TIME Magazine estimates the 2005 U.S. E-mail volume at 10.6 trillion messages, escalating to 19.6 trillion by the year 2010. While around 90 million people worldwide have access to the Web, more than 150 million send and receive electronic mail over the Net. On a per head basis, the number of e-mail messages makes this part of the human race seem very verbose.

Imagine Not Having E-mail

Sobering thought! Would the Internet be in existence? It is doubtful if we would even have this communications revolution. But, how many of us give e-mail its due? Whether flamer, spammer or casual user, most of us take the convenience of e-mail for granted.

Let's take a look at some interesting things about the much-used and little-appreciated aspect of the Internet.

How Secure Is It And Who Cares?

More e-mail is exchanged daily than letters via the post office. Some companies have employees whose job description involves handling the e-mail. E-mail is the one thing that virtually all persons accessing the Internet have in common. While we often enjoy surfing the world-wide web, most of us spend much more time sending, receiving and reading (or in the case of Spam, deleting) our daily dose of messages. E-mail has become as widely accepted as any other form of communication but voice. Yes, we still talk more than we send e-mail. When you're talking and you want it to be confidential or secret, it is customary to take various precautions. But, what precautions can we take if the e-mail message is of a confidential or secret nature?

Attorneys, for example, are required to maintain their clients' affairs in strictest confidence. So, how do they treat the use of e-mail in conducting their business? Most of us who have been using e-mail for a very long time have probably received a message meant for someone else. We all know that our service providers can read our e-mail if they choose to. For the legal profession, this issue is still an emerging one.

Among state bar associations, there is little consistency regarding e-mail confidentiality. South Carolina started out with a strict rule that e-mail was confidential and unless the attorney had secure e-mail, they could not use it. This has since been overruled and the ethics committee says that while there is some risk, that does not make "an expression of privacy unreasonable."

Domain Names And E-mail Addresses

Recently, an e-mail was received from Topor@marketing.com (Bob Topor) who had a thought-provoking thing to say about e-mail addresses using domain names.

"Many firms and organizations unintentionally de-market themselves by creating complex, difficult to understand (and type) e-mail addresses and URLs. Often, computer professionals develop these with little or no understanding of marketing! For example, complex and long addresses include many characters such as 1 and l (one and "el") are often indistinguishable especially to the computer novice (i.e., customer). KISS! (Keep it simple stupid!)"

We have all been the recipient of returned e-mail only to discover we had mis-typed the address. It is safe to say that the more complex or ergonomically unfriendly the e-mail address is, the more likely we are to get it wrong. Hitting "reply" does not always guarantee the e-mail will go through. Setting up the return address in our e-mail software program doesn't help where it can get entered wrong by the sender or the domain name is too complex.

One of the e-mail addresses and domain names that occasionally causes problems for me is mac@salesleadexperts.com, an e-mail address for my friend who chose http://www.salesleadexperts.com for his domain name. I remember the name easily, but, as often as not, make a plural out of the word "lead" or leave the "s" off "sales."

I favor names that are a bit shorter and have named my own web sites, referrals.com, 2shoptheworld.com and 4expertise.com. I also like and think other names my clients and friends have used are good ones. Names like toyexpert.com, frugalfun.com and sportstort.com are easy to remember and descriptive enough to give the user an insight into the business of the owners.

Using your company name can be effective, especially if your company is a well-known fortune 100 company. Ideally, your domain name should be short and easy to remember while having something to do with your business.

Signature Files And E-mail Advertising

A professional writer friend, Shel Horowitz, had this to say about using signature files.

"Great sig. files use different ones for different purposes. You wouldn't run the same paid ad in two widely different publications--nor should you use the same sig. For example, I have different sigs that highlight my marketing services, career services, information products, web-zines, credentials as a frugality expert, public speaker,etc., etc. For examples, please visit http://www.frugalfun.com/marketing.html and look in the tipsheet sections."

Makes sense to me, and it beats spamming with all its ramifications for the small advertiser. Your signature file is accepted under nearly all circumstances.

You can combine fun and business in newsgroups. Many newsletters that you send comments to will publish them along with your comments. Some don't for space and other reasons. Just make sure your sig. file is not overly long, obnoxious or cutesy! Don't turn your readers off with overly long or dense signature files. Most experts recommend four lines or less, and personally, I can do without the pictures of Kilroy.

Remember that Advertising 101 recommends white space.