An e-mail group, or “mailing list,” as it’s often called, is an easy way to send e-mail to specific group of people.
An e-mail group is useful for everything from interoffice memos to long-term projects, especially those projects which involve teams made up of people in multiple locations. Rather than daily phone conferences or time-consuming face-to-face meetings, an e-mail group can enhance collaboration by ensuring everyone involved in a project stays up to date.
They’re also great for non-technical users, since members can reply to everyone in the group at once by sending mail to one address — there’s no need to add a bunch of addresses to an e-mail by hand every time they want to send a message.
While e-mail might not entirely replace human meetings, a list that delivers important updates and facilitates communication between project participants can significantly smooth your workflow.
Step 1: Create a group
The first step is to create a new group within your e-mail client — different clients have different names for it, but it’s almost always called a “group” or a “list.” Give your group a name relevant to the project.
Step 2: Add your members
Next, add the names and e-mail addresses of everyone in your group. You should be able to add people to your group directly from your contacts.
Step 3: Individual or digest?
Some e-mail software lets members chose between individual messages or what are called “digests.” Digests simply collect up all the e-mails sent to the group — including any replies to older messages — and deliver them as a single e-mail, usually about once per day.
Typically, individual messages will work just fine, but some members may want to receive daily digests since they cut down on the number of e-mails flowing into one’s inbox.
If you’d like to allow group members to select the digest option, make sure you enable it when you set up your e-mail group.
Step 4: Send a welcome message.
Once you group is set up, send out a welcome e-mail to all your group members with some basic instructions on how to use the group — how to reply, how to behave and how to unsubscribe. Make sure you include vital contacts for technical issues — your address or the address of your technical administrator. That way, if any of your group members have problems, they know where to get help.
Simple Reminders:
Unless you run your office like Michael Scott (Steve Carrell’s bumbling manager in The Office), you’ll probably want to set up some ground rules for group e-mail etiquette. Gently remind your group members that the success of the list depends on their behavior.




