Emailing a Networking Contact
Email has become a mainstream form of business communication. In some situations, it is a great way to introduce yourself to a potential networking contact.
Ease and speed are benefits of email. But it has its downside, too.
Many trade and professional associations list the email addresses of their leadership or of department heads in public relations or membership services. These people are inviting email contact, take them up on it.
If you know someone within a company who has referred you to a department head and given you that person’s email address, go ahead and send an email introducing yourself, telling them who referred you, and asking if you can call them. 
Avoid sending cold-call emails! Emails coming from people they do not know can look like so much spam, and end up in the deleted email folder just as fast. Some companies have anti-virus filters or spam filters that reject emails from any email address that is not already approved.
And speaking of spam, sending the same email to multiple email address is spamming. Don’t do it! Just as each postal letter or telephone call should be personalized, so should each email. In addition to annoying the recipient, the email may never make it past their spam filter when it contains multiple email addresses on the To: line.
Email letters should follow the same guidelines as letters, as outlined above. In addition, follow these guidelines for good email communication:
Make your first email short and cordial.
End the email with your full postal address, just as you would in a postal letter.
Do not attach your resume. You are not asking them for a job, and many corporate email systems today automatically delete attachments to protect from viruses and spam.
Give the person a link to connections of mutual interest to indicate your familiarity with the industry or their company.
Do not set your email options to send you a notification the email was opened. This may require the recipient to respond to a screen message and rather than do this, they may decide not to bother reading your email.
