The Platinum Rule Or, When to Send an E-Mail

"Communicate with others they in the manner in which they would like to be communicated with." Make every decision based on the reciever of the information.

• Send e-mail if you've already e-mailed
• Send e-mail if they asked for it
• Send e-mail if it's extremely price-sensitive
• Send e-mail if it doesn't otherwise justify the effort because you don't really care
• Don't send a file as an attachment alone; opening and printing and saving the attachment is work. If possible, send both inline and as a file, and, if possible, as a hard copy. Don't create work! Send them the information in the manner in which they'll use it.
• Send a Word (etc.) file if they're going to edit or otherwise work with it, PDF if they're reading only.

E-mail vs. Letters

Letters are external communications. Memos are internal communications. E-mails are both. They were initially designed to be internal-only, like memos (see the To:, CC:, BCC:, Subject fields).

• Use no opening name with people you know well
• Use "Dear" or "Name:" with people you know less well
• Use "Dear" or "Name:" if they're older, more conservative, or you're asking for something
• Use "Attn:" if you don't have enough information about the person, in particular their gender, to otherwise address properly