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One On One Branded Email Communications - Problems and Solutions

by Eric Bonnici BSc.; Edited by Scottie Claiborne of Right Clic    

Business Personality

What do people and businesses have in common? Unique personalities! One personality can be kind, helpful, and passionate, while the other can be arrogant, pushy, and self-centered. People associate closely with the more appealing personality in people as well as businesses. A unique personality is what sets each person or company apart from others.

In the business world, it is important for companies to highlight appealing "personality" traits in order to stand out from their competition. On the most basic level this is done through consistent use of a company logo, color schemes, and a short verbal or written statement (tag line).  For example, the colors red and yellow, with golden arches easily brings Mc Donald's to mind. A checkmark-like "swoosh" with the saying "Just Do It," instantly brings Nike into our awareness. These examples show how colors, logos, or short sayings differentiate companies and instantly associate a product or service with the company in a consumer's mind. This is branding.

Branding Communications

Businesses must consistently build their advertising and communication activities around their brand. While large companies have budgets to invest into huge branding awareness campaigns, smaller businesses simply can't afford to. Small companies have known the importance of branding for decades. Even on tight budgets most incorporate their brand whenever possible. For example, most small businesses place company logos on business cards and print advertisements.

Another effective and cost effective way businesses, small and large, brand themselves is through personal one-on-one communications such as letters. From a sales letter to a meeting confirmation letter, the general rule is "nothing leaves the office without company letterhead on it." Imagine MasterCard sending plain white paper and black text-only letters! That would never happen.

Email Branding

Most business emails are sent as plain black-and-white text messages without any branding or electronic letterhead. This is an alarming thought since surveys indicate the most preferred form of one-on-one communication is email. In fact, information technology research firm Meta Group Inc. conducted a survey showing "80% of business people prefer using email communication over the telephone." E-mail is efficient and cost-effective, offering ease of use, instant communication, no wasted time waiting on hold, and low delivery cost, making it a widespread business practice.  Each unbranded email is a wasted chance to maximize the marketing power of each message sent.  Most businesses fail to utilize email for branding their business for technical and financial reasons. The technological challenges, programming and design skills required, and cost of sending visually appealing colorful branded emails has been out of reach for many businesses.  Most branded email services and software today require technical understanding and high price tags. However, within the last year a few new branded email software and service providers have come onto the market. The technology implemented has made branded email affordable and easier to use.

Several affordable mass e-mail marketing software and service providers are available for permission-based email lists and electronic newsletter distribution. Few suitable solutions exist for one-on-one business branded email communications. The few vendors that exist allow the insertion of backgrounds, graphics, audio, and animations into emails. The software is usually a plug-in for current email programs, although a few stand-alone solutions exist. An issue to be concerned with is that not all people receiving branded emails can view the messages unless they are using the same stand-alone software as the sender or compatible email software. Incompatible email software will simply show unreadable program coding instead. Some software addresses this problem by allowing users to choose when to send plain text emails. In these cases, the only way to determine what email software the recipient is using is by taking the time to ask. This is simply not possible for a business that responds to many emails daily. Another drawback is that most of these products are aimed at the general public and not companies concerned with branding.  When used for business, a learning curve is involved and usually an expensive programmer and graphic designer must be hired to create the initial layout of your branded emails.

Customers and Prospects View Branded Emails

The good news is 99% of Internet users are capable of viewing branded emails. In fact, in May 2001 Web Marketing Today conducted a survey on 450 Internet users and concluded that 45 different email programs were being used, of which 63% have the capability to read graphically branded emails.

A June 12, 2002 article by Debbie Weil featured on ClickZ Today quoted industry analyst and consultant Rick Bruner as saying that the ability of recipients to view branded emails today was upwards of 70%.

The latest research on the number of users able to view branded emails comes from a January 2003 survey conducted by Lucid Marketing and DM Buyers on 2,926 AOL Users. Their survey concluded that 85% of respondents were using AOL version 7 or 8, which allows the viewing of graphically branded emails. A survey conducted in May 2003 by Wilson Internet Services on 506 business users and 448 casual users, shows that 99% of users can view branded emails. This study also discovered that 92% of AOL members use version 6.0 or higher. From these recent surveys we can conclude that 99% of all email users use software capable of reading branded emails, including 85% to 92% of AOL users. This trend suggests that nearly all email users will be able to view branded emails in the near future.

In the meantime on November 2002, Onletterhead Inc. announced the release of its one-on-one branded email communication tool after nearly two years of research and development. The newest version was released in August 2003. Technical skills are not required; nor are hiring programmers or graphic designers. An impressive feature of this proprietary technology is its ability to determine if a recipient can view branded emails. A text email version is delivered to those who can't read branded emails instead. This allows the message to get through to every recipient, avoiding the problem of unreadable messages.

A free trial of Onletterhead Inc.'s branded email solution is available at: http://brandedemail.onletterehead.com

Clearly, email is becoming the preferred choice of communication. The evolution of branded email technology is picking up pace. We are likely to see some interesting developments over the next couple of years in the branded email industry.


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About the author: Eric Bonnici BSc. is an Internet Marketing Consultant with Alexander Joseph and Associates: www.aj2000.com.  Article edited by Scottie Claiborne of Right Click Web Consulting www.rightclickwebs.com. For more information and articles on b