E-mail: From villain to vindicated

Making a case for e-mail branding as value adding tool to everyday business communications is not always as simple as explaining the obvious benefits of branding alone. Some decision makers are driven by return on investment figures, where for some others elegant designs are enough to sell a product.

Whichever way we choose to look at branding, it’s undeniably one of the most important components in business practices. However, while many companies consider their branding strategy as top priority, very few focus on their everyday e-mail communications as vantage point. Why is that?

I’d like to highlight four major contributing factors:

1. E-mail is so last year
Or even last decade. Considering that e-mail has been around long before the dawn of the digital marketing era, it is often still regarded as a no frills communications tool used to distribute correspondence. The entry point to digital marketing started with the introduction of design rich websites and to many companies their website still encapsulates their complete online branding strategy.

As time evolved and technology advanced, various online components focused on increasing brand awareness potential of the website with the inclusion of search engine marketing, pay per click, online advertising and affiliate marketing leading up to today where social media, including blogging, social networking and micro-publishing forms the basis of what is labeled as the new media era.

Not a lot of emphasis is placed on e-mail by the new generation of marketers and since e-mail has never been regarded as a marketing tool to start off with, it is continuously disregarded as value-add to the business arena.

2. E-mail sucks
Of course, one also needs to keep in mind that e-mail is regarded as a nuisance these days. There are tons of applications, tips and management tools specifically created to combat our inbox invasion as it is well documented that e-mail consumes productivity like a new Wii release. With that in mind, it is understandable why decision makers simply refuse to spend money on a tool that most of us wish never existed.

Of course, e-mail is not dying. Not anytime soon anyway. And while we cringe at the idea of downloading our e-mails each morning, not to mention staring at the flags of unattended e-mails of weeks ago, the number of e-mails we send increases by the day. And with all that white space to play with, why not put it to good use?

3. Advertising clutters
Another simple reason is that we find advertising invasive. We are being exposed to an increasing amount of advertising and marketing messages daily. This has become a worldwide endemic and the negative effect on consumers is tangible throughout the internet where they are given the opportunity to voice their opinion. Simply downloading and viewing a branded e-mail can have a negative effect on the recipient already paralyzed by the abundance of branding.

4. You’re already branding your e-mails
Or so you think. With a kaleidoscope of templates to choose from, your staff has been playing around with colourful patterns, unique signatures and various formats for ages. They understand the importance of business identity and therefore include contact details and website links at the bottom of their signatures. And while their unique signature design seem “absolutely fabulous” to them, it is often more damaging to your brand than you could have imagined.

Universally identifiable companies portray a consistent brand image to consumers congruent with their corporate identity and design. It is number one in the ten commandments of branding.

With these four key areas featuring as potential reasons not to employ e-mail branding as complement to your current branding strategy, the bottom line still remains:

Every e-mail send without branding is simply a marketing and branding opportunity lost. Can your business afford that?