people who use email a lot become concise, which i've heard surprises email newbies (are there really any email newbies anymore?) who sometimes misread terseness as rudeness
i sometimes start my email bodies with the name of the recipient, e.g.,
To: [email protected] Subject: party Marie, Did you know that...
i think taking the time to simply put their name in the first line is a subtle nice touch, a little more personal that just always jumping into the email body. sometimes i even say "Dear Marie" etc :)
recently someone sent me a personal email and in one place in the middle of the email body they said my name, such as "Paul, I want to make sure..." and I thought that was a nice touch-- to really impress on the fact that they were trying to make a human connection vs. just computer to computer email :)
my standard email footer when i'm pretending to be human is
Warm regards, Paul
02may05: Laura Garrigan sent me an email today with "Enjoy today" as her closing. I like it. :)