There seems lately to have been a rise in the number of emails masquerading as vitally important news. That such emails are marginally more inane and annoying than non-vitally important ones, seems to have escaped the PR-wallahs who are such fans of promo emails. They seem to have forgotten that the whole point of email is that it should bring you exciting and relevant communications, messages that delight and enthral you, emails that are missives that should entice you with tempting ideas and engaging possibilities. Instead the whole concept of email is being seriously abused, so much so that we are tending increasingly to hit the delete button more often than the read button.

The most annoying type of email is the one with a summary of a company's activities. Sounds harmless enough, but most of the PR companies sending out this tosh are blowing their own trumpets. They are mostly doing this for the benefit of keeping existing clients on board, so it's all pretty predictable. Very rarely do these newsletters include anything remotely interesting or entertaining. Haven't they considered including something unexpected, which tends to be far more interesting?

Next on the anti list is the e-blast, which in line with its name ought to be something extremely funny, or at the very least mildly diverting. But no, an e-blast is a summary of a given company's product line and related services. Zzzzz. An e-blast often summarises how customers are using said products to achieve wonders. Yawn. And these messages are rarely anything more than a clutter of mundane ho-hums in the form of canned cut-and-paste articles, copies of blog posts taken out of context, and all manner of dross relating to every possible market in which the company is active. Turning all this into a meaningful and cohesive message for every reader is impossible, but at least they could try. Email after all is a person-to-person communication and databases are certainly clever enough to manage different categories of interest.

Email is one of many digital tools in the sign and display producer's armoury of communications channels, and it can indeed be extremely effective. But we are in danger of abusing it to such an extent that people simply stop responding. The most effective communication is the one that elicits a positive response, and in order to achieve that goal the information in the message has to be relevant. An e-blast that rattles on about everything that has happened to everyone in the company and all their relations is a sad and effectual waste of binary airtime.