Now you want to send an email to a prospect or customer. What do you need to keep in mind.
Try to send text only emails. Many network administrators have set up their email server to 'bounce' any emails that have attachments.
Include a link. If you do not include an attachment, you can provide a link to a web page that contains the additional information. Once the receiver knows who you are and wants to see more, they have the option to see the additional information on your web site.
The Lost Art of Letter Writing. Learn how to write. I'll discuss this more in a minute.
Do not Mass Mail. Send individual emails. Do not send unsolicited emails. This is known as Spam. You probably did not like eating spam as a kid. The new spam is even more hated.
Include your name, company name, and phone number at the bottom of the Email. This can be done automatically with some email programs.
Remember to hit Send/Receive.
Include a specific clear Subject Line.
Do not Reply to All. If you are responding to an email you have the option of replying to the sender. This will then just go to the person who sent the email. If you hit 'Reply to All' it will go to everyone that the original email was sent to. There have been numerous situations where employees have forwarded emails to co workers and criticized their boss or a company policy. Sometimes these emails were very belligerent. While they intended a small audience for their outrage, they had hit 'Reply to All' and of course to paraphrase Monty Python 'those responsible have been sacked.'
Send HTML Mail. You can make your email more interesting and even fit the formatting of your web site. This is not difficult to do but beyond the scope of this article. The one technical note I will mention is to convert your relative links to absolute links so that the receiver will see the graphics and css formatting properly.