It is a proven fact, e-mail recipients are much more likely to read and trust your e-mail if you use well-designed HTML (graphical) e-mail. And, if you design your e-mail "stationery" around your brand, you will extend that brand with every message sent!  Now, there's just this little issue of the best way to design and implement your branded e-mail stationery.

You will find that there are quite a few companies that provide custom e-mail stationery just by doing a Google search. To avoid overwhelm we will explore two such services that take completely different approaches to the task of creating custom e-mail stationery. And both of these companies have experience in servicing the real estate industry.

Totally Custom E-mail Stationery

Stationery Central is a company that can replicate your existing paper stationery or the look of your Website home page and turn it into branded e-mail stationery. This means that there are effectively no limitations to the design of your e-mail stationery. Here are the steps to getting your e-mail stationery from this service:

1. If you want to replicate the look from your printed stationery, send them a high resolution color scan. Or, if you want the look from your Website, send in its URL.
2. Stationery Central's designers will start working on your e-mail stationery design and send you drafts for your feedback. This process continues until you are satisfied.
3. You will then receive a special stationery delivery letter that gives very easy-to-follow instructions on how to install your new e-mail stationery. Once installed it is ready to use.

The process is really quite simple and the look can be stunning. For example, they replicated my printed stationery (which has a subtle design) and I was quite pleased with the results. CLICK HERE to see an example of a message sent with my stationery. You will notice that my stationery includes links to my Website, e-mail address, Google map of my office location and even a link to my Vcard (which makes it easy for recipients to save my full contact information). CLICK HERE to see some other e-mail stationery examples, including those of real estate sales professionals.

Here are some things to consider with using Stationery Central to create your custom e-mail stationery:

• This stationery will only work with Outlook, Outlook Express, Act! (PC) and Goldmine (PC).
• The service is a bit pricey at $165 per template (which does not include costs for extras like a Vcard or digitized signature, etc.). However, they will design it exactly the way you want it.
• You can also have Stationery Central create branded e-mail business cards and signatures (for an additional cost).

If the look of your e-mail stationery is critical, then using a fully custom service like Stationery Central is the way to go. If you are not real picky about the look, are in a hurry or concerned about costs, here is another, completely different, approach to having your own branded e-mail stationery...

Sending (semi-custom) Branded E-mail from Anywhere

Add Branding is a Web-based e-mail stationery service. This means that your stationery resides on their servers, not your computer. As you will soon see, this offers some opportunities that are rather unique.

Add Branding does not give you the ability to create fully custom e-mail stationery. Instead, during the setup process it walks you through a series of online forms where you make choices about colors, images, logos, tag lines, etc. that will be part of your stationery. The design layout is essentially the same for everyone, just the details change.

Add Branding let's you try their e-mail stationery service at no cost for the first 20 e-mails. Here's how you get it set up:

• Click the "Try It Free" menu at the top of their Web page and then enter your primary e-mail address and a password.
• Use their online E-mail Stationery Wizard to configure the elements the way you want them to look (within limitations). This takes a few minutes because there are up to six pages of forms to complete --mostly making choices about colors, fonts or uploading images.
• Click the "Preview" to see what your stationery will look like (CLICK HERE to view an example of my Add Branding e-mail stationery.)
• Once satisfied, click the "Install" button and follow the instructions to install the Add Branding buttons to your e-mail software. Add Branding has done a good job of having installation options for nearly every kind of e-mail software or Web-mail system.

If you use Outlook, it will add two buttons to your e-mail compose window. To send an e-mail using your Add Branding e-mail stationery, just type your message using plain text. If you want to see how it will look before you send it just click the "Preview" button. When done composing your message click the "Send Branded" button. What happens next is your e-mail is first redirected to the Add Branding servers where your text message is embedded into your e-mail stationery, then sent out to the intended recipient.

Because of the Web-based nature of this e-mail stationery service, Add Branding offers a lot of flexibility as to how you send your branded e-mail. For example, you can set up your Add Branding e-mail stationery to be included with any message sent by your MLS on your behalf. You can also use it to send branded e-mail to wireless devices. These are features that appear to be unique to Add Branding. Also, if you need to use someone else's computer to send an e-mail, you can include your stationery by simply adding ".addbranding.com" to the end of the recipient's address.

Here are a few of my thoughts about using Add Branding after having played around with this service a bit:

• This service doesn't always work the way it is intended. For example, every time I sent a test message to myself, it bounced saying I was using the wrong e-mail address.
• If you try to use Outlook's "Resend" feature to resend a message that has already been sent, the Add Branding buttons fail to show up in the compose message window.
• The design capabilities are very limited.
• This service is relatively inexpensive at $39.95 per year (it's an annual subscription).
• The ability to send branded e-mail from MLS systems or to wireless devices is very useful.

The biggest complaint I have with Add Branding is the very limited design scope. I want my e-mail stationery to be unique and replicate the look of my brand faithfully —and this just can't happen with this service in most cases.

The Power of Branding —Use It or Lose It!

There is no question that well-designed branded e-mail will have a positive effect on your business. Here is a way to use both services to portray your brand look and feel accurately (most of the time) while still having the ability to use branded e-mail for MLS and wireless.

Have custom e-mail stationery designed for your Outlook, Outlook Express, etc. via Stationery Central or some similar service. Use this anytime you send e-mail from your computer. Then sign up for the Add Branding MLS stationery service (it's currently only $29.95/year) to include a semblance of your branding when sending out e-mails via your MLS. And if you have a significant portion of your prospects and clients that use wireless e-mail, you can include wireless Add Branding stationery for only $19.95/year.

Branding is a powerful differentiator and the more you promote it, the harder it works for you. And the beauty of branded e-mail stationery is that once it is set up, it is always working to bring you more business, all without you having to give it a second thought!

NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors and makes no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.

Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He's dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. You'll see his column on REALTOR® Magazine Online every month and in the magazine quarterly. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Web site at http://www.russer.com

This article is reprinted in its entirety from the February 2006issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright 2006. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark and Ask Mr. Internet!™ is a trademark of RUSSER Communications.