Are you aware that each email a company sends to prospects or clients builds their reputation, good or bad? Did you know that email marketing could create positive or negative publicity?

Publicity is everywhere! I keep telling my pr clients and all publicity people that sending emails builds a company’s brand and image. If you typically send unsolicited emails to new prospects, make sure these are opt-in names. If you are constantly being sent notifications of spamming, then your reputation goes south. Even poorly written emails can establish a good or negative campaign faster than the publicity campaign you budgeted for the year.

Why is it then pr clients are constantly overlooking this aspect in their company? Because we all feel that email is not a real “business” practice and view it as a one-to-one friendly way of communicating with others. In reality, it is the most powerful tool we use daily. It is this tool that builds a company’s reputation, or destroys it. Just like blogging has become recognized as a powerful marketing tool, so is email. Yet we are more concerned what a blogger, or blog article says about a company or its products.  Not realizing that we may not speak as openly in an email, our style of writing, how we say things all add up to building the reputation.

Another viewpoint of email reputation can be found in an article at the iMedia Connection site. The article titled “Mind Your Email Reputation” has a different perspective on this subject that supports what I am saying. And if you still don’t feel your email reputation has nay affect, or effect, ask people outside of your company to read a few of the business emails. Better yet, follow up with a phone call to those B2B clients who haven’t responded, or ask your competitors what they think your reputation is. Sure, you may not get a true answer from a competitor, but why not ask them and or others in your industry.

Start building a solid email reputation by establishing guidelines that everyone in the company follows. From how the “subject” line is written to how you sign your name, each part will play an important role in your company’s reputation. Give us a call if you want an outside objective critique of how your emails are helping your reputation. Ask for George Carson when you call. He can be reached at Carson Marketing, Inc., 949-477-9400.