FocalDirect Info

Gartner estimates that half of the 5.5 trillion emails sent in 2001 was business related.

Email has already taken over as the businesses’ main communication channel. What most people have failed to learn is, manners online is more important than basic social manners. In front of the monitor, your audience would not be able to judge you on your new Hugo Boss suit, your body scent, tone of your voice, nor the little gestures. Good language skills and proper email guidelines are important to ensure that your message gets across.

When drafting an email, take note of the few S:

• Speed
• Succinct
• Sell
• Suitable
• Subject, Salutations & Sincerely

Speed

Emails are delivered in matters of seconds. Where business communications are concerned, not checking your email at least once a day is to be frowned upon. The wide acceptance in email usage is contributed partly by it speed; do not get bogged down by heaps of emails. Surveys have shown that user do not expect an email to be replied after three working days.

Succinct

Omit needless words. Some people receive hundreds of emails a day. Chances are the recipient would skip the email after 2 seconds. Keeping the body of the email simple also avoid the chances of miscommunication by recipient second guessing the message.

Sell

Sell yourself, your idea, your product. Attempt to cross-sell, up-sell. Whatever the nature of your email, you will be able to slot in a witty sentence to sell. Businesses have been developed from a simple query like “I heard your company’s in charge of a new project.”

Suitable

Know the audience. Don’t send irrelevant message across. Using email, you are not able to receive instant response from the other party that you are able to talking face to face. You wouldn’t know if your ideas are well received till much later. Stay away from sensitive topics; you might never have the chance to explain the mistake you have made.

Subject, Salutations & Sincerely

The subject of the email should be meaningful. It helps prepare the reader for the content, and also makes it easier for the reader to search for the email later on. Open the email with “Dear xxx” if you do not know the recipient personally. You may prefer to go with “Hi xxx” if you want to sound friendly to a close contact. Closing emails with a simple “Regards, XXX” is nice, but not good enough. A good email should preferably close with your business card information. Include your full name, organization that you represent, and other contact methods if possible. Major companies spend millions of dollars on building a brand name, flash it.

——

Dear Reader,

Thanks for reading. I hope you like the article so far.

Besides the few main ‘S’ I have highlighted, good grammar is important too. Do not type using only caps or use exclamation marks excessively. Avoid Abbreviations unless they are commonly known.

With practice, recipients of your emails will have better impressions of you.

Watch out for the next issue of j-hunter newsletter!

Regards,

Dennis Lim
j-hunter.com Ltd
DID: (852) 2111 1129

About The Author

More articles at www.j-hunter.com

dlim@j-hunter.com

Email Etiquette

In order to effeciently communicate on the Internet it is critical to understand the unwritten rules of email communication. Please use these tips as a guideline to online email communication.

1.) Unless you are using encryption, Internet E-mail is not secure.

2.) Do not use all capitals in email exchanges, it is considered SHOUTING and is considered rude.

3.) Keep in mind that the Internet is international, words and humor can be perceived differently by different cultures.

4.) When replying to messages be aware of “cc:” field. Recipients listed in the “cc:” field will receive a copy of the post. (The “bcc:” field sends messages blind, meaning recipients don’t know that someone else has received a copy of the email or been carbon copied)

5.) Use emoticons or to indicate expression.

6.) When forwarding email be sure not to create a loop in the system. In addition, be sure not to setup auto-responders to reply to every email, or endless loops will be created.

7.) There can be costs associated with Internet connectivity and downloading emails. Do not send attachments that take a long time to download, without the recipients consent.

8.) Include in the “subject” line a heading that relates to the message body.

9.) Use 4-6 lines for your signature line, this is an opportunity to highlight your business or company information, but don’t be ostentatious..

Mailing Lists & Newsgroup Etiquette

In order to participate in news groups, you must have an understanding of newsgroup etiquette.

1.) Be familiar with lists/newsgroups prior to posting, read posting.

2.) Keep in mind that newsgroups and mailing lists are frequently archived and that posts will be preserved.

3.) If you are replying to a message be sure to include the text of the original message which you are replying to. Use “>” indicators if your mail program does not do this for you.

4.) Don’t get involved in flame wars (or material which is personal and unproductive).

5.) Keep in mind that the Internet is international, words and humor can be perceived differently by different cultures.

6.) Use 4-6 lines for your signature line, this is an opportunity to highlight your business or company information, but don’t be ostentatious..

7.) When responding to a post, keep the subject line the same, so that it will appear in the same thread.

8.) Cross posting to multiple lists is often prohibited. Read posting guidelines.

9.) Expect delays in moderated forums, each posting must be approved.

10.) Anonymous posts are unaccepted in many newsgroups.

11.) Be aware that some people use aliases when posting to Usenet groups to avoid SPAM (unsolicited email). Also keep in mind that anything goes on unmoderated Usenet.

12.) Most lists don’t allow for binary attachments.

Resources -

Library of Emoticons – http://www.instant-messaging-software.com/instant-messaging-emoticons.htm

Library of Email Acronyms – http://www.email-software.org/email-acronyms.htm

Email Client Software – http://www.messaging-software.net/e-mail-client-software.htm

About The Author

Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com , and http://www.small-business-software.net

Consider if you will the resources, the time and the financial investment given to attracting new web traffic. Banner advertising, link exchanges, search engine ratings, affiliate schemes and the list goes on. Yet when it comes to retaining a customer’s future business or even a return visit, we simply hope that they will opt-in to a newsletter mailing list and everything will be okay.

Of course the truth of opt-in email marketing is far from okay. For a start, people, especially private individuals, frequently change their email address. For many people, email addresses are a disposable accessory, which should be replaced every few weeks when the Spam starts rolling in. I don’t know about you, but I have enough trouble keeping up with the email changes of my friends and family, let alone a list of a few thousand customers and potential customers.

Typing “email marketing” into Google will return literally thousands of software products and services all promising to make your email campaign more successful and slick. Of course it doesn’t matter how much or how little you expend on your email newsletter, it will still be one subject line of possibly hundreds, all screaming for attention.

? Average email click through rates fell from 5.4% in 1999 to just 1.8% in 2003 (Source eMarketer)

? 27% of emails never get opened and of those that are opened only 23% are read thoroughly (Source: J Neilsen)

? Average open rate for B2B emails has fallen by 42% since 2001 (Source eMarketer)

Although such statistics make grim reading, worse is yet to come. Some industry experts are predicting a total collapse of the email infrastructure within the next five years due to the shear volume of traffic. A technology dating back to the 1960’s, email was developed as a means for geeks to communicate with other geeks, about something they had seen in the alt.freakygeek newsgroup. It was never designed to cope with the demands of mass marketing which have been inflicted upon it since the arrival of the WWW. So with that in mind, it is something of a miracle and a credit to the technology of yesteryear that it continues to work at all.

Recent research commissioned by Yahoo revealed that the average British PC has nine “sick days” a year, two more than the average for human workers. Six of these days are lost battling against Spam, while a further three are taken up combating viruses.

The Yahoo findings went on to reveal that nearly half of British computer users find dealing with junk e-mails more stressful than traffic jams and the majority want service providers to act.

But I’m no Spammer, I hear you cry! No, but your legitimate email is going to have to share the same inbox as the volumes of Spam and with only a Subject Line to stand out from the crowd, is it any wonder that email is becoming so ineffective as a marketing tool?

Clearly, alternatives to email marketing need to be developed. One emerging technology being pioneered by three software houses in the UK is that of One-2-Many Broadcasting. Already employed by the BBC, Visa, and many other blue-chip Net companies, One-2-Many Broadcasting offers a far-improved method of communicating with customers than opt-in email marketing or newsletters and already being hailed as the THE next big marketing tool.

One-2-Many Broadcasting involves the customer downloading a small client onto their PC. The customer can filter and influence what information they receive from within the software client. Once installed the website can then communicate directly with that customer by broadcasting information in a wide range of formats, all of which is attractively presented directly onto the customer’s screen. Sounds frighteningly, intrusive doesn’t it? Well, not according to the millions of people who are already receiving information from the latest news through to film clips of the latest movie releases. One London based soccer club, Arsenal, has reported a phenomenal take-up of their One-2-Many Broadcasting Service, with over 100,000 subscribers in the first 12 months of operating.

So will One-2-Many replace email marketing? Who knows, I suspect that over the coming years a variety of marketing alternatives will appear, of which One-2-Many will hold a share of the market. In developing alternatives to email marketing one of the major factors will and is that of price; emails are extremely cheap. Any alternative therefore, if it is to be successful, needs to be competitively priced and rich in unique features.

To date, One-2-Many Broadcasting has been relatively expensive and financially not an option for most small to medium sized businesses. As the concept of One-2-Many marketing is developed, more and different software is likely to emerge, which will in itself introduce competition and hopefully lower prices.

For more information and reading on One-2-Many Broadcasting:

www.skinkers.com

www.edesktop.co.uk

www.desknet.co.uk

To experience One-2-Many Broadcasting: http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,70061-1109118,00.html – Sky News Alerts

http://www.arsenal.com/Userincludes/desktopwenger/InstallDesktopWengerNT.exe ? Arsenal FC

About The Author

Robert Palmer is CEO of deskNET Communications www.desknet.co.uk and is a leading architect in the development of One-2-Many Broadcasting software.