BlueTie Blog

Creating Links in Email: Don't load your email messages up with attachments and images

When you use email to send a customer newsletter, follow-up after a sales call or respond to a request for information, it's important to be considerate of the recipient when composing the message. I frequently receive emails with multiple attachments and I seldom open them. Although BlueTie supports an industry leading attachment size of 25MB, many recipient's email systems can't handle really big attachments. Also, opening an attachment adds another step to the process a customer or prospect has to go through to get your message, decreasing the likelihood they will actually see it.

Fortunately there's a simple fix. Put your messages on your web site as web pages or PDF documents and link to them in your email. This keeps the email simple and gives your recipients a one click way to access the info. There are two ways you can embed web links into your email:

• Simply copy and paste the URL from the target page into the email
• Even better (and more professional), use our Link tool. Choose the word or phrase in your email message that you want to link to the web page, highlight it and click the Link tool- it looks like a little chain. Paste the web page URL into the dialog box that appears. You can also add a Tooltip. This is a description of the link that appears when the user mouses over the link. So you might link to a sales doc and your tooltip might say: AntiSpam Information. Click OK in the dialog box and you're done.

Anyone who has received an email with tons of pictures and attachments will really appreciate this approach. Instead of loading the email itself with large images and attachments, link to them on the web. You'll save your customers time, your message is less likely to get blocked as spam (multiple attachments are a red flag) and you'll drive traffic to your web site.

Connecting With Customers Globally

We have a customer who does a lot of shipping to the same customer in Southeast Asia. Communications can be a hassle given time differences and the restrictions on attachment size inherent in a lot of email systems (BTW, BlueTie supports up to 25MB attachments).

My recommendation? Give that customer a BlueTie account within your enterprise and use the Shared Files feature to share larger docs. It all happens in our server environment so the distance is minimized (download may be slow based on the distance and bandwidth at both ends but you can share large files- they'll just take a little longer). If you're a BlueTie Pro user you can IM with them instantly to confirm deliveries and shipping dates.

If you don't want an outside vendor or customer to have an account within your enterprise, simply open a BlueTie Free account for them or for your business partners in general- you'll still be able to share files and other BlueTie shared features including calendars and contacts.

Note: BlueTie Pro users can Share file folders with anyone- when you share with someone outside of BlueTie they are sent a URL to access the Folder. Free users can only share within BlueTie.

Your John Hancock

Do you use a signature on your emails in a consistent manner? Are you taking full advantage of this opportunity from a marketing point of view?

If you're not, go to your Preferences, choose Name and Signature and set one up. A signature shouldn't be an ad; it should be a concise set of information so your customers, partners and vendors can easily respond the way they choose: your direct phone, IM, website, etc. They all should be there so the recipient doesn't have to track down your info elsewhere.

If you have a very concise marketing message, i.e. Get Your Free BlueTie Now!, you can include it (from the 'Another Shameless Plug Department'!).

I have friends who include their quote of the day, a link to a cool site, etc. Just remember, in most email clients these longer signatures end up 'below the fold', i.e. out of view in a standard email viewing pane- so they probably won't get seen. Keep it brief and the territory can be valuable.

100GB of Free Online Storage?

I've seen a little confusion about how storage works in your free BlueTie account. Each user in your account has 5GB of combined storage for email, files and contacts. This is a lot of free storage, however it actually gets a lot better. Each account supports up to 20 users, each with 5GB of storage so you're actually getting a potential of 100GB of online storage for your business!

So what do you do with this huge amount of space? Save all your email (except the contents of your junk folder of course). The reason you want to do this is email is a business record. It includes information on agreements, transactions, customer information and more. From a security POV, its also a good idea to retain email.

Use Contacts to track customers, vendors, employees, partners...anyone associated with your business.

And Files...I keep any docs I'm working on in my BlueTie file storage so I can access them from home. I also keep presentations and other files that I may need for an offsite meeting in BlueTie so I can easily access them from any computer.

You've got the space- use it!

Collaboration Tips

Here's a few quick tips:

BlueTie's Enterprise Contacts list is automatically updated every time you add or remove a user so it serves as an always up-to-date employee directory and phone list.

Assign a user account to help schedule a busy conference room. Share the conference room calendar across your organization and anyone can check availability or book time slots. You can manage vacation calendars the same way.

All businesses have Human Resources documents that must be accessible in current versions to all employees. With Shared Files you can easily manage and provide access to these legally required docs.