Two things:

1. I'm looking for a way to embed an image (corporate logo) into an email
disclaimer to be tagged onto all outbound mail from our organization. The
only method I see available to me at the moment is to use the disclaimer
function in GFI MailEssentials (what we use for SPAM filtering) to "link" to
an image file publically available somewhere on the Internet.

2. I'm looking for as many reasons you guys can provide that I can take
back to management to explain why this is a bad idea.

-a linked image will increase bandwidth costs for both us and everyone we
email
-many mail clients block such images for security reasons anyway
-linked or embedded, this won't work for emails sent in plain text
-if embedded, storage costs to store our emails and potentially replies to
our emails will go up for us and everyone we email

You guys have more? It would be appreciated. I need both a technical
solution on how to do this, as well as a list of reasons why we shouldn't.

Thanks!

Exchange 2003 SP2 on Windows Server 2003 SP2

"Phil McNeill" <philmcneill> wrote in
message news:1164
[..]
> -linked or embedded, this won't work for emails sent in plain text
> -if embedded, storage costs to store our emails and potentially replies to
> our emails will go up for us and everyone we email
>
> You guys have more? It would be appreciated. I need both a technical
> solution on how to do this, as well as a list of reasons why we shouldn't.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Exchange 2003 SP2 on Windows Server 2003 SP2

You're right - most of us think images in sigs are a bad idea, but then we
don't tend to work in marketing. I think you've pretty much covered the
disadvantages, but there's some interesting guidance here:

http://extremeezine.com/effectively-...ail-signature/

Lee.

It's not necessarily a bad idea. Many orgs use it; many orgs don't.
You just have have to outweigh benefits vs costs and see if it's
something your organization wants.



James Chong (MVP)
MCITP | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+,
Security+, Project+, ITIL
msexchangetips.blogspot.com



On Nov 26, 9:34 am, "Phil McNeill"
<philmcne> wrote:
[..]

Thanks for the replies guys. I tend to think of this as a bad idea as
ultimately it adds to IT costs for our business and everyone we do business
with for what I personally see as a low value function. Don't even get me
started on my opinion of legal disclaimers in general. Grrrr. Others of
course do not share my opinion.

Anyway, from a functionality perspective, is there any way natively in
Exchange itself to force an image to be embedded in all outbound email (as
opposed to it being linked to)? I am fairly certain the answer is no, but
just want to confirm that we'd need some kind of third party software setup
to do this. As soon as I can attach a price tag to this I can probably make
it go away.


"Phil McNeill" <philmcneill> wrote in
message news:1164
[..]

Nothing native to 2000\2003; with 2007 you can only do text based
disclaimers.



James Chong (MVP)
MCITP | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+,
Security+, Project+, ITIL
msexchangetips.blogspot.com

On Nov 26, 10:29 am, "Phil McNeill"
<philmcne> wrote:
[..]

Excellent. Thanks much.

"Jamestechman" <jamestechman> wrote in message
news:77e7
Nothing native to 2000\2003; with 2007 you can only do text based
disclaimers.

Head over to www.exclaimer.com
You can actually do an online quote there for an exact cost.
We recently purchased and deployed this app and its quite nice and fairly
simple to use.


"Jamestechman" <jamestechman> wrote in message
news:77e7
Nothing native to 2000\2003; with 2007 you can only do text based
disclaimers.



James Chong (MVP)
MCITP | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+,
Security+, Project+, ITIL
msexchangetips.blogspot.com

On Nov 26, 10:29 am, "Phil McNeill"
<philmcne> wrote:
[..]

On Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:34:45 -0500, "Phil McNeill"
<philmcneill> wrote:

>Two things:
>
>1. I'm looking for a way to embed an image (corporate logo) into an email
>disclaimer to be tagged onto all outbound mail from our organization. The
>only method I see available to me at the moment is to use the disclaimer
>function in GFI MailEssentials (what we use for SPAM filtering) to "link" to
>an image file publically available somewhere on the Internet.
>
>2. I'm looking for as many reasons you guys can provide that I can take
>back to management to explain why this is a bad idea.
>
>-a linked image will increase bandwidth costs for both us and everyone we
>email

Actually, it'll reduce the amount of data you send. The message will
be smaller and the image can be compressed for transmission by the web
server. As an added benifit, you won't be storing that graphic in the
mailboxes of everyone that receives your email.

>-many mail clients block such images for security reasons anyway

And a lot of spam filters take a dim view of embedded images in email.

>-linked or embedded, this won't work for emails sent in plain text

You can't please everyone.

>-if embedded, storage costs to store our emails and potentially replies to
>our emails will go up for us and everyone we email

There's no cost in storage for the sender if you add the stuff to the
mail on the way out of the organization. There is, however, the
complexity of figuring out which MIME body part contains the message
and which don't.

>You guys have more? It would be appreciated. I need both a technical
>solution on how to do this, as well as a list of reasons why we shouldn't.

The advertising and marketing contingent will win out in the end. The
arguments against doing it are too weak given their overly optimistic
view of the benefits. IT lives to serve, not to dictate to, the
business. If they're willing to pay, go for it.

"Rich Matheisen [MVP]" <richnews> wrote in message
news:s70r

> The advertising and marketing contingent will win out in the end. The
> arguments against doing it are too weak given their overly optimistic
> view of the benefits. IT lives to serve, not to dictate to, the
> business. If they're willing to pay, go for it.
> ---

And that my friends is truly the bottom line.
Like I said, I just bought Exclaimer. :)

"Rich Matheisen [MVP]" <richnews> wrote in message
news:s70r



> Actually, it'll reduce the amount of data you send. The message will
> be smaller and the image can be compressed for transmission by the web
> server. As an added benifit, you won't be storing that graphic in the
> mailboxes of everyone that receives your email.

I was comparing doing a linked image to doing no image at all. :)


> And a lot of spam filters take a dim view of embedded images in email.

Ya, I thought of that one when I was doing my little write-up for the
director. Want more of your mail to be marked as SPAM at the far end? This
is a good way to ensure that. :)


> You can't please everyone.

I just wish we could please SOMEONE occasionally. ;)


> There's no cost in storage for the sender if you add the stuff to the
> mail on the way out of the organization.

Until people start replying to your emails. ;)

> The advertising and marketing contingent will win out in the end. The
> arguments against doing it are too weak given their overly optimistic
> view of the benefits. IT lives to serve, not to dictate to, the
> business. If they're willing to pay, go for it.

I agree, for sure, but just want to establish realistic expectations from a
functionality perspective. A linked logo will fail to appear in a
significant number of messages for a variety of reasons (didn't even mention
the possibility of a web filter not liking the outbound url to the image for
some reason). Linked or embedded it will increase your chances of being
marked as SPAM. Linked or embedded it will increase maintenance costs for
both us as sender, and all recipients of our mail. By all means, if they
are happy with all of that, I'll be doing it, and won't really mind, even if
I do disagree. ;)

Thanks for the response.

"Martin Blackstone [MVP]" <martinb> wrote in message
news:5244
> Head over to [..]
> You can actually do an online quote there for an exact cost.
> We recently purchased and deployed this app and its quite nice and fairly
> simple to use.
>

Thank you. When they tell me to overcome the technical issues we have right
now and write me a cheque I will definitely check it out. :)