Acknowledging that businesses are managed by busy people who may not understand the damage done by not responding or by badly responding to email, business leaders must recognize before it is too late that such numbers point to a serious crises on the horizon for those who ignore the e-side of their businesses. In our pervasively online technological age, shoppers, customers, clients, vendors and competitors are choosing email more and more as their preferred communications tool. Furthermore, study results suggest that businesses may miss up to two-thirds their potential audience by not adding e-mail to their marketing tool kit.

When businesses treat e-mailers badly, they risk such responses as anger, rejection, hurt, frustration and revenge. In addition, ignoring e-mailers generates harmful word of mouth. When done right, word of mouth grows businesses, increases sales and expands margins. When done badly, the opposite occurs, and a brand begins to die a slow and painful death.

As consultants we must take an active role in solving communications problems that my batter either our brand or our clients’ brands. Here are a few tips for turning email into a business ‘’growth tool’’ rather than a weapon for business suicide:

1. Respond accurately to all e-mails within 24 hours.
2. Embrace e-mail as a marketing tool.
3. Use SPAM filters, if necessary (but only if necessary), to block e-mails originating from Spammers, but do so cautiously. Blocking emails from legitimate clients and others will hurt your business in the long run.
4. For best results and greatest returns on investment, customize outgoing email messages by employing some kind of consolidated client and prospect database that allows you to specifically identify client groups’ needs, wants and desires.
5. Communicate customized messages that meet the needs, wants and desires of those client groups.

When utilized correctly, businesses bask in results-oriented email marketing and brand building. Home Depot, for example, has grown its client email database from 500,000 to five million contacts in just the last two years. Each one of these five million emails represents solid future sales.

In conclusion, by embracing email, a consulting firm can grow sales by melding ingredients gleaned from its client data points and managing them so as to:

First and foremost, customers and clients count. They measure your value and develop a perception around that value. By ignoring email or practicing it poorly, opportunities for positive perceptions may be missed, dismissed or destroyed, shortening your business’s lifespan. Treating email like the winning tool it can be, however, holds the potential of extending your business's lifespan (and profits) indefinitely.

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- Article by Wale Bello