Goldmail is a company that allows users of it service to create animated presentations with sound and graphics (“voice-visual” messaging). It can be e-mailed to others or embedded in e-mails through services such as Constant Contact. The premise is that potential customers are more likely to respond to a message if the content is conveyed using moving pictures and sound, and not just text and graphics.

A marketing piece from Goldmail provides some food for thought on the whole notion of using e-mail as a sales and marketing tool. First, Goldmail claims that while social media provide more ways to connect with customers (true), they haven’t necessarily provided more actual connections (maybe). The piece also addresses several marketing challenges and shows how its service provides a better solution than traditional social media methods.

Most of their arguments are marketing fluff, but their discussion of prospecting includes some hard data. Goldmail says e-mail prospecting, or sending out large numbers of e-mails hoping to convert them to customers, seemed to be a panacea—but the success rate has dropped off over time (probably true). They provide some interesting stats on the click-thru rate of e-mails with and without Goldmail audiovisuals: A four to five-fold increase in click-thru rates is impressive if the numbers bear out.

Will the service work for your business? See for yourself—Goldmail offers a free two-week trial for its “business” ($9.95/month) and “enterprise” (call for pricing) tiers, and the “personal” tier of service, offering up to five active messages of three minutes or less, is free. My hunch is that services like Goldmail probably do offer higher rates of return than traditional, pictures and text social media like Facebook or Twitter, if for no other reason than it’s the next, newest thing, and social media consumers haven’t begun to tune it out yet.