About five or so years ago, a local Web development company introduced us to the concept of rich e-mail (graphically designed e-mail that is branded, forwardable and trackable). What a concept! Rather than sending group e-mails to "undisclosed recipients" via Outlook we could send an e-mail that matched our Website. This would take brand consistency to a whole new level. What's more, the receipt rates were far higher than Outlook, as many network administrators had already begun blocking out-group e-mails from Outlook, fearing SPAM in biblical proportions; whereas with rich e-mail the individual e-mails were pulsed out individually or in small batches in nanoseconds. And these e-mails wouldn't break down as they were forwarded from one person to another -- great! But most impressive, using built in tracking and reporting features, the sender could actually track: how many e-mails were opened versus the number sent, how many people clicked on a hyperlink in the e-mail and clicked through to the Web site -- and who (by name mind you) these people were. Eureka! Or not.

We immediately recognized the potential power of rich e-mail, as a customer acquisition, retention and cross fertilization tool and as a means of viral marketing - it's easy to forward a rich e-mail to a friend (especially when compared to snail mail), and other features like built in survey tools quickly became ubiquitous among rich e-mail technology companies. Everyone was ready... except the client.

Every piece of technology has a life cycle and that life cycle is called the technology adoption curve. Below is a diagram:



It's a standard bell curve that shows how different types of people adopt technology. This might seem heady to some... Business 101 to others, so let me explain the diagram above in terms that everyone can relate to -- music -- and ask you this question? How are you getting your music now?

Are you listening to satellite radio or downloading it from the Web and listening to it from your MP3 Player? Do you still buy CDs at the "record store"? Do you still have cassette player in your car? Is it an 8-track player?

Answering those questions might give you an indication of how you personally adopt technology.

5 years into the advent of rich e-mail, clients are beginning to ask us about it. That might say something about our client base, but I think that it’s more representative of the fact that we serve mainly the b2b market than the individual personal technology preferences of our clients.

B2B is often somewhat laggard in its adoption of new marketing technologies. The B2B culture is mainly driven by business owners who will stay on the sidelines until something proves itself out before jumping in headfirst. And this technology has proven itself to be flat-out phenomenal for business-to-business companies, especially when you link all of the benefits mentioned earlier with a CRM (customer relationship management) tool or SFA (sales force automation tool).

This type of integration between rich e-mail and the company’s database gives businesses the ability to peer into their system and perform a basic reach calculation on their client base. They can ask, “What would our top line look like if all of our clients who purchased apples, also purchased an orange?” – and then offer that client the orange. The offer would come in the form of a branded e-mail, addressed to the person by name, at a fraction of the cost of direct mail, with a much higher response rate.

In certain sectors, rich e-mail is losing favor to RSS (like this RSS blog). But our feeling is that within the B2B markets, companies are just now waking up to the benefits of rich e-mail and the kind of integration possibilities mentioned here. That means that if you are using rich e-mail, you should expect the benefits to continue for some time. And if you're not, you still have time to learn more about it and join in the action.