Email attachments are a pain to deal with. Identifying the correct file, uploading it on the email, and waiting for it to load consumes the time you might spend selling. If you are on the receiving end, viruses can compromise email security. You might constantly wonder if the email is secure. Keeping up with such user queries, sending links instead of attachments is now being considered among email security best practices. In this way, you are keeping your system data and documents safe.

Of course, you must e-mail sales materials to your prospective clients. We are not suggesting that you eliminate sending attachments at all. However, documents should not always be attached. You can send secure documents via email in a new way.

First of all, we must understand why email attachments are not an email security best practice. Here is a curated list of all the reasons you should consider the switch.

It is a security hazard

Emailing a marketing file requires saving the email attachment on several devices: your computer, your outbox, all recipients’ mail inboxes, and all recipients’ PCs.

Even if everyone keeps the file private, the file becomes increasingly exposed to online attacks. When you use a link-based solution, your attachment is only saved in one area, and others are simply given access to it.

It might stay in their inbox forever

In the corporate world, things change. Many factors change with time, including your goods, proposals, quotations, people, and positions.

However, when you send an email, it stays in your receivers’ inbox indefinitely. You might wish you hadn’t emailed that file two years ago. With a cloud link-based solution, you can easily specify a validity date to ensure that your content does not remain in the hands of others indefinitely, even when you use email attachment encryption.

You can send e-mails to the incorrect recipients

We send multiple emails as salespeople throughout the day. Therefore, it becomes simple to lose track of what we’re doing. Even seasoned sales associates can’t sleep at night if they accidentally send a crucial email attachment to the incorrect person. This is not the best email security practice.

Worse, it is impossible to recover an email that you sent mistakenly. Approximately 1.2 lakh people look for how to un-send emails on Outlook or Gmail. However, you can deactivate a link-based file or remove access if you share your sales documents as a link.

You might overlook your documents and forget the attachment

How many times have you hit the send button and then realized that you forgot the attachment? Isn’t it a dreadful feeling?

If this realization does not hit you promptly, it may be an unpleasant situation for your prospects, who will have to reply needing it again.

You won’t have to worry about the embarrassment or discomfort of forgetting to upload a necessary email attachment if you simply send a link within the email text itself.

You can’t get signatures promptly

If you are forwarding a document to the prospect, you would want them to sign the document as soon as possible to close the sale. There are multiple ways to use a link-based solution for quick e-signatures, rather than manually signing, scanning, and sending it back.

If your link attachment has e-signature capabilities, it saves time and closes sales quickly.

Large files take up space

Sending large files over email is not a good idea. First, it clogs inboxes, which everyone despises. Second, with several people using mobile devices to email, no one wants to open large files. Third, to access huge documents on mobiles, users must typically download particular programs. No one wants to give up their storage space for a large file.

Your receivers need to download the email attachments

Following the previous point, most people do not prefer downloading large email attachments. This is especially true for mobile devices with limited storage and bandwidth.

Even worse, if you continue to send big files and are detected as spam, your email account or corporate domain may be banned.

A salesperson’s worst nightmare is an email blacklist. It may have far-reaching repercussions for your whole organization as well.

By sending a document through a link, you decrease your chances of being mistakenly caught by today’s advanced spam filters.

You can’t check interactions with your attachment

Even when you utilize email forward tracking, you won’t see exactly how your receiver interacts with your e-mail attachment.

What was the average amount of time they spent on each page? Was it passed on to someone else who could make a decision? Have they printed or downloaded it?

Using a link-based attachment tracking system, you may track where receivers spent the most time on your content. You can use this information to anticipate prospects’ inquiries and look into them promptly before the sale falls through.

Some applications automatically download attachments

More and more cyber attacks and malware jeopardize the security of your devices. Furthermore, automatic downloads threaten a device’s protection. Most people do not realize this, and it further jeopardizes email security.

Attachments can carry malware and viruses

In July 2021, the Emotet malware used automated scripts to compromise 7.8 lakh email accounts out of a list of 13 lakh recipients. Its modus operandi to create new victims? Replying to old email threads with infected Office documents as malware attachments.

PDF malware is yet another new form of malware that is now popular with multiple intruders. Receivers download attachments without scanning them. These security threats can execute themselves onto your system, jeopardizing security along the way.

You lose ownership of the document

Once you attach a document to an email, they can forward it to multiple recipients. Even with email forward tracking or by protecting the email attachment with passwords, the document can still leak or break information as passwords can be shared or hacked into.

You may even state specifically that the item you’re attaching to your email is secret. But there’s no guarantee that your recipients won’t share it with other workers, outside companies, or, worst of all, your rivals.

To conclude, email attachments have become outdated for sales and marketing professionals who send out thousands of emails every day.