Outlook lets you send out emails with a background/stationery/wallpaper. Well… just because you can does not mean you should.
For the vast majority of business (and even personal) emails, do NOT use any stationery… leave the email to have its plain white background.
I cannot tell you how many times I have been annoyed trying to read emails against over-enthusiastic backgrounds.
It’s even more frustrating having to remove them when I forward or reply to the email (I don’t want my emails looking unprofessional).
Plus… you don’t know if the background will look right on the recipient’s computer… what if they are not using Outlook?
The short of it is that most emails are about using words to communicate. Anything that gets in the way of your message should be taken out.
Agree… Disagree. Let us know by leaving a comment on the blog.
Couldn’t agree more. Also, please don’t add any cute (moving) graphics. They are just as anoying!
Couldn’t agree more. My other pet dislike is emails that come with an attachment which is some graphic for the signature and appears on every email from that person.
I understand the frustration expressed by you and the others. However, the automatic signature is a great reminder to our clients of what we do. It is a way to be visible to them when they may just actually need our services. What do you suggest so our signature doesn’t become boring, but we don’t have to change it for each email?
Michelle,
That would be just fine if the stationery in MS Word did not have a history of bugs when coupled with Outlook. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received email over the years with stationery background that has corrupted my font size/style in Outlook permanently. You may think your stationery-based signatures are attention-getting with your customers, but that’s not the kind of attention you want. You’ve already seen two comments written on this page prior to mine about negative perceptions of stationery. Don’t you think some of your customers would share the same views? These types of emails take up additional bandwidth (raising costs of Internet service) and additional mail server space (directly raising the networking costs for your customers). The benefit just does not outweight the costs.
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Couldn’t disagree more.
I love a bit of colour in my emails and all correspondence should be tempered with at least a little of it. But then I guess it depends on your business. I’m always more open and receptive to colourful characters and put off by overly formal approaches.. I don’t want my day all about dull formality. I want to smile while I work.