Perhaps to conserve hard drive space or to reduce clutter and confusion, you've saved few copies of past messages. Or maybe you've saved many in past but have later been tempted to delete them.

Let me suggest that those old email messages may contain more value than you've ever imagined. I'm going to share some ideas in this article that may help you look at them in a new light and to gain more value from them.

1) FAQ Page Creation and Updating.

As you look through archived email messages, are there certain questions that prospects have often asked about your products or services? Remember that for every prospect who takes time to email you a question about one of your products or services, there likely have been several more with similar questions who haven't.

In order to save time for yourself and your prospects in future - and to close more sales - you may be wise to compile answers to common questions into a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) web page or autoresponder. At very least, you may at least be able to reuse your replies to previous questions to answer future ones, instead of creating them from scratch each time.

2) Ad Copy Improvements.

The same idea applies to your ad copy. The more questions, concerns or sales objections you leave unanswered or unaddressed, more potential obstacles stand in way of a prospect's buying decision. Your email archives likely hold valuable clues for ways to better address those issues by updating and improving your ad copy.

3) Ideas for Additional Income Streams.

I submit that there is no longer any doubt that clients and customers expect that every legitimate business must have, at very least, a "business-card" web site listing contact information, business location and a simple "about us" page, along with a contact email link or web form.

I don't think anyone can argue any longer that only certain types of businesses belong on web. Only two years ago, it was still being actively debated whether that were true. No longer can burger joint be without a menu and operating hours posted online. No longer does any corporation believe it needn't have an intranet for suppliers and employees.

No longer can even self-employed claim they can't benefit from a place to post their resume. Even families have sites to keep relatives and friends informed and stay in touch.

Now many will claim that their web presence does little toward helping them to profit in their business. That is an entirely different issue and I'll go even further and call profit irrelevant to having a web site. Just as profit is unrelated to whether that business has a phone, fax machine, computer, desks, chairs and indoor plumbing. Those are expected, no, required, to a business in order to operate AS a business.

So too is web presence, a domain name, email address and an employee (even if that's you) to handle and respond to email, answer phone, empty trash and clean bathroom. Your business is expected to have a web presence, period. End of discussion.

Now to responsibilities related to that web presence. I've been discussing building a site for an attorney friend for two years. She hates email and doesn't want to be responsible for answering it or dealing with anyone electronically. Her legal secretary uses web daily to research and communicate with clients but knows not to discuss that with attorney and has told me in confidence that her boss despises email and will have nothing to do with web. I may as well give it up.