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Email Direct Marketers Look at Self-Destructing Email

Self-destructing email is proving beneficial to lawyers who need to protect privacy, but there's talk that email direct marketers could benefit from the technology.

Lawyers are using Echoworx Corp.'s "secure send" option to remove time-sensitive e-mails from a recipient's inbox and to confirm that the right person opens a letter, DMNews reports (via MediaBuyerPlanner.com)

Some marketers think it could prove useful for EDM campaigns too. For example, a message for 15 percent off within the next week could disappear at the sale's end when the content is no longer relevant. Rather than having an inbox full of messages from one retailer, consumers would see only the latest one, giving the impression that the retailer isn't bombarding them with marketing promos.

Others disagree: "Destructible e-mail is counter to the objectives of most marketers, who want to engage a broad audience," said Luc Vezina, director of strategy and product management at e-mail services firm GOT Corp. "Destructible e-mail may come in handy for publishers who want to place restrictions on the number of people who receive e-mails. However, effective marketing campaigns encourage the sharing of emails."

Lyris: Email False Positives Still High for Big ESPs

False-positive filtering (emails incorrectly identified as spam) remains high among leading email service providers (ESPs), including Hotmail and Gmail.

The false-positive filtering rate for Gmail nevertheless improved dramatically in the second quarter, with only 2.97 percent of emails falsely identified as spam, compared with the previous quarter's 44 percent, according to a study (pdf) by email marketing solutions provider Lyris Technologies, MarketingVox reports. However, Hotmail's false-positive filtering, though improving, remains high - 18.2 percent in Q2, compared with 23.4 percent in Q1.

Nevertheless, U.S. ESPs' rates overall improved approximately 4 percent for both gross and inbox deliverability compared with Q1 rates. "While false positives are increasing among some ESPs, the industry as a whole is winning the fight to reduce the amount of spam," says Dave Dabbah, Director of Sales and Marketing, Lyris Technologies.

Users with addresses with one of the top 10 U.S. ESPs were 27 percent more likely to receive opt-in email in their inbox than those who used one of the bottom 10 providers: 97.8 percent versus 70.6 percent. Still, that rate for the bottom 10 is an improvement of 11.2 percentage points in deliverability compared with Q1.

False-positive spam filtering among European ISPs remains lower, achieving an average rate of only 0.075 percent compared with the U.S. average of 3.29 percent. This disparity is again due in part to excessive false-positive filtering at two ISPs - cs.com (Compuserve.com) and iwon.com - and U.S. ISPs' and ESPs' more stringent filtering of unsolicited emails.

Starbuck's Folly, Caribou's Gold Mine

Starbucks made a major mistake last week when they emailed a coupon for a free ice coffee to employees and told them to share it with friends and family members. As you might expect (and starbucks should have), the email went viral and was quickly sent beyond the original employees. Starbucks was surprised, as if the idea of email actually being forwarded was a new concept. One can only hope that the marketing team wasn't involved.

After the email went super-viral, Starbuck canceled the promotion, saying the redistribution had resulted in the offer's being modified beyond its intent. I'd like to know how successful - although that's probably not the word Starbuck's would use - it was. In any case, the first mistake was sending the promo. The bigger mistake was yanking it.

Caribou Coffee, a smaller chain looking for market share, quickly took advantage of Starbuck's short-sightedness and said it would honor the coupon that Starbucks had pulled. They put a stipulation on it - which Starbucks didn't do - saying they'd accept the coupon this coming Friday only, between noon and closing. The company also said it would provide a free-drink offer to its email subscribers - never leave your base out of a good deal.

This is a major PR coup for Caribou. It was covered by major press outlets - as was Starbuck's mistake. The PR alone will pay for the free drinks that Caribou will serve. The question is, why didn't Starbucks imagine this would happen? Why didn't they eat the mistake instead of providing an opening for the competition?

Email marketers spend their days thinking about ways to turn a campaign into a viral success. Obviously, offerring a free product is a pretty good start. That might not have been Starbucks intent, but it should have been forseen and accepted once the deal was done.