As email is low cost to produce and deliver it's often considered low value. Wrong, email has and continues to have immense value as a communications and marketing channel. But how do you get it right?

For emails to be treated seriously and valued they need to grow up. Email is still a comparatively new channel and faces challenges, much like a teenager - bags of potential but a bit spotty and lacking in finesse.

So what turns a teenager into an adult?

1. Adults tend to think before they do something and weigh up the consequences. In email terms, that means never sending a bulk mailing without careful consideration of its impact. Thinking 'but it's cheap to send lots of them' isn't careful consideration, by the way.

2. Adults generally respect personal space. An email Inbox is a very personal space (more personal than your door mat), so people can take great exception if you climb in there without a good reason.

3. Teenagers can appear rude because they tend to grunt instead of talking to you. Some emails can be very grunt-like. For example, all those automated emails that your business sends but which nobody inside your company has ever read properly. They can be very cold and short tempered (not to mention a bit spotty).

4. Adults become very adept at using the right tone of voice for the right situation - persuasive, expert, confident, helpful... Matching the right tone to the right situation is a skill. How do your emails sound?

The challenges in email will be overcome and like teenagers it will mature, it is for us to help ensure it's the type of adult we want to hang around with.

Consider the emails that you value and read and don't think that your own email's are special, your recipients will treat your emails in the same brutal way you purge your own Inbox.

The reason that you read in your Inbox will certainly be a combination of factors:

- That know or can identify with the sender - what is in the 'from' line.
- The information in the subject line was highly relevant to you.
- Previous experience of content from the sender.
- The content helps you in some way; in your business life, personal life or its topical. In your business life does the content give you tips to help you do your job better? Does it keep you ahead of industry trends? In your personal life does it give the gossip that everyone else is talking about? Does it provide relevant offers and ideas for your leisure time?

A straight sales language offer based email, "10% off product X this week", will only appeal to people interested in product X and then only if they were in the market to buy product X, this will always be a small percentage. The rest will delete and forget about you. A balance between interesting, useful content and sales offer will build a relationship and develop trust with you and your company.

View all Richard Odessey's articles

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