Category: Email Marketing News

If you haven’t heard, Google has a new feature to prevent people from sending late-night drunken emails. Good to know the Labs works hard on things whose value is mere publicity hype.

Called Mail Goggles, though it’s actually meant to IMPEDE the drunk’s vision of the world, the feature allegedly ensures a person is of sound enough mind to send an email. It proffers a series of math problems, to be completed correctly within a short set amount of time, before it allows the message to go through.

The whole thing, while good for a laugh, is silly:

• I had a coworker in college who could edit news copy while drunk. He’d always find an error that a sober person had written, no matter now many Three Wise Men or dollar drafts he’d had. So solving math problems wouldn’t be that big an impediment to users with a calculator.
• You have to personally enable and set the feature ahead of time. But no one ever PLANS to drunk-message or drunk-call; it just happens.
• Mail Goggles is only active on late weekend nights. So it’s not going to help the person who really needs this feature: The perpetual lush.

I do think such a feature would make more sense for SMS. After all, you keep your phone with you while bar-hopping, and it’s a lot easier (not to mention more likely) to dash off a late-night text than it is to stumble home, turn on your computer, wait for it to boot, and start sending emails to ex-paramours.

But there IS one thing that Mail Goggles might be good for: Preventing spam. There are studies that show when spam is most often sent (for the life of me, I can’t remember, but it was something like between 3 and 5 in the morning on certain weekdays). Mail Goggles could be activated by Google during those times, preventing robots from sending mass unwanted emails.

They could even call it Marketing Goggles.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manger, mobileStorm

“I’d rather you text me” (while sober)

The couple that spams together gets successfully sued together.

This week a federal court ordered spam marketing husband-and-wife team Henry Perez and Suzanne Bartok to pay a small Internet service provider (ISP) more than $236 million for sending out some 23 million emails advertising loan refinancing services. The messages were sent to the servers at CIS Internet Services in 2003–using the ironically-titled program called Bulk Mailing 4 Dummies.

Happily, this is just the latest news about spammers getting theirs. What I like about this story is that the little guy (CIS is a tiny ISP based in Clinton, Iowa) is fighting spammers one at a time–and winning. CIS’ triumph in the U.S. District Court in Davenport marks the tenth lawsuit in which it has prevailed, company owner Robert Kramer III said. Mr. Kramer has been at it for years: Wins include a $11.2 billion judgement against a Miami spammer in 2006, and a combined judgement of $1 billion after winning lawsuits against three spammers in 2005.

Mr. Kramer said during the most recent trial that the spam messages cut into his company’s bandwidth, making it harder for his customers to go on the Internet and costing CIS a lot of business. The number of CIS clients dropped from 5,000 in 2001 to 1,200 by late 2004.

For CIS, the drop was significant enough to prompt Mr. Kramer to go after those who messed with his bread and butter. Nevertheless, his successful lawsuits should prompt larger ISPs to follow through in their own anti-spammer actions. Even if it’s unlikely Mr. Kramer will collect the cash judgements owed him, he’s won on another front: CIS now gets only 10 to 15 million spam messages daily, down significantly from the 500 million it did in 2003.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager

“I’d rather you text me”

For those of you who tuned in for the NFL games this weekend, you may have noticed the “I’m a PC” commercials from Microsoft. I could state the obvious here regarding the attempted brand play, but come on–Microsoft is one of the top three brands globally, and I found another compelling feature of these TV ads. Along with clips from the likes of Eva Longoria and Bill Gates himself, we got a couple of shots of some regular old Microsoft employees and their email addresses.

I had a chance to procure a few of these addresses, jeff@windows.com and sean@windows.com, and took the liberty to email them. (I know what you’re thinking, but these emails weren’t hacked!) I received two quirky email auto-responders. Though I’m not yet sure how the content impacted my perception of Microsoft, it was still an interesting multi-channel approach, using prime time television paired with good old email marketing. Not to mention these emails were successfully delivered to me in record time–after all, @windows.com is a domain that will probably never be blocked from our Inboxes.

Speaking of the Inbox, unlike in the case of Microsoft, for other legitimate senders out there, email delivery is not always a guarantee. If you want to increase your email delivery success, check out the new whitepaper, 10 Commandments of Email Delivery. This whitepaper will provide you all the basics to understanding email delivery and break down how to get your marketing messages delivered. Download it here.

I’ve attended enough Apple events in my life to know that today’s shindig–truely an accurate term for Cupertino’s PR happenings, considering the heady blind love and live rock/pop music that fills the air–will make headlines even if not warranted. Leather iPod pouches, anyone?

Still, I’m betting had bet that whatever they come came out with will effect mobile marketing–heck, let’s say digital marketing overall. That’s because new versions of the iPod–highly expected as the topic of today’s affair–will undoubtedly be more iTouch than not. You’ll recall the iPod touch came out exactly a year ago, and was kind of like a true pocket computer in that it accessed the Internet via Wi-Fi networks.

If (1) the next-gen “iTouch” offers enough value for the money to become widely adopted, and (2) can take advantage of cellular networks as well as Wi-Fi (thus assuring the gadget can actually connect to the Web “anytime, anywhere”), it could seriously affect the mobile marketing message space.

We’re talking the re-consideration of everything from mobile email messages (they should differ from regular emails) to online ads. Even one’s Web site might have to be modified to accomodate the proliferation of small screens in consumers’ hands.

Uh-oh, seems I got caught up in the moment, just like most other writers covering Apple…

Stay tuned for an update (including pix) as soon as the news comes out!

UPDATE Well, along with software announcements for iTunes and the iPhone, and the Nano, Steve squeezed in a new iTouch. Skinnier, with a speaker and cool gaming features. Alas, no broadband-over-cellular connection, ‘cept for the ability to acess the iPhone App Store. The mobile marketing revolution is not coming today.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm

“I’d rather you text me”

Marketers who read this blog want to keep up on the latest developments in the industry. So maybe some of you already read Event Marketer magazine’s June issue–specifically, the feature on the winner of its Grand Ex Award, the Stoli Hotel. If so, you’ll be interested to know how the mobileStorm platform played a crucial role in the Stoli marketing campaign.

The vodka-maker’s marketers created a traveling top-line hotel–described as an “ultra-luxe” “pop-up experience”–that appeared for just a few weeks Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, New York, and San Francisco. Think of it like a traveling circus big top–and when you think about it, as magical as the supernatural camping tents described in the Harry Potter books! The Stoli Hotel, all of 20,000 square feet, showcased bedrooms, bars, spa services, and lounges like you’d see in a permanent building–and where guests drank cocktails made from the brand of vodka in question, of course.

Because of the short-term nature and the immediacy of the event, Stolichnaya marketers had to quickly generate buzz prior to each Stoli Hotel stop. It started advertising in the respective cities about one month before arrival. On the website stolihotelrsvp.com, there was a dedicated landing page for each city—on which interested consumers signed up to receive more detailed email messages about the hotel.

Stoli marketers then used mobileStorm RSVP Manager to create and maintain its database of people who wanted to visit the hotel. As you may know, RSVP Manager is the first comprehensive event management software that incorporates multiple forms of messaging into a single system. It lets clients collect responses and more information about event attendees via SMS, email, and/or a Web form. Because RSVP Manager gathers so much data, clients can also get comprehensive reports on the success of their campaigns. (Read more about mobileStorm RSVP Manager here.)

“Thousands and thousands” of Stoli Hotel guests came each night, said the Stolichnaya brand director at Pernod Ricard. More impressive is how effective the campaign was: After attending the hotel event, 86 percent of consumers said they were likely to drink Stoli; 76 percent bought the vodka in a bar or restaurant; 80 percent said the experience improved their thoughts about the brand; and 94 percent told their friends about the Stoli Hotel.

Grand Ex-worthy results indeed. Thanks, in part, to RSVP Manager.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm

“I’d rather you text me”

Yesterday, a federal grand jury indicted a woman who allegedly caused the death of teenager Megan Meier by harassing her on MySpace. Now, I want to make clear that the girl’s death is no frivolous matter, and that I myself was horrified when I first heard the allegations. However I do think that marketers need to take note of the case because it indicates a trend of legal action against those—including illegitimate marketers—who abuse MySpace.

Lori Drew is being charged by federal officials in Los Angeles because there are federal laws that apply to the situation. Prosecutors in Missouri, where the alleged crimes happened, have said no state laws there are applicable to the case. Among the allegations is that Ms. Drew violated MySpace’s terms of service by creating a false account and using it to send false messages.

Read the rest of this entry »

As I was skimming through technology articles this week, I noticed a company that has put what seems to be a new twist on email. But unlike a subject I am typically familiar with, email marketing, this product hits a different topic regarding business email. For those of us who have struggled with Outlook to manage our email correspondence, a new software plugin called Xobni has created an interesting approach on good old business or even personal email. Xobni, which is “inbox” spelled backwards, provides a robust analytics tool for your Outlook inbox.

While I haven’t tried Xobni myself, as an analytics aficionado, I am interested in anything that attempts to bring a story to numbers. The plugin extracts contact information (telephone numbers, addresses, etc.) automatically and provides an enhanced inbox search feature. Xobni uses a social network approach by giving Outlook a nice dashboard showing who is connected to whom. Some of the coolest features promise to display patterns regarding the time of correspondence, frequency of contact, and also social/business groupings of related contacts turning your regular inbox into an intelligent inbox.

Read the rest of this entry »

Can we look forward to East-West battles fought in cyberspace?

Never mind MySpace and Facebook. Some major mainstream acts are creating their own social networks—in what is actually a savvy way to better control their digital marketing.

At first, I kind of rolled my eyes when Billboard and Reuters reported that folks as diverse as 50 Cent and the (used-to-be-cool-cabaret-act) Pussycat Dolls were creating their own social networks. Remember when mainstream entertainers (or at least their handlers) finally heard about blogging back in, like, 2005? The result for the most part was lame PR fluff that very few believed was written by the actual actor or singer in question—going against the whole point of blogging, which is to engage the audience on a personal basis. (The big exception to that was Wil Wheaton, the actor who’s become a respected geek culture writer and blogger.)

Of course, all this eventually changed and now many celebrity bloggers do seem to be writing their own posts—straight from the heart rather than the PR desk. Grammatical errors and overly-emotional rants are what give these posts that sense of personal honesty, even if they’re an old-school marketer’s nightmare.

Read the rest of this entry »

aka “F.U.D. in N.Y.C.”

The saying is “you learn something new every day.” This week I can happily report that my rate of informational ingestion was significantly higher than that. But the gem for me wasn’t in the factoids, marketing claims, “breakthrough technologies” or other information bits getting past my screen. It was an impression of the state of the online marketing industry I got from 4 days in New York City as an exhibitor at the Search Engine Strategies ’08 conference.

The conference attendees were online marketing professionals seeking to improve their skills with search techniques and products. The exhibitors were generally somehow involved in optimizing websites to drive more traffic, or showing off their lead generation and PPC networks. I had the pleasure of personally speaking with a couple hundred entrepreneurs, business professionals, consultants, media representatives – as well as several people who appeared to just want a free pen and a piece of chocolate.

Before I tell you what I learned, a little about the conference: There were some really solid presenters that gave high-impact advice on what / how / when / who / where in the online marketing world. Worth the price of a ticket to hear some of the better ones. There were also the prognosticators with detailed descriptions of what will happen next in the industry. The ones who got something right over the last 4 years were designated visionaries; the ones who missed on everything beyond horoscope-like generalities were also there with brand new and exciting generalities. Go to http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/newyork/ for a list of presenters as it’s not my intent in this blog to critique each or any.

Read the rest of this entry »

Government folly—especially when committed with the best of intentions—has long been fodder for British comedy troupes and socio-political writers alike. They’ll probably have a field day with a proposed federal anti-phishing bill—one that simply parrots other laws that make phishing illegal and commands marketers engaged in best practices to do what they already do.

Last week a group of U.S. senators—led by Ted “An Internet Was Sent By My Staff” Stevens of Alaska—introduced the Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act, a nationwide law that will make it illegal to steal account information by pretending to be a bank, credit card company, or other financial institution.

It may be news to not-so-Web-savvy senators, but phishing is one of the more nefarious uses of spam email. Fear of it has long made consumers wary of unsolicited email messages. Marketing best practices developed long ago as a result with the aim of gaining consumer trust.

Read the rest of this entry »