E-mail – the What, Why, When and How
What?
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages (“mail”) between people using electronic devices.
Wikipedia.org
Email is a key communication tool, an easy way to send information to one or many people, and used by almost everyone – business and personal.
Why?
You want to send a message or information to someone or a number of people.
Why email when you can call or text?
Maybe it needs to be longer than a text message…
It may be that you don’t want to call and interrupt the person, or you don’t have their number.
Email is a quick way to send information to one or multiple people.
When
The simple answer is any time you want to send or share information with someone.
An email can be sent to one or many people, and you can write your text in the message body, or it can be attached (in a separate file).
It’s a standard method of communication within business – as it’s saved and can be referenced later.
But it’s also a popular method between friends and family.
Email Address
The only information you need is the address to send your message to.
It’s made up of two parts, separated by the ‘@’ (at sign).
In an address, the first half identifies the person or mailbox, and the second half is the company – a bit like your name and street address.
The name is most often something unique to the person – small companies may only use the first name, while larger companies (with more employees) may use firstname and surname or first initial and surname.
You may also have more generic accounts like hello or info, or departments IT, support, media, HR etc., where a group of people have access to the address.
For the second half (after the @), it’s either the company that you’re working for (e.g. a business) or the company that you’re using for email or internet (outlook.com, gmail.com, amazon.co.uk, tesco.com).
How
Read email through a program on your computer, via your smartphone, or through a web browser.
Once again, Microsoft and Google offer the most well known options…
Microsoft Outlook
Google Mail / Gmail
Apple Mail
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