Menu

About Electronic Mail

Electronic Mail, also known as Email, is not particularly new. However, it is certainly more common now than it has ever been before, and its popularity is rising as businesses start to use it and to realise its benefits, which include speed, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.

Gone are the days when a report had to be dictated, typed, approved and sent back to the typing pool for corrections. Using Email, a document can be transmitted electronically, and then modified before being returned to the originator (provided that the recipient has the right software). Email enhances cooperative working - distance no object!

Scanners and digital cameras allow for the creation of images in digital form, which can be attached to an email message. This means for example that potential customers need no longer struggle with a poor faxed copy of a picture; they can be sent a full-colour image instead!

How it works

Using an email program such as Eudora, Turnpike, or one of a multitude of others, you create an email message in much the same way as you might use a word-processing package to compose a letter. The main difference is in the mechanics of transmission. Instead of printing out your letter, placing it into an envelope, sticking a stamp on and wandering down the road to the post box, you just tell your email program to send the message.

In practice, the message doesn't actually go anywhere until you make a connection to the Internet, for which you need Internet Access. Generally speaking, this consists of four things:

1. a computer
2. a modem (or other communications device)
3. a telephone line (which need not be dedicated to this purpose)
4. an access account with an Internet Service Provider (ISP).

One of the advantages of email over other methods of communication is this staggered send/collect mechanism, which enables one party to effectively talk with another over a long distance without the other party being available (compare this with the frustration of a busy phone line!). This is particularly beneficial when communicating between different time zones.

Email Aliasing

Email Aliasing, also known as "Email Forwarding" or "Email Redirection", is a means of presenting a consistent business face to the outside world. How it works is that specific email addresses, incorporating your Domain Name are aliased (linked) to the actual email address used to connect to the Internet.

For example, The Net Effect's (main) domain name is "tne.co.uk". My email address is "graham@tne.co.uk" - however, email's addressed to me are routed through to my account at our ISP - currently Demon Internet, although it could equally be any one of dozens of others.

As long as you always tell people to contact you through your alias instead of the actual account, this facility allows you a tremendous amount of flexibility. You can change your ISP without notifying all your contacts - all that need be done is to change the aliasing to point to your new account.

Another advantage is that you can use a number of different aliases, perhaps for different groups of people, which all point to the same account (you might for example use "business@yourdomain.com" and "personal@yourdomain.com").

A number of people in your organisation may already have their own Internet access, with which they're familiar. Rather than require them to learn a new system, they can be issued with an alias on your domain which redirects mail addressed to, say, Joe.Bloggs@yourdomain.com to Joe.Bloggs@another.provider.net. If they change their provider, their alias can follow them. This kind of flexibility is a real benefit to teleworkers in particular.

Default Addressing

Your domain can have a default address, so that any mail sent to an unspecified user name is automatically redirected to a valid address instead of being "bounced" back to the originator (which might perhaps result in a lost lead). This allows you to make up your own user names at will, in the knowledge that messages won't go astray: for example, you might want to use sales@yourdomain.com, support@yourdomain.com and service@yourdomain.com.

Default Addressing can be used to great effect in monitoring sales promotions in conventional advertising. For instance, let's say you have a promotion in September 2006: simply including the alias "Sep-2006-promo@yourdomain.com" in your promotional literature will generate self-identifying leads.

Distribution Lists

Let's say that you have a number of sales reps who all need to be sent a message about a new product. An alias called "sales-reps" could be created which would send a copy of any mail sent to "sales-reps@yourdomain.com" to all of these people in one go.

Conclusion

I hope that this brief outline of Electronic Mail, and the various ways in which it can be used, has been of use to you. Please don't hesitate to contact us for more information on Email, Virtual Web Servers and Hosting, Domain Name Registrations or Website Design and Maintenance. We're here to help!

[ Design | Services | Clients | Contact TNE | Information | Search TNE ]