Say…
Do you have a footer appended to your outgoing e-mails?
For example, at the bottom of an e-mail message, I might see:
Joe Bleau
Research Associate
This-or-That-NGO
www.thisorthat.org
———————
[NOTE: this example applies to someone in a non-governmental organization, but I've seen the same short-form URL style used in the e-mail footers of government people and academics]
———————
It’s wonderful that you would include the URL for your organization’s website, but you know what?
If you don’t include the butt-ugly-but-functional “http://” in front of it, the link doesn’t work, i.e., I don’t get anywhere by clicking on it. You can paste an Internet address that starts with “www.” into your browser and it’ll work, but if you want folks to visit your website via your e-mail footer, you could increase your chances by adding the front part of the URL so that mail programs will activate it, i.e., make it clickable.
You might get only 10% of your e-mail recipients to click on your website link at the bottom of a message, but 10% of something is better than 100% of nothing.
Gilles
http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/
www.canadiansocialresearch.net