Hyperlinks not displaying in Email notification

I'm trying to pull in a custom field that includes a hyperlink. The text comes across in the email but it is not linked. I have added this to my theme to get the custom field value:

<?php add_filter("gform_field_value_erclist", "populate_ercemail");
$populate_ercemail = $key="erclist"; echo get_post_meta($post->ID, $key, true);?>

What am I doing wrong? I know enought php to be dangerous.