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Importance of Email for Your Small Business
Email is the equivalent of a normal physical letter, only that it is written on a computer and delivered via the internet. That makes email extremely fast and also inexpensive. These days everybody’s job is increasingly reliant on the availability of e-mail.
The two most important facets about email are that it is extremely fast and inexpensive. For small businesses this can cut costs dramatically in comparison to standard letters. Just like many years ago faxes drove down the cost of business communication, so does email today. Emails can contain pictures, documents, programs and many other attachments. For a business to send an email is basically cost free, as the bandwidth used is minimal and most businesses have flat fee internet connections anyway.
You can access your email inbox even while you are away. This is a huge advantage of the email over the “snail mail”. The ability of doing business or taking care of important matters while you are on vacation or at a conference thousands of miles away from your business is critical these days. Add to that the great sum of useful information a different business or organization might send you by email, information that otherwise you would not get in the mail due to the bigger costs involved. The Chamber of Commerce is a good example for that! We regularly send out emails with useful information for businesses but we simply cannot afford to spend large amounts of money on regular mail. While this is not true for the most important information – the Chamber sends critical information and its monthly newsletter to all its members by mail – your business should not be deprived of useful information because of the lack of a really cheap-to-implement communication tool.
Email can be a very powerful marketing tool, too. It is valued by many online users as a timely, easy, inexpensive and convenient way to get information from advertisers and marketers. Marketing through email allows small businesses to make a real connection with their target audience while at the same time allows them to compete with larger businesses at a much lower cost in a leveled playing field.
To send or receive email, your business needs to have a domain name and on this domain at least one mail user account. If you have an internet connection through an ISP you will already have the possibility for an email account. There are also free web-based email services available via the internet, such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or Lycos. So think again: “oldies-but-goldies” simply don’t stand true for the communication means when it comes to adding more value to your business.
See you online!
Antonel Neculai
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