This company’s new product, the Fly Pentop computer is a lot like the LeapFrog learning system, except the learning guides are stored in cartridges you put into a Fly pen, and the unit is much smaller.
I may have been watching the Saturday morning cartoons when the Fly Unstuck ad aired. Their tv ads are on the website.
This company has good marketing. The product, website and marketing is geared entirely towards; and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are adults who are just as interested this product. I thought the product was launched very similar to how LeapFrog was launched. As it turns out, Fly is produced and marketed by LeapFrog, but it’s not apparent that Fly is a new product from LeapFrog.
For a language and learning tool, it is fairly priced. Although, like any tech gadget, there are a lot of accessories and games that you can buy. The pen only works with special Fly paper and you have to buy it all from LeapFrog. By the time you're done buying and upgrading your Pentop computer, you might as well have just bought a Dell home office pc. It'd be cheaper, faster, and already has more available for it.
It would be more appealing, if it weren’t so heavily reliant on special Fly paper that the pen needs to writes on. But, it is a very interesting concept.
More info about Fly.
Smoldering the Fire - Handling Bad PR
Industry: Banking
What happens when a negatively slanted article is published in a national business magazine and your company's product is mentioned?
The Option Adjustable Rate Mortgage is a seemingly benign way to better manage one's monthly cash flow by lowering the monthly mortgage payment. (Read more on Option ARMs). However, if consumers had bothered to read the fine print, the introductory or teaser rates offered by banks and mortgage lenders are temporary; the rates, that is, lasting for 30 days up to a year. What is unfathomable to me are the greed and stupidity factors. People were refinancing their 30-year fixed 5.X% loan for a 30-day 1% rate? Inconceivable!
The alarming parts of that article are where "1.3 million borrowers took out as much as $389 billion in option ARMs in 2004 and 2005" and "Up to 80% of all option ARM borrowers make only the minimum payment each month, according to Fitch Ratings." It makes you wonder why the mortgage industry is relatively unregulated. There's already an estimated 20% shrinkage of the mortgage industry over the next 5-10 years. You'd think that it'd be in a company's best interest to not be so greedy as to push consumer risk to its breaking point. For now, banks and mortgage lenders are able to record phantom profits on their books because GAAP allows them to even when a borrower only pays the minimum amount each month. A lot of borrowers are likely to default on their loans, lose their property, or have to resort to a hard money loan to keep their property. It would then mean that consumer debt will skyrocket, leaving less disposable income to spend for durable goods, luxury items, travel, entertainment, etc. One would surmise that a recession is coming, maybe not today, but within the next five years. There's only so much in defaulted loans that any financial institution can really afford to have on its books. The ideal is to not have any at all.
(On a side note, I think now would be a good time to adjust my 401k to include bonds.)
So why consider Option ARMs if they're so risky? Rates not low enough? Did inflation stabilize? Was there really a cooling of the housing market due to rising interest rates or was it simply seasonally based? Consumers believe that the economy is continously growing, the housing market will always rise (maybe only in California, NY, or MA), and that their earnings will grow as they gain more work experience, responsibilities, college degrees, etc.
Washington Mutual's response to their lending practices: "Borrowers who request an adjustable loan with payment options should understand those options and potential adjustments throughout the life of the loan. We make detailed disclosures to customers that are designed to develop a more informed consumer of mortgage products and ensure that our customers are comfortable with the loan products they select."
WaMu's response is prudent and shifts the responsibility to the consumer, as it should be. Sounds fair, but is it enough?
For clarity purposes, I don't work for WaMu. And, I have yet to see what PR spins out of where I am. I'll update this post when I know more.
What happens when a negatively slanted article is published in a national business magazine and your company's product is mentioned?
The Option Adjustable Rate Mortgage is a seemingly benign way to better manage one's monthly cash flow by lowering the monthly mortgage payment. (Read more on Option ARMs). However, if consumers had bothered to read the fine print, the introductory or teaser rates offered by banks and mortgage lenders are temporary; the rates, that is, lasting for 30 days up to a year. What is unfathomable to me are the greed and stupidity factors. People were refinancing their 30-year fixed 5.X% loan for a 30-day 1% rate? Inconceivable!
The alarming parts of that article are where "1.3 million borrowers took out as much as $389 billion in option ARMs in 2004 and 2005" and "Up to 80% of all option ARM borrowers make only the minimum payment each month, according to Fitch Ratings." It makes you wonder why the mortgage industry is relatively unregulated. There's already an estimated 20% shrinkage of the mortgage industry over the next 5-10 years. You'd think that it'd be in a company's best interest to not be so greedy as to push consumer risk to its breaking point. For now, banks and mortgage lenders are able to record phantom profits on their books because GAAP allows them to even when a borrower only pays the minimum amount each month. A lot of borrowers are likely to default on their loans, lose their property, or have to resort to a hard money loan to keep their property. It would then mean that consumer debt will skyrocket, leaving less disposable income to spend for durable goods, luxury items, travel, entertainment, etc. One would surmise that a recession is coming, maybe not today, but within the next five years. There's only so much in defaulted loans that any financial institution can really afford to have on its books. The ideal is to not have any at all.
(On a side note, I think now would be a good time to adjust my 401k to include bonds.)
So why consider Option ARMs if they're so risky? Rates not low enough? Did inflation stabilize? Was there really a cooling of the housing market due to rising interest rates or was it simply seasonally based? Consumers believe that the economy is continously growing, the housing market will always rise (maybe only in California, NY, or MA), and that their earnings will grow as they gain more work experience, responsibilities, college degrees, etc.
Washington Mutual's response to their lending practices: "Borrowers who request an adjustable loan with payment options should understand those options and potential adjustments throughout the life of the loan. We make detailed disclosures to customers that are designed to develop a more informed consumer of mortgage products and ensure that our customers are comfortable with the loan products they select."
WaMu's response is prudent and shifts the responsibility to the consumer, as it should be. Sounds fair, but is it enough?
For clarity purposes, I don't work for WaMu. And, I have yet to see what PR spins out of where I am. I'll update this post when I know more.
Campaign Decomposition
Vocus - "Decode The Secret"
Media: direct mail, 1st class postage; Flash presentation via customized website
Audience: subscribers of DM News
The elements of the direct mail piece included a handwritten 6" x 9" manila envelope, a pair of 3D glasses and one 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of white paper personally addressed with first name, and one call to action:
"Put on your glasses and visit your web site at"
www.DecodeTheSecret.com/(name)
The only magazines that are tied to both my workplace and home residence are business related. Seeing how I only subscribe to three print publications, it was easy to narrow down where my contact information was harvested from. I did initial research on the piece itself. I looked up the web URL in the Internet Wayback Machine (archive.org) and at AllWhois.com to see who owned the website. The website was first archived in September 2004 with no changes since February 2005. From the lack of information there, one could assume that perhaps html tags were used to prevent search engine indexing.
What does this tell me? I was more interested in how the campaign was executed rather than the content this marketing services firm was trying to convey. So what happened? The direct mail piece that drove me to their special website was poorly done and amateurish. The direct mail concept and execution suggests that it was done by a person or group of people who are at least a decade younger than myself. How do I know this? Because the mid-to-late 80s had spy vs. spy product marketing geared towards kids and this is a campaign to reconnect with one's youthful experiences of discovering "secret" data that you could only unlock with "special" tools like 3D glasses. I suppose there are more modern incarnations of toy product marketing for todays youths, but nothing is as classic as the secret decoder ring or homemade invisible ink.
I was disappointed to find that there was only one tiny section of one web page that used the 3D glasses, instead of finding elements throughout the campaign that would spell out a keyword or give "secret" directions about their services or their company. The Flash presentation was very direct and straightforward, but otherwise bland for the share of the market this company competes for.
Am I likely to use their services or pass on their content to my colleagues? Probably not. I don't believe that I'm the right point of contact.
If I were a PR or marketing services agency, what would I do differently?
One, I wouldn't send a broadcast direct mail piece (a traditional marketing, shotgun approach) to a mass audience. In Vocus' news archive, there's an article that says they acquired PRWeb, a press release newswire that many, many companies use to disseminate PR articles about their company, products/services, or individuals. Perhaps a future campaign could utilize a more targeted database, e.g., the people using PRWeb, instead of using DM News' print edition subscriber base.
Second, have a better initial presentation. A pre-printed #10 business envelope might have had better impact than a handwritten envelope. Addressing was written with a felt-tip pen. The use of a felt pen vs. ballpoint? It's about the same. It depends on what image you want to convey. Use of either suggests a very small company with less than 10 key employees. I can tell by the handwriting style that the person was educated in Europe. The British styled numerics are a clear giveaway. Paper does come in different colors these days. Even if they were mail dropping this in-house, it'd still might look more professional if mailing labels or gender personalization (like, Mr. John Sample, instead of John Sample) were used.
Third, I'd have a better call to action at the end of the presentation. There are two elements of the end page. A, they want viewers to put in a telephone or e-mail contact information to sign them up for a services demo. B, they baited the viewer with a free $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble. Viewer signs up and becomes a lead. The rep may disqualify the viewer when talking about the on-demand PR software. Once a sales rep calls and shows the viewer a demo, is the company really obligated to send the viewer that $50 gift card when there is no possibility of a sale?
Four, consistent messaging. Once you do get to the last page there's a disclosure about the gift card, except it's for a $75 gift card and not a $50 gift card. This lack of attention to detail is a very key issue for marketers. If your PR firm can't even get their own details straight, what makes you think they'll get yours right? Also, there was a lack of continuity of the "decode the secret" theme.
Five, and probably the most important part. Have a clear goal for what the campaign is supposed to achieve. If it's product or service awareness, that's fine. Tying a free gift to the experience isn't necessary. It's a cheap way to go, and I don't mean by the campaign being inexpensive. It cheapens the campaign and the messaging that goes with it.
Ok, there's one more. Six, know your audience. By the focus of this campaign and the services offered, I shouldn't have received this campaign at all. This is where the shotgun approach of launching a campaign to everyone who has a pulse in the marketing industry isn't necessarily a good approach.
Media: direct mail, 1st class postage; Flash presentation via customized website
Audience: subscribers of DM News
The elements of the direct mail piece included a handwritten 6" x 9" manila envelope, a pair of 3D glasses and one 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of white paper personally addressed with first name, and one call to action:
"Put on your glasses and visit your web site at"
www.DecodeTheSecret.com/(name)
The only magazines that are tied to both my workplace and home residence are business related. Seeing how I only subscribe to three print publications, it was easy to narrow down where my contact information was harvested from. I did initial research on the piece itself. I looked up the web URL in the Internet Wayback Machine (archive.org) and at AllWhois.com to see who owned the website. The website was first archived in September 2004 with no changes since February 2005. From the lack of information there, one could assume that perhaps html tags were used to prevent search engine indexing.
What does this tell me? I was more interested in how the campaign was executed rather than the content this marketing services firm was trying to convey. So what happened? The direct mail piece that drove me to their special website was poorly done and amateurish. The direct mail concept and execution suggests that it was done by a person or group of people who are at least a decade younger than myself. How do I know this? Because the mid-to-late 80s had spy vs. spy product marketing geared towards kids and this is a campaign to reconnect with one's youthful experiences of discovering "secret" data that you could only unlock with "special" tools like 3D glasses. I suppose there are more modern incarnations of toy product marketing for todays youths, but nothing is as classic as the secret decoder ring or homemade invisible ink.
I was disappointed to find that there was only one tiny section of one web page that used the 3D glasses, instead of finding elements throughout the campaign that would spell out a keyword or give "secret" directions about their services or their company. The Flash presentation was very direct and straightforward, but otherwise bland for the share of the market this company competes for.
Am I likely to use their services or pass on their content to my colleagues? Probably not. I don't believe that I'm the right point of contact.
If I were a PR or marketing services agency, what would I do differently?
One, I wouldn't send a broadcast direct mail piece (a traditional marketing, shotgun approach) to a mass audience. In Vocus' news archive, there's an article that says they acquired PRWeb, a press release newswire that many, many companies use to disseminate PR articles about their company, products/services, or individuals. Perhaps a future campaign could utilize a more targeted database, e.g., the people using PRWeb, instead of using DM News' print edition subscriber base.
Second, have a better initial presentation. A pre-printed #10 business envelope might have had better impact than a handwritten envelope. Addressing was written with a felt-tip pen. The use of a felt pen vs. ballpoint? It's about the same. It depends on what image you want to convey. Use of either suggests a very small company with less than 10 key employees. I can tell by the handwriting style that the person was educated in Europe. The British styled numerics are a clear giveaway. Paper does come in different colors these days. Even if they were mail dropping this in-house, it'd still might look more professional if mailing labels or gender personalization (like, Mr. John Sample, instead of John Sample) were used.
Third, I'd have a better call to action at the end of the presentation. There are two elements of the end page. A, they want viewers to put in a telephone or e-mail contact information to sign them up for a services demo. B, they baited the viewer with a free $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble. Viewer signs up and becomes a lead. The rep may disqualify the viewer when talking about the on-demand PR software. Once a sales rep calls and shows the viewer a demo, is the company really obligated to send the viewer that $50 gift card when there is no possibility of a sale?
Four, consistent messaging. Once you do get to the last page there's a disclosure about the gift card, except it's for a $75 gift card and not a $50 gift card. This lack of attention to detail is a very key issue for marketers. If your PR firm can't even get their own details straight, what makes you think they'll get yours right? Also, there was a lack of continuity of the "decode the secret" theme.
Five, and probably the most important part. Have a clear goal for what the campaign is supposed to achieve. If it's product or service awareness, that's fine. Tying a free gift to the experience isn't necessary. It's a cheap way to go, and I don't mean by the campaign being inexpensive. It cheapens the campaign and the messaging that goes with it.
Ok, there's one more. Six, know your audience. By the focus of this campaign and the services offered, I shouldn't have received this campaign at all. This is where the shotgun approach of launching a campaign to everyone who has a pulse in the marketing industry isn't necessarily a good approach.
A/B testing, is it worth the effort?
Industry: Banking
This year we've done a few A/B tests of just subject lines for B2B e-mail campaigns. The "standard" way we split the campaign audience was by halving the dataset equally. The first half of the e-mail addresses receive Subject Line A, the latter half receive Subject Line B. This got me to thinking that maybe customers will read just about anything we send them, and if our content is unclear they'll hit reply and/or call up their salesperson. And, that the population subset where campaign readership was higher might also reflect how clean the dataset was.
The customer population used for all three broadcasts is the same dataset.
March
E-mail Focus: Product
Test A: NINA/No Doc - $750K to 80% LTV
Test B: NINA/No Doc - Non-Traditional Solutions
May
E-mail Focus: Product
Test A: New 1-Month LIBOR for the Building Season
Test B: New Construction Solutions
July
E-mail Focus: Technology Enhancement
Test A: Private Label Marketing A Click Away
Test B: Let Us Market for You
The test results are as follows:
Month, A/B, qty e-mails sent, 1-wk opens, 1-wk open rate, 3-wk opens, 3-wk open rate
March A, 21019, 9809, 47%, 10450, 50%
March B, 21022, 9286, 44%, 9840, 47%
May A, 22024, 7766, 35%, 8152, 37%
May B, 22028, 9563, 43%, 10153, 46%
July A, 22600, 8698, 38%, 9580, 42%
July B, 22604, 9468, 42%, 10330, 46%
You might infer that a 3% difference in open rate is not statistically relevant. Even in market research where our audience size was much smaller, at least 8-10% is noteworthy, but not 3%. Not for this population size. Maybe if we did consumer marketing and broadcasted to millions of addresses per month would this be more relevant, but I digress. July is about the same with 4% not being that significant either.
So what happened with the May campaign? Perhaps it isn't data related at all. Spring to Fall is when a lot of home construction and remodeling goes on. A product that has good rates for just its first month isn't as appealing as say, a more general umbrella of solutions offered to a customer.
One thought in the aftermath of the May campaign was that dataset B responded more favorably to campaign broadcasts. Sure, I might be inclined to believe that. However, for the July A/B campaign, the second half of the population was sent the A campaign, and the first half were sent the B campaign. As the results show, the audience didn't care one way or the other.
Analysis: Inconclusive. The only good way to measure e-mail campaign success is to tie the data to quantitative metrics, like how much loan volume resulted from a broadcasted campaign, how much of a media mix was used to promoted a particular product, how many calls were generated by this campaign. ROI isn't necessarily a good metric anymore especially when your company broadcasts in-house. It costs us almost nothing to broacast, except the time spent by the business units putting the campaign content together, myself formatting the content into html/aol campaign templates and pulling data for broadcasting.
So, is it worth the effort? No. But that isn't going to keep us from testing this process with future campaigns.
This year we've done a few A/B tests of just subject lines for B2B e-mail campaigns. The "standard" way we split the campaign audience was by halving the dataset equally. The first half of the e-mail addresses receive Subject Line A, the latter half receive Subject Line B. This got me to thinking that maybe customers will read just about anything we send them, and if our content is unclear they'll hit reply and/or call up their salesperson. And, that the population subset where campaign readership was higher might also reflect how clean the dataset was.
The customer population used for all three broadcasts is the same dataset.
March
E-mail Focus: Product
Test A: NINA/No Doc - $750K to 80% LTV
Test B: NINA/No Doc - Non-Traditional Solutions
May
E-mail Focus: Product
Test A: New 1-Month LIBOR for the Building Season
Test B: New Construction Solutions
July
E-mail Focus: Technology Enhancement
Test A: Private Label Marketing A Click Away
Test B: Let Us Market for You
The test results are as follows:
Month, A/B, qty e-mails sent, 1-wk opens, 1-wk open rate, 3-wk opens, 3-wk open rate
March A, 21019, 9809, 47%, 10450, 50%
March B, 21022, 9286, 44%, 9840, 47%
May A, 22024, 7766, 35%, 8152, 37%
May B, 22028, 9563, 43%, 10153, 46%
July A, 22600, 8698, 38%, 9580, 42%
July B, 22604, 9468, 42%, 10330, 46%
You might infer that a 3% difference in open rate is not statistically relevant. Even in market research where our audience size was much smaller, at least 8-10% is noteworthy, but not 3%. Not for this population size. Maybe if we did consumer marketing and broadcasted to millions of addresses per month would this be more relevant, but I digress. July is about the same with 4% not being that significant either.
So what happened with the May campaign? Perhaps it isn't data related at all. Spring to Fall is when a lot of home construction and remodeling goes on. A product that has good rates for just its first month isn't as appealing as say, a more general umbrella of solutions offered to a customer.
One thought in the aftermath of the May campaign was that dataset B responded more favorably to campaign broadcasts. Sure, I might be inclined to believe that. However, for the July A/B campaign, the second half of the population was sent the A campaign, and the first half were sent the B campaign. As the results show, the audience didn't care one way or the other.
Analysis: Inconclusive. The only good way to measure e-mail campaign success is to tie the data to quantitative metrics, like how much loan volume resulted from a broadcasted campaign, how much of a media mix was used to promoted a particular product, how many calls were generated by this campaign. ROI isn't necessarily a good metric anymore especially when your company broadcasts in-house. It costs us almost nothing to broacast, except the time spent by the business units putting the campaign content together, myself formatting the content into html/aol campaign templates and pulling data for broadcasting.
So, is it worth the effort? No. But that isn't going to keep us from testing this process with future campaigns.
Candied Woes
Caution is needed when ordering candy online. Our creative services dept had ordered watermelon lollipops. On the backside of the wrapper, there were printed black seeds. On the front was a sticker which read "Compliments of.."
After receiving an e-mail notice that read: "Don't eat the candy in the sales care package, we've encountered a problem with it," an uproar of laughter came from our creative services area.
Ants, it seemed, cleverly disguised themselves as watermelon seeds and managed to adhere themselves to the candy on the inside of the wrapper. Because they were behind the pre-printed watermelon seeds no one noticed they were there.
In some countries this would be seen as a delicacy.
The vendor we used is called Lollies Galore. Candied ants might be good for say.. Halloween, but probably not for customers or salespeople.
After receiving an e-mail notice that read: "Don't eat the candy in the sales care package, we've encountered a problem with it," an uproar of laughter came from our creative services area.
Ants, it seemed, cleverly disguised themselves as watermelon seeds and managed to adhere themselves to the candy on the inside of the wrapper. Because they were behind the pre-printed watermelon seeds no one noticed they were there.
In some countries this would be seen as a delicacy.
The vendor we used is called Lollies Galore. Candied ants might be good for say.. Halloween, but probably not for customers or salespeople.
Specifications
A request to send a survey to customers in Northern California came by my desk the other day. The business unit originating this request failed to specify criteria with respect to which area or region defines what a northern California customer is. A popular marketing way to do this is by identifying a region by zip code. California's zip code range is 90000-96199. The messiest way is to identify this by a list of cities or MSAs (metropolitan statistical areas). What you, as the business unit, shouldn't do is make broad sweeping suggestions as to what you want without knowing what it is that you want.
Disneyland uses the zip code range of 90000-92999 for SoCal resident ticket promos. Another website, www.us.endress.com, suggests that the northern California zip code range is 93600-96199, and breaks southern California into two groups, "90000 to 92999" and "93000 to 93599," however that's just how their sales territories are split for California.
None of these will really do it for this campaign broadcast since what constitutes as northern California is both industry and company-specific. Ventura starts at 93000 and Santa Barbara starts at 93101, both of which are within an hour's drive to Los Angeles. What is good for Endress may not be good for this mortgage company. What's still a bit scary for me is that my inner consultant is telling me to pull a strategy from the air wafting above my head and implement it as a marketing standard for a moving-foward point, since no standard exists for this type of broadcast.
So, what's my resolution? It looks like this state will be split into northern (93600-96199) and southern (90000-93599) California. Unfortunately this is only a bandage solution for what probably wouldn't be aligned with the segmentation goals for the year. Most often when it comes to data segmentation, internal and external clients simply don't know (insert how, what, who, etc). But they're asking you the subject matter expert, the consultant (or in my case, the e-mail marketing manager).
Disneyland uses the zip code range of 90000-92999 for SoCal resident ticket promos. Another website, www.us.endress.com, suggests that the northern California zip code range is 93600-96199, and breaks southern California into two groups, "90000 to 92999" and "93000 to 93599," however that's just how their sales territories are split for California.
None of these will really do it for this campaign broadcast since what constitutes as northern California is both industry and company-specific. Ventura starts at 93000 and Santa Barbara starts at 93101, both of which are within an hour's drive to Los Angeles. What is good for Endress may not be good for this mortgage company. What's still a bit scary for me is that my inner consultant is telling me to pull a strategy from the air wafting above my head and implement it as a marketing standard for a moving-foward point, since no standard exists for this type of broadcast.
So, what's my resolution? It looks like this state will be split into northern (93600-96199) and southern (90000-93599) California. Unfortunately this is only a bandage solution for what probably wouldn't be aligned with the segmentation goals for the year. Most often when it comes to data segmentation, internal and external clients simply don't know (insert how, what, who, etc). But they're asking you the subject matter expert, the consultant (or in my case, the e-mail marketing manager).
A/B Testing for E-mail Campaigns
A/B testing, also called an A/B split, is the easiest method of testing elements within your emails or on your Web site. The target audience is divided into two groups. One group is broadcasted the original version of whatever you are testing, and the second group sees an alternative version, where only one element has changed. Then, the results are tracked. With e-mail marketing, the following components are usually tested: bonus gifts, coupons, P.S. messages, guarantees, opening sentence image, closing sentence image, from-field, calls to action, opening greetings, type styles, layout elements, graphic images, etc. This form of testing is used by both business and consumer-driven campaigns.
My company did its first A/B e-mail campaign test last week. The only element that changed was the e-mail subject line. We used:
Test A: NINA/No Doc - Non-Traditional Solutions
Test B: NINA/No Doc - $750K to 80% LTV
On average, our audience open rate for product e-mails is about 45%, it's not that great and could use some improvement. The distribution list was split 50/50. After 5 calendar days, there's no discernable difference between either subject line and the combined open rate is 42%. Having not worked in the mortgage industry before, much of the e-mail content that we broadcast doesn't make much sense and is so banking specific that I hope our customers are getting value from it.
My company did its first A/B e-mail campaign test last week. The only element that changed was the e-mail subject line. We used:
Test A: NINA/No Doc - Non-Traditional Solutions
Test B: NINA/No Doc - $750K to 80% LTV
On average, our audience open rate for product e-mails is about 45%, it's not that great and could use some improvement. The distribution list was split 50/50. After 5 calendar days, there's no discernable difference between either subject line and the combined open rate is 42%. Having not worked in the mortgage industry before, much of the e-mail content that we broadcast doesn't make much sense and is so banking specific that I hope our customers are getting value from it.
Email Authentication
Today's web surfing takes me to investigate email authentication and its implementation costs. The hooplah that started this inquiry was from a press article about Goodmail partnering with AOL and Yahoo! to essentially get rid of the free whitelist system and replace it with a fee-based system for commercial senders. The concern for a publicly traded bank is whether or not its competitors will adopt such an authentication system to have their emails handled on a preferential basis by a consumer because it contains a "trust" tag.
What does email authentication do? Well, for starters it tries to manipulate how a commercial email is handled by an email service provider. The perception for the consumer is exactly like that of a 1st Class postage stamp versus a pre-sorted indicia, the latter of which almost entirely is for bulk postal mail, like pieces addressed to "Dear Head of the Household" or to "Current Resident." Here's Wikipedia's definition.
Goodmail is new to email authentication and has only been in existence since June 2003; not nearly enough time for it to have developed relationships. Goodmail's online documentation infers that by using their paid token system, it guarantees delivery of a commercial sender's email without blocking html, pictures, or embedded hyperlinks, to a consumer's email inbox. Click here to view their process.
There is a lot of unseen resources consumed by using or considering to use an email authentication service. Goodmail, for example, is a fee-driven company. The more fees, the more revenues. Let's just look at a few of the ones from Goodmail. There's a $399+ signup fee, an accreditation fee, token purchase fees which can rise by 25% if you ever show up on their watchlist as a probationary company, and per-email fees based on email volume.
I asked Goodmail to send me case studies of companies in the banking industry who are currently using their service and a list of references; the basics of consideration for any vendor offering. So far, no response yet.
Best practices are still the way to go, and the FTC has guidelines for business to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.
What does email authentication do? Well, for starters it tries to manipulate how a commercial email is handled by an email service provider. The perception for the consumer is exactly like that of a 1st Class postage stamp versus a pre-sorted indicia, the latter of which almost entirely is for bulk postal mail, like pieces addressed to "Dear Head of the Household" or to "Current Resident." Here's Wikipedia's definition.
Goodmail is new to email authentication and has only been in existence since June 2003; not nearly enough time for it to have developed relationships. Goodmail's online documentation infers that by using their paid token system, it guarantees delivery of a commercial sender's email without blocking html, pictures, or embedded hyperlinks, to a consumer's email inbox. Click here to view their process.
There is a lot of unseen resources consumed by using or considering to use an email authentication service. Goodmail, for example, is a fee-driven company. The more fees, the more revenues. Let's just look at a few of the ones from Goodmail. There's a $399+ signup fee, an accreditation fee, token purchase fees which can rise by 25% if you ever show up on their watchlist as a probationary company, and per-email fees based on email volume.
I asked Goodmail to send me case studies of companies in the banking industry who are currently using their service and a list of references; the basics of consideration for any vendor offering. So far, no response yet.
Best practices are still the way to go, and the FTC has guidelines for business to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.
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