Benefits of email

• Email combines the speed and efficiency of the telephone with the written word.
• It allows users to transfer files and documents.
• It facilitates consultation.
• It is a quick and easy way to allow others to participate in or monitor a process.
• It allows you to easily inform others of what’s happening and is more effective than any other method because of the ability to view documents without the cost and time constraints of face-to-face meetings.
• There are no time or place barriers. You can write and respond to emails whenever you choose – day or night. It can free people from the office, make communications across time zones a simple process, and avoid ‘telephone tag’, where two people leave numerous phone messages as the other moves in and out of meetings.
• E-mail can reduce time spent in meetings by educating participants on issues before the meeting, or it can eliminate the need for the meeting entirely.
• Email can help you organise meetings.
• E-mail allows the user to contact many other users at the same time, eliminating production and postage costs, and keeping many people in the loop at the click of a few keys.

E-mail has changed the way we communicate – how we share our ideas and information. It has revived the short letter as a means of getting in touch with each other and can also act as an effective advocacy tool and help to build online communities.

Combined with your organisation’s website, email can encourage users to correspond with you by making email as convenient as filling out a simple form. An email can be imbedded into the site, or the site can provide the email addresses of an organisation's members.