Email is still a rather popular means of communication, although it is being replaces for many purposes with text messaging and the growing universe of social media sharing platforms.
Here's a great list (compiled from personal experience) of NOT-TO-DOs in any email, or campaign where email plays a role:
1) Don't send a mass mailing of an email to a whole group of individuals and boldly display all of the names on your distribution list in the cc area, where each person can see your whole darn list, or may even choose to send a personal response to you and inadvertently send the letter to the entire list of recipients [the old "Oops! I just hit 'Reply All' " goof];
2) Don't send out a mass mailing of an email to a group of 'undisclosed recipients' and try to cleverly keep their names hidden from each other by seemingly sending it via cc to yourself. That just looks plain cheap. Use a mail handling program instead, such as MailChimp iMail, Constant Contact or another well-known and reliable service if your going to be sending mass mailings.;
3) Don't keep on recycling the subject lines in a running chain of email communications with someone. Take a moment to show your recipient some respect by changing the subject line to make it relevant to the subject matter of the email's content. Nobody enjoys getting email with "Fw: Re: Re: Re: Company Picnic" in the dead of winter;
4) Don't send an email to anyone without ever using that person's name in the opening line of the email. Personalize it to suit the recipient;
5) If an email has attachments, indicate this fact in the subject line of the email;
6) If your email has attachments, always, always put page numbers on any attached reports or documents, regardless of the length. Every now and again some tree burner will hit the 'Print' button on his or her computer, and walk away for a moment to get a cup of coffee (or if that someone is The Mentalist, it might be tea), only to return and find 30 unnumbered pages lying on the floor. That person then has to play detective and try to put those pages in order. He or she will come to hate you.
7) If your email contains an attached document, be certain that the document has a version number on it and a new date on it, so that it doesn't get confused with an earlier version of a similarly-titled document which he or she already has on file.
What else can I really say? Well -- there is one thing. Don't ever send somebody an email when they are within earshot. That's just rude. Unless, of course you, are carrying on an office affair. ;-) - in which latter case you're probably in for a heap of trouble.
Thank you for reading me, re-tweeting me and completing me.
Douglas E. Castle for The Sending Signals Blog, The Crowd Funding RSS Feeds Blog, The CFI CrowdFunding Incubator Blog and The Internationalist Page Blog
