Behold the power of E-mail

Ingrid Riley

JAMAICANS HOME and abroad, their friends and family and anyone else who could understand, were treated to an acerbic brand of satire last week by e-mail. Attached were doctored photos of our Prime Minister in a spoof of his declaration of his life long heterosexuality.

Now whether it made you smile, laugh, disgusted or angry, that's not my point, if nothing else, it should have underscored the power and awesome communications and business potential of - e-mail. "Is nuff people did get it you know - people in London, Canada, the US, Hong Kong and they all passed it along to others on their mailing list." An e-mail marketer's dream.

It has been said that e-mail is the killer app. And we've been hearing this for years. Now we see friends, families, lovers and colleagues across continents being connected by it, whole industries being built because of it, boosted by it and whose business operations depend on it. According to a 2000 study by Messaging Online, it is estimated that there are 333 million e-mail boxes in the US and 236 million elsewhere in the world.

E-mail has totally transformed how we communicate with each other. I certainly remember when my only options to keep in touch with best friend in Germany was to call her... ouch! Kind of expensive and you know you couldn't do that often and the other, was to write her long hand and mail at the post office.

Now if my memory serves me right it took that letter 2-3 weeks to get there and if she were to reply to me soon after, I would get her letter in another 2-3 weeks. And forget about getting it on time by Postal Standards or at all during Christmas.

Now it takes me a few minutes to write and send her e-mail or we can 'talk' real time using MSN. But e-mail has certainly done wonders for keeping up with each other's movements and achievements. Also, local party promoters have caught on and have developed huge mailing lists of party goers and have chosen to distribute their fliers by e-mail, saving them money in printing and distribution costs.

The potential e-mail as a power tool in business is just now being realised on a wide scale by many companies. The buzz words and phrases - e-mail marketing, viral marketing, opt-in marketing, permission marketing have all been banded about, studied and attached to business models. E-mail Newsletters in text and html format have become second nature and a necessary internal communications, customer service, marketing, new business development tool for smart businesses, small and large.

Why? It is inexpensive, it can be highly targeted, you can send thousands at a time, feedback is swift, decisions and actions are pretty fast. It has fast become a central component of any communications strategy that incorporates print advertising, direct mail, e-commerce, on-line advertising, telemarketing and broadcast advertising for company's worth their salt.

Revenues from e-mail marketing according to the Abderdeen Group will top US$1 billion by 2003, having grown 270 percent between 1999-2000.

So Jamaican companies who have not done so already and there are many, should be examining how they can make e-mail and all its derivative benefits work for them.

Ingrid Riley is a writer, and CEO of MIND FULL Press a Caribbean Media and Publishing Company, that is the premier source for Caribbean Tech News and Information. She is active in the Caribbean's hi-tech and business communities. Send comments to her at ingridriley@yahoo.com.

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