Over the course of a few years, the World Wide Web has become one of the one most effective communications tools, often getting the lion's share of press coverage when 'high-tech' issues are covered. However, it's e-mail that has become even more heavily used, even if it gets less attention from the media.

Think about it. Even many companies that restrict or deny access to the World Wide Web often allow access to e-mail. Our military's submarines, often at sea for weeks, get e-mail. A friend of mine routinely e-mailed his fiancée in the middle of an African village. E-mail now penetrates the entire world, even areas without reliable web access.

For this reason, e-mail is often the easiest and cheapest way to spread your business message. Keep in mind that I'm not talking about spam, or unsolicited e-mailings. This approach will get you in hot water with the service provider allowing you to send the e-mail, as well as with many of your recipients.

There are plenty of non-spam ways to communicate your business message to people. Starting e-mail newsletters, employing autoresponders, participating in e-mail discussion lists, and other effective uses of e-mail all demonstrate the power and simplicity of e-mail. However, there are many common mistakes people make when sending e-mails, and we'll address some of these below.

1. Return addresses
Many people don't have proper return e-mail addresses set up in their e-mail software. I routinely get e-mails from people who will have something misspelled in their return address, prohibiting me from using the simple REPLY function in my mailing package. Sometimes this prevents me from replying to the person at all. Take the time to learn how to set up your return e-mail address correctly.

2. DON'T SHOUT
Some people tend to write e-mails in ALL CAPS. This has the effect of emphasis, to be sure, but when the entire message is ALL CAPS the writer is usually interpreted as either "shouting" their message, or not knowing how to write.

3. HTML e-mail
Many e-mail packages these days offer the option of composing your e-mail in HTML. Often times it's the default setting and the writers don't know any better. Not every e-mail package can read those e-mails properly, though, and the recipient ends up getting a lot of extra code visible to them, probably causing them to not bother reading through the mess of HTML code. If your recipient hasn't specifically asked for HTML formatted e-mails, it's better to stick with plain text.

4. Formatting
Because you don't often know what the reading environment of your audience will be, it's better to write for a lowest common denominator. Not everyone has a huge screen, nor does everyone use the same size system fonts as you do. Keeping your e-mails to 60 characters per line, and using a hard carriage return at the end of every line will insure that the e-mail they receive closely resembles what you send out.

5. Spelling
Spelling and grammar are, of course, of the utmost importance. If you are not sure of the spelling of a word, or the correct usage of a word or phrase, don't send out the e-mail! Most current e-mail packages have a spell checker built in, and there are online resources for spelling and grammar checking as well. http://www.dictionary.com is a good start for those without built-in spell checkers.

6. Clickable URLs
Use the http:// tag to allow your readers to click straight to whatever URLs are in your e-mail. Most current e-mail systems allow a user to click the URL and be taken directly to the page from the e-mail, but the systems don't know what a URL is without the http:// in front of the address. www.mypage.com in an e-mail is fine, but the reader will have to cut and copy the address, or remember it and retype later. http://www.mypage.com will cause the e-mail package to underline the URL and treat it as an active link, to be clicked just like any other web address.

7. Test
Finally, test out your e-mails before you send them. If you're simply e-mailing your brother with a joke, that's fine, but if you're sending out e-mails critical to your business, you need to test, test, test!

Go get a free e-mail account with hotmail.com or a similar service, then send yourself e-mail between the two accounts. What you see on each end may surprise you. Lines may be wrapped where it doesn't make sense, HTML code may be littered around your message, or misspellings may jump out at you, all creating a harder to read e-mail. You wouldn't post a business letter without proofreading it, right?

Proof your e-mails before you send them! To recap, e-mail is one of the most effective ways to get your message out to hundreds, thousands or millions of people. But you need to be careful what that message is. Long after people have visited your web site, or seen your banner, they may still have a copy of your e-mail in their inbox. Once it's there, you can't change it, so make it as strong a message as possible the first time.

You've probably spent a considerable amount of time on your web site making sure that you put your best foot forward on the web. Take that same concern for your image on the web and make sure your image in the inbox is just as strong.

Michael Kimsal
michael@kimsal.com
http://www.kimsal.com
Small business Internet consulting

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