Dr Monica Seeley, Mesmo Consultancy
How do you feel when you receive an email which contains more logos than content? Worse still the logos/images take up more space as attachments than the attached file? Recently I received an email where the logos and awards included in the signature block amounted to nearly 35KB which was more than both the content and the attached Word file. Three emails like this and that’s a third of a MB of unwanted storage space. I diligently deleted all the offending images in order to keep my inbox slim.
Then of course there are all those long disclaimers and postal addresses. You have guessed, over weight email signature blocks are one of my pet peeves! Clients often ask me whether or not they should include their company logo and awards in a basic business email communications. That is non-sales and marketing email. That is another topic. This is a difficult question because of course we are all looking to create the best most professional image and make our email stand out in an ever crowded inbox. Including logos etc in an email has more downsides than upsides. Upsides are that you can:
- Impress clients with your awards;
- Reinforce your brand logo.
Downsides are that such images:
- Add to the size of the email and hence take up more storage space.
- Mean the email takes longer to download (as its bigger than it needs to be and not everyone has access to superfast broadband).
- Are often be seen as spam and cause important emails to be trapped and quarantined.
- Not always rendered properly and can look naff (given the range of devices people use to read their email).
Small is beautiful for email. That means the minimum of size and content. Email is a messaging system despite the fact we have stretched to become all things communications to all people – from a discussion to a forum to rant and rave. A good website is the place to project your corporate image and not email.
Dr Monica Seeley, founder of Mesmo Consultancy, is an international expert on email best practice (from how to reduce email overload to using good email etiquette to save time and improve productivity). She is a visiting fellow at Cass Business School, City University, London, and author of ‘Brilliant Email: How to Win Back Time and Improve Productivity. Her opinion is regularly sought by the BBC and Financial Times and she now has a blog on the HuffingtonPost.com. For more information see www.mesmo.co.uk
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