Messaging

E-Mail Professional Business Letters

Letter Services, Inc., of San Rafael, Calif., has launched a service that turns regular e-mails into business letters. The company is looking to ISPs as channel partners as it targets small business customers.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Associate Editor [February 5, 2003]

San Rafael, Calif.-based Letter Services, Inc. has launched LetterClick BrandMail, a service that turns standard e-mails into business letter format for subscribers. The service is sold through ISPs on a revenue-share basis. It is marketed as an additional service for business customers. Ironically, the original LetterClick service did not involve e-mail at all.

Sean Wani, vice president of sales and business development, explains, "when we started, our main service was to generate professional business documents. You would upload your address book, business graphics, and scanned signature to a server. Then you would e-mail the server, and the system would return a document with the graphics and signature. When we rolled out the service we found out that many people are not sending business letters. Instead, they're sending e-mail letters."

The company still has a print shop for scanning and storing graphics, but these days the company uses the tools mostly to scan business cards and signatures of subscribers to e-mail services. If necessary, the company can print business letters for customers, but it is rarely asked to do so.

Wani claims there is significant demand for the service because it helps businesses replace traditional forms of communication with e-mail, a trend that is already occurring anyway. He says, "sending a business letter is not a trivial task. You need to put special paper into the printer, and when you do, it can print on the wrong side, or somebody else's print job can print on business paper. Creating and sending an MS Word document raises compatibility issues and virus concerns."

He claims that Letter Services has seen a strong response from ISPs, webhosts, and from firms whose business is graphic design or marketing.

The LetterClick BrandMail service runs on a Windows NT server.

Individuals can use the service for $4.95 per month or less, and corporate pricing starts at $3,600 per month for a company with 100 users. The company has three plans for ISP participation. The company charges a signup fee of $10 per user (with bulk pricing available to large business customers) to scan and store the business graphics the customer intends to use.

The simplest program is a referral program. The referral program gives ISPs 10 percent of recurring revenue generated through referrals to Letter Services.

At the next level, Letter Services offer a reseller program. Letter Services hosts the solution, with the ISP providing support and billing. The ISP retains 40 percent of recurring revenue.

At the top level, Letter Services offers an OEM program The company provides the software and the ISP buys a server. The ISP stores all customer data and provides all support and billing. The ISP retains 80 percent of recurring revenue. The ISP can even retain the setup fee if the ISP can scan and store the business graphics (logo, business card, or signature), but many will not find it economical to do so for a one-time fee of $10 per user.

Since all e-mail passes through a dedicated server, there should be a slight delay on outgoing e-mail, but even if there is a delay, it should be less than half of one second, which nobody would notice.

If an ISP uses BrandMail, Letter Services would charge it a nominal fee of about 2 cents for a mass mailing to all of its BrandMail users.

For large companies, the product can be set not to add any graphics to e-mails exchanged within a company.

Wani is enthusiastic about the company's latest promotion. "We believe in our product," he says. "There are not many value-added services with a monthly profit stream. So we're saying, 'let us show you the ROI. Pick 100 customers, and send a BrandMail to them saying that we, your ISP, are always looking at providing new services to our valued customers, and are you interested in this product. If they get a good uptake, the ISP can then roll out the product to its entire customer base."

Gene Powers, Letter Services founder, president, and CEO, says the profit potential for ISPs is significant. "If you are willing to make an investment, it has the potential of increasing revenues on every user of e-mail. We estimate an ISP can add $25 per subscriber per year of profit with our service (from $50 per subscriber per year of revenue)."

The company has a patent on its service. Powers explains, "the patent is broad. It covers formatting any text e-mail or web-submitted text into a traditional item of correspondence with a business graphic and signature delivered through such media as e-mail and fax. BrandMail falls under that patent. If you build a template yourself, you're not violating the patent unless you add the graphics to the e-mail on the server side."

The company itself uses BrandMail in its correspondence and press releases. Powers says that administering the service is as easy as administering a simple SMTP server. Using it simply involves sending text e-mails to a specific server.

For the future, Powers is looking at additional features that customers would value. "The product is undergoing frequent updates. We are adding features constantly. For example, at the moment we're adding HTML functionality so that if you're using color and underlines, for example, in your e-mail, they will flow right through the system."

Extra features, Powers says, won't cost ISPs any money. "Updates are included. Ours is a service-based business. We're not interested in charging for software updates. The magic for us and for the ISPs is the recurring revenues."

Powers is enthusiastic about embracing ISPs as channel partners. "Our greatest reach will be with the small business market. ISPs are a great channel for us because they are serving the needs of the small business user."

— End