Your company invests a lot of money in letterhead and business cards, used in day-to-day customer interactions, to maintain your brand and corporate identity standards. However, these brand values are systematically let down by plain text emails. By not leveraging the power of your brand differentiation, your emails' inconsistency undermine your brand positioning.

Effective Email

Knowing that the average consumer is going to spend only about five to eight seconds viewing your email, and less than 50 percent will scroll below the fold, you have to design email messages that give the user a quick and clear idea of who you are and what your message offers, by:

• Having your logo/company name right at the top of the message
• Having a clear headline that delivers the main message of the email
• Including a subhead line with a strong call to action
• Showing a dominant single image that best illustrates your message, and use a caption
• Offering above-the-fold jump links to benefits and other content
• Encouraging a direct response with a button seeking some type of action (buy now, learn more, register now)

Permission-based email marketing has a higher return on investment than unsolicited email, direct mail or traditional advertising and therefore, has revolutionized the way we do business. Backed by measurable results, studies show that email marketing is the marketing tool of choice for businesses looking to attract, retain and grow loyal customer bases. Businesses all around the world use email marketing to:

1. boost sales
2. generate leads
3. strengthen relationships
4. increase Website traffic
5. build brand

As the popularity of permission-based email marketing grows, so does the volume of email in every consumer inbox. Are you doing everything you can to make sure that your emails are the ones that get opened, read and responded to?

You know your business best, but here are some facts gleaned from the interent to support permission-based email marketing success.

• Email marketing is on the rise. As a fast, easy and affordable way to communicate, nothing else compares.
• Today, eMarketer estimates there are 97 million active email users in the US over the age of 14. This number is expected to grow to 140 million by 2003.
• Email has established itself as a normal part of daily life. A survey from NFO Interactive finds that 74 percent of email users say it's 'vital' to business.
• According to the American Management Association, email has overtaken the telephone as the preferred method of communication among North Americans.
• eMarketer reports that in 2000, twice as many emails were sent than traditional pieces of mail.
• In 1999 email marketing was a $900 million industry with 400 billion emails sent. By 2003, eMarketer estimates this will climb to $4.6 billion totaling 1.6 trillion emails.
• Jupiter Communications estimates that while paper-based campaigns receive only 1 percent to 2 percent response rate on average; email campaigns can receive a response rate of 5 percent to 15 percent.
• While traditional direct mail typically costs between $1 and $2 per piece, email campaigns can cost as little as pennies per piece. (N.B. not every company drops prices with volume increase)
• Forrester Research predicts that marketers in the US will have tripled their email marketing budgets by 2004.
• Forrester Research found that campaigns sent using customer house lists achieve a 10 percent click-through rate - 2 percent of these click-throughs result in a purchase.
• A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that more people go online for email than to do research. Seventy-five percent of executives say that email will be their primary source of business information by 2005.
• Email gets results - fast. You should expect to get 90 percent of your email marketing results with 48 hours. You could have the best message in the world, but without the right audience it means nothing.