Yes, I am serious. I am asking you if you are sure that you use e-mail so that you get maximum benefits. I know that everyone knows how to send e-mail letter but judging from 100-150 letters I receive daily, only a fraction of people takes a full advantage of this wonderful tool by communicating effectively.

And by now you should know that communicating effectively can make or break your business.

Use a signature file
I assume that you would not write a business letter without some kind of stationary, right? Then use a signature file in your e-mail!  It serves the same purpose. It identifies who you are, what you do  and where you reside. If done right, it allows the recipient to  visit your website with just one click of a mouse button.

Signature file is the simplest and perhaps most effective internet marketing tool (it is also the most underutilized). Make sure that your create and use it all the time - even if you don't have a website, you can have an impressive internet presence!

Keep your lines short
It is difficult enough to read from a computer screen (especially if someone wears bi-focal eye glasses as I do). Don't make it even more difficult by filling the entire width of the screen with text.

When you use maximum 60-70 characters per line, there is another benefit. Your message can be read as you intended it to be read otherwise your recipient might end up with lines broken in the most unexpected places - VERY difficult to read. Even if your mail software does a "word wrap", use the hard return key at the end of each line to avoid the problem. 

Also, sooner or later you will engage in e-mail "conversation",  exchanging message back and forth. Each time you get an answer, a quotation mark will be added at the beginning of the quoted line  and the line width will grow. Usually it breaks the lines of the message which makes difficult to see who said what previously. With short lines and that extra space at the end, your e-mail  messages will always look clean and inviting to read, even after  several such exchanges.
 

Trim the fat
When you respond to someone's message, quote it by all mean - it helps to remind the topic of conversation. But trim the fat. Erase the irrelevant text so it is not repeated. It takes just a moment of your time and makes you appear thoughtful and more professional.

Quoting anything more than just few lines is way too much, unless there is a really good reason. These unnecessarily long messages are not only a waste of time; quite often they waste money too. Remember that many people around the globe pay for the internet connection and every minute of downloading time counts.

And never EVER return the entire e-mail message preceding your own, unless it is very short. I receive the entire pages and pages of my own "Referrals Unlimited" newsletter with a few line message at the end. Ouch! 
 

Sending to the group
Learn how to use your e-mail software. Make sure that if you send a message to a distribution list, recipients don't see everyone's else e-mail address. If for no other reason (and there are plenty) - than to protect their e-mail address from spammers and computer hackers.

Most of the e-mail programs have two carbon copy fields "cc" and
"bcc". Put the addresses in the "bcc" field (blind carbon copy) - NOT in the "cc" field or, Lord forbids, in the "to" field.

Better yet - get one of the e-merge programs and send personalized messages separately to each of your recipients.
 

Before you hit the "forwarding" button
Forward only important mail. Something your *know* the other party will appreciate. Just because what you got in the mail sounds very interesting to you, it doesn't mean that it is worth to forward
to everyone on your list. Most likely it is not.
 

It's a hoax!
When it comes to forwarding, be very discriminate with messages like "Danger!" and "Virus Alert" or "A Little Girl Is Dying". These are old internet chain letters created especially to waste peoples time and test our patience. If you send it around, chances are you will annoy majority of your recipients who received the same message already many times. They might not tell you about it from lack of time or to be polite - but don't assume that just because  no one complains, these messages are really appreciated. Most  likely the opposite is true. You might be bugging people instead  of saving the world or building relationships!

Be especially alert if the warning urges you to pass it on to your friends -- do not! This alone should raise your red flag that the warning is a hoax. (Another flag to watch for is when the warning states that it is a Federal Communication Commission (FCC) warning. According to the FCC, they have not and never will issue warnings on viruses. It is not part of their job. (to read more about it go to http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html)
 

A few words about postcards
I receive several hundreds of them during the holiday season. To view them all I'd need to take a short vacation, which I can't take at the moment. Plus I'm sure you agree that there are better  things to do during vacation.

Before you send another electronic postcard, consider this: to see it, your addressee needs to open a browsers window, surf to the postcard hosting site, watch loading the home page with some  advertising banners. Often they need to enter a special key number and then wait again for a new window to open. This time with a cute graphic or slowly loading java script and midi file which might  take a long time... Are you getting the picture?

Electronic postcards are great idea for close friends and family  members but among business people generally you will not score many brownie points for sending "thank you" or "happy anything". It is much better to send a simple personal note in plain text. 

If you REALLY want to make that person feel special, send a greeting card via regular mail - mailmen and post offices are still around!