in sales email the name was usually findable.
• Dear Sir or Madam: the same problem, plus it assumes a binary the recipient may not share.
• Hey, in a first contact: it assumes a relationship that does not exist yet.
• Ladies and Gentlemen: Cambridge lists it as a formal way to address a group; in an email it sounds like a speech.
• Hi there, when the name is known: it reads like an autoresponder.
• Any greeting with a misspelled name: it is the first thing read and the hardest to recover from.
• A title with a first name: "Dear Mr. John," mixes two registers, and Cambridge's grammar says we do not usually pair a title with a first name.
• Greeting plus filler: "Hi Dana, I hope you are doing well" is not wrong, but it says nothing about Dana.

Keep the greeting short, keep the name right, and put the effort into the sentence after it.

How to choose an email greeting, step by step

Many emails need no thought here, because the relationship decides. The steps below are for the emails where it is not obvious: a first contact, a senior recipient, a group, or a sequence a tool will be sending for you.

1. Start with the recipient, not the template

   Who are they, how do they write, and have you exchanged emails before? The UNC handout suggests asking how you would talk to them in a social situation. The greeting follows from the answer.

2. Pick the rung

   A title and last name for formal first contact, Hello for neutral first contact, Hi for most of the rest. One rung up when unsure; it is easier to warm up than to walk back.

3. Check the name and the title

   Spelling, the form they use for themselves, the title they list, and the capitalization. For sequences, check the name field before sending, because the tool will not.

4. Choose the punctuation once

   A comma for most business email, a colon for formal letters. Decide whether you use the comma after Hello, then keep it the same in every message.

5. Match the tone after the greeting

   A formal greeting followed by a chatty first sentence reads as if two people wrote the email. Keep the greeting and the opening line at the same level.

6. Follow the recipient down the ladder

   Once they reply with Hi, reply with Hi. Once they drop the greeting, you can too. The greeting is where you show you noticed how they write.

Email greeting examples by situation

The examples below were written for this page. Each pairs a greeting with the situation it fits and a short note on why. Names are invented. Use them as patterns, then swap in the real name and title of the person you are writing to.

Notice how few greeting words the table needs. Dear, Hello and Hi cover nearly every row; the variety comes from the name and title. In this page's view, longer lists of greetings are mostly variations on these three.

The line after the greeting, and the closing that matches it

Recipients read the greeting, then the first sentence, then decide whether to keep reading. How to introduce yourself in an email is a separate question with a short answer for cold email: as briefly as possible, and after the reason for writing.

In an internal email to someone you have not met, one sentence near the top is right: "I am on the finance team and I am putting together next quarter's forecast." In a cold email the introduction is one clause, often at the end of the first paragraph or in the signature.

The closing is the greeting's mirror and follows the same rule: match the recipient's formality, one rung up on first contact. How to end an email covers sign-offs in depth. A formal greeting with a casual sign-off, or the reverse, makes an email feel stitched together.

Two closing lines come up so often that they have their own pages. Looking forward to hearing from you asks for a reply, and looking forward to working with you assumes the relationship has started. Pick the closing the way you picked the greeting: by where the relationship actually is.

Common email greeting mistakes

• Getting the name wrong: a misspelling, the wrong form of the name, or a name meant for someone else on the list.
• Guessing a title: writing Mrs. for someone who uses Ms., or Mr. for someone who uses Mx. or Dr.
• Mixing registers: "Hey Dr. Reyes," or "Dear Dana!" pull the greeting in two directions at once.
• Trusting the merge field: sending a batch without reading a merged copy first.
• Scheduling a time-of-day greeting: "Good morning" delivered in the recipient's evening.
• Switching punctuation mid-sequence: a colon in the first email and a comma in the next.
• Staying formal after they relax: answering "Hi" with "Dear" for the fifth time reads as distance.
• Treating the greeting as the opening: stacking a well-wishing sentence after it instead of the reason for writing.

In a sequence

The greeting is the first word the prospect reads, and the line after it decides whether they read the second. The email below is the first touch of a short cadence, sent after the prospect spoke at a webinar. This example was written for this page.

The greeting is the standard one, the opening line is about the recipient, and the introduction is left for the signature. For more first messages in this shape, see the sales follow-up email template for the touches that come after it.

Subject: The webinar on Thursday

Hi {{firstName}},

Your talk on pipeline reviews at Thursday's webinar covered a part I rarely hear discussed: the deals that should be closed lost.

One question: do your reps clean those out weekly, or does it happen at quarter end? We wrote down a short weekly routine for it, and I can send it if it is useful.

A one-line reply is enough.

{{senderName}}

Frequently asked questions

Cite this definition

Jeluvi, "Email greetings", B2B sales glossary, https://jeluvi.com/glossary/email-greetings/, last checked Oct 1, 2026.