The negative consequences of inadvertently firing off the wrong e-mail can range from a minor inconvenience for you and the person receiving your message to a major problem that upsets a number of people. As a general rule, respond quickly, apologize, and correct the mistake. Beyond that, adapt your response to the sort of error you made:
If your facts were faulty…Save your reader’s time by identifying the location of the erroneous details. For example, “In the third bullet point in paragraph three, the sales figures for May are incorrect. Please replace…” In addition, don’t forget to correct later facts and figures affected by your updates. For example, you might follow the example just given by saying, “Correcting the May figures will also affect our year-to-date figures. In the fourth paragraph, please correct the second bullet to say…”
If your explanations, interpretations, or conclusions were faulty…In this case you will probably have to change more than a single item or sentence. Take the time necessary to rewrite as much as necessary. For example, “Because the explanation of market trends was based on incorrect figures, please replace the entire Conclusions section with the following paragraphs…”