V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai, Dr. E-Mail: Inventor of Email, History of Email, Free EMail Tips

When you forward a chain of e-mails to someone, add a note of explanation before the series of forwarded messages. Do not expect them to burrow through your e-mail and read every linked message if you just forward them without any explanation. Take the time to explain your reasoning or what you want you to focus on. It is then easier for the person to whom you are you sending the e-mail to respond to the question at hand rather than be puzzled about what exactly you require or expect.

Sending jokes or sarcastic e-mail to people you are not too familiar with could create unpleasantness, when the other person is offended by or misunderstands your jokes or sarcasm. In general, avoid sending such e-mail to people you do not know very well.

Use your address book. It is there for a reason! Create a group and add only people you know very well to this group. If you really have that urge to forward or send a joke to a friend, just send them to this group alone.

Each E-Mail you send is more than likely saved or archived on your computer system or on the recipient's system; therefore, do not assume that an E-Mail message no longer exists, even if you delete what you received or sent. Your thoughts and interactions with others, via E-Mail, are archived and saved, potentially for posterity.

In financial services organizations, all data must be saved for a minimum of seven years. Think about what you are writing and what legacy you are leaving through such communications. E-Mail communications can be presented in a court of law.

When you write an E-Mail, you are mirroring your thoughts and feelings in the electronic medium. It is important to understand the difference between writing an informal and a formal E-Mail. Sometimes it is okay to be funny and joking; that is the nature of the E-Mail medium. However, in business communications, err on the side of formality by spell checking, grammar checking and following proper etiquette of writing with proper headers and footers on all E-Mail communications.

For organizations, every E-Mail sent to a prospect or customer reflects your organization's brand. Set standards, protocols and templates to ensure that the millions of E-Mails that are sent do not erode your brand, but rather enhance it through each communication. Within each communication, be concise with clear objectives and the result you hope to achieve.

You may think that any E-Mail you send is only intended for the recipient; however, E-Mail can be easily forwarded, or the recipient of your E-Mail can reply while copying or blind copying a host of others. On a different level, following 9-11 and the Homeland Security initiatives, all of our E-Mail is accessible by the government at any time and any place regardless of the level of security and encryption. From a corporate perspective, the company owns any and all E-Mail transactions made on the company's server. Also, those sending E-Mail must be aware of hackers and thieves. Be particularly careful to avoid sending passwords, credit card numbers and other personally identifiable information via E-Mail.

As I told you yesterday, your contact list of E-Mail addresses may consist of any of the below, resulting in your Mailings reaching fewer contacts than you would have thought:

• Invalid E-Mail Addresses
• Duplicates
• Bounce-backs

I told you about Invalid E-Mail addresses yesterday. Duplicates are simply what they seem: same E-Mail addresses repeating in your list. This is typically the result of gathering your Contacts from multiple sources. Nevertheless, they need to be eliminated from your Mailings lest users accuse you of spamming their inbox.

Bounce-backs are a totally different ball-game. These are addresses in valid E-Mail format, but messages do not get delivered to them for various reasons. Some reasons are that the E-Mail address does not actually exist, the user account is deactivated, the user's mailbox is full etc.

Situations like the E-Mail address not existing are more permanent and are typically called hard-bounces. Those like the user's mailbox being full are more temporary and are typically called soft-bounces. The point is that soft-bounces can be re-tried later for delivery, while hard bounces will seldom be delivered unless there is a manual intervention.

[ I am using the rider typically as there is no standard definition of what constitutes a hard vs soft bounce - some advocate using error codes, some to base it on at what point it happens etc. However, the basis of how permanent it is a reasonable indicator of the distinction.]

Watch out for such invalid addresses in your Contact list. They effectively bring down your list size by that many.

You may think you have a contact list of E-Mail addresses, numbering say 5000. Does that mean when you send out a Mailing to these addresses, it is going to be delivered to 5000 people? Most likely not!

Depending on the process you followed to gather these E-Mail addresses, your list may consist of any of the below:

• Invalid E-Mail Addresses
• Duplicates
• Bounce-backs

Invalid E-Mail Addresses: If you have customers registering via a form on your website, and the form does not contain appropriate validation code, you may end up with invalid E-Mail addresses. In some cases, they are mistyped, and in others, people just give it intentionally in order to quickly get over the form and access whatever you have on your website that follows the submission - say a white paper download.

Watch out for such invalid addresses in your Contact list. They effectively bring down your list size by that many.

I will tell you more about the other types of 'non-Contacts' tomorrow.