Innovation – Stage II

The life of a start up is an interesting one.  The team works very hard at getting “the thing” up and running.  Sometimes with gum and duct tape just to prove to the market that what you say is possible, is, truly possible.  Then, the team begins to refine the product where the duct tape comes down and real infrastructure and solutions are put in place.  WrapMail is now in the fun stage – I think so anyway – and that is what I like to think of as the 2nd stage of innovation.  The first being the initial creation of our product.

WrapMail is now taking a look at all of our features and thinking about how we can make them not only perform better for the sake of performance, but also for the sake of the customer experience.  We are working very hard at improving all aspects of our product to enhance the measurable results that our customers have become accustomed to seeing.  In the very near future our customers will see improvements to areas such as:

• additional options for sending wrapped emails
• improved design process in the WrapMaker
• additional options with our shells (templates)

We welcome any and all feedback from our customers and encourage you to leave comments here on this blog.

Thank you!

Dave Kustin – CMO, WrapMail

Showing up on Radar

Sam Huleatt over at Leveraging Ideas has written a nice post about us. Sam, who runs Leveraging Ideas provides extensive analysis on venture capital, web 2.0 and entrepreneurship.

Sam is credited with coining the terms brand reputation optimization and internal corporate social responsibility. By fusing the power of the Internet, community and corporate social responsibility Sam has described effective ways for brands to build a powerful and critical long-term asset while providing a more holistic approach to than typical return on investment (roi) metrics allow for.  For more on Sam click here.  

To read Sam’s excellent post, click the image below…

Dave Kustin – CMO, WrapMail

What’s in a Name?

Well, everything.  My personal belief is that a name and identity should accurately position the company in the minds of consumers as it relates to the specific line of business that that company operates in.  Now, I am not saying that every corporate name should be literal and descriptive in nature, often, names develop meaning over time.  10 years ago no one knew what a “Google” was, but today everyone knows that Google means “search.”  As a baseline though, I think names should be easy to remember and easy to spell.

Cuil (pronounced Cool), a new search engine that is supposed to be a Google killer (it won’t) launched this week with the aforementioned name.  When I see the name I want to pronounce it quill. Xobni, which is inbox spelled backwards, launched last year and has an equally unique name.  I believe it’s pronounced Zobni, but I’m not really sure.  I find both names to be frustrating on some level and right off the bat makes it difficult for them to stick in my mind.  Their challenge, from a branding perspective, will be to make their nonsensical names mean something.  Cuil cannot mean search, Google has already laid claim to that.  Xobni is in the business of allowing users to better organize their inbox.  Can they own that?  It looks like they might.  They turned down an offer earlier this year from Microsoft, but will their name be a hindrence down the road as they try to plant themselves in the minds of consumers? It might.

Here is the part where I try to bring the post back to us.  WrapMail, I think, has a great name (no, I didn’t create it).  Simple, descriptive, memorable, the ability to be used as a verb (‘wrap it’) and most importantly, first to market.  Those factors will in part ensure our success. Along with the simple fact that our product provides measurable results.  Wrap it up!

Dave Kustin – CMO, WrapMail

New Type of Advertising Part II

We have used this blog as a repository for the latest news on WrapMail, as well as for news and information on new types of advertising, marketing tactics and thoughts on product and brand positioning.  Specifically, I wrote about new types of advertising here and here.  And now, yet a third.  Sort of.  Advertising in movie theaters is not new, but adding an olfactory element to it is.  Most people know, that the olfactory sense has the greatest tie to memory, so it makes perfect sense to play on that sense.

According to AdAge,

“a company called Cinescent is giving marketers the chance to pump out the scent of their brands in German theaters, where it first tested the technology for Beiersdorf’s Nivea. For the test, a specially made 60-second spot showed a typical sunny beach scene, with people lying around on deck chairs or sunbathing on towels while waves crashed and seagulls cried in the background. As people wondered what the ad was for, the scent of Nivea sun cream permeated the cinema, and a Nivea logo appeared on screen along with the words “Nivea. The scent of summer.” The results were significant: Cinema exit polls showed a 515% rise in recall for the Nivea ad compared with moviegoers who saw the spot without the scent. The same ad, when combined with only a subliminal whiff of scent, scored a 25% lift.” 

Pretty amazing and cool. Not so much the results, but the fact that they were able to pull it off.  This is another example of consumers being “hit” with a new type of advertising and seemingly this trend is not going away as traditional advertising tactics are not delivering the results they once did.  WrapMail is no exception. Now, if I could just get our programmers to figure out how to add scented emails…

Dave Kustin – CMO, WrapMail

Things Starting to Heat Up at WrapMail

As many of you know, WrapMail has come out of “development” and is in aggressive growth mode.  As such, there are a lot of exciting things going on with us on a daily basis.  Here’s a quick snapshot of some things happening this week and next….sorry for being vague on some of the names.

• exploratory discussion with Sojern
• marketing partnership discussion with a large hosting company
• call with two investment firms
• meeting with major entertainment venue
• calls with various sports and entertainment venues

Surely this list will grow as there are new developments everyday here at WrapMail. Stay tuned…

Dave Kustin – CMO, WrapMail

P&Gs New Chief Marketer

Proctor & Gamble, the $8 billion advertiser, has a new Global Marketing Chief, Marc Pritchard.  For those of you that may not know, P&G is a 100+ year old company, has a few hundred brands under its control and employs 138,000 people.  They are, to say the least, a goliath.   And even a goliath has to trim costs sometimes and Pritchard is under a lot of pressure to do so given the economy and the performance of certain brands.  I of course, have a suggestion.

If P&G were to shave a 10th of a percent of that $8BB budget and redirect to WrapMail they could wrap every email from every employee for a year.  And that’s assuming every one of those employees sends emails.  Surely there are many that do not.  Assuming they all did for a second, imagine the effect it would have if they featured all of their products in the Wraps. By the way, they have enough products and promotions to keep an entire department busy rotating and managing Wraps.  Further, with that many employees, they would send about 700,000 external emails per day.  That my friends is a lot of impressions – per day.

Mr. Pritchard, feel free to call or write, as we are very willing to make P&G a deal that will cost less than $8 million to wrap all of P&Gs 138,000 employees.  Really, please call.

Dave Kustin – CMO, WrapMail

10% Response Rate for $5

A quick note regarding our updated pricing.  We have eliminated the required minimum of $20 per month which should now make signing up for businesses with 1, 2 or 3 users a very easy decision.  The new pricing is as follows:

- Activation Charge (includes first free Wrap): $40.00

- Monthly Charges: $5 per user, per month (user is an email address)

- No minimum, no commitment

That’s it – SIMPLE!  Click here to signup.

Dave Kustin – CMO, WrapMail

WrapMail & eBay

WrapMail and eBay – doesn’t sound like a natural match but we go together like peas and carrots.  For those of you new to this blog, indulge me for a second.  WrapMail is all about “wrapping” the “everyday” external email traffic that you are going to send anyway.  We do this without the need to install anything on your computer nor do you need to learn any new routines or software.  What can/should be featured in a Wrap?  For most of the world, Wraps would look very similar to the corporate website, but there are others that may include 3rd party ads.

So where does eBay come into play?  eBay has roughly 2 million Power Sellers.  These are people that have “stores” on eBay and typically sell a lot of a singular product (hammers) or a wide range of products (toys, rugs & small electronics).  WrapMail is a perfect tool for these Power Sellers to push information out on their products and listings.  Every time a Power Seller responds to an email they could send an email that has their featured listings in it. Here’s the best part.  eBay could sell/offer this tool to their Power Sellers, thus creating a new stream of income.  And if you haven’t been reading the news, eBay could use it.

 

Dave Kustin – EVP Marketing, WrapMail

New Type of Advertising

Thanks to a startup called Sojern, customers of some of the nation’s biggest airlines will soon see ads on the boarding passes that they print at home.  Lets examine what that really means.  Consumers will see advertising in a place where for the previous 50 years or so they did not see it.  I have one question.  What took so long!?!?  Is there a more natural place for airlines to cross promote and sell advertising?  I think not….a consumer books a trip to Orlando for instance, and then when they print their boarding passes they will see information and advertisements that they can react to at their destination.  Pretty smart.  And with the airlines hurting so badly it was an easy decision for them to participate in an opportunity where a new line of revenue was the result.  Now, these ads are most likely for spur of the moment type things: restaurants, attractions, local weather, etc…

I have a message for the 6 airlines that are participating.  HEY, LOOK OVER HERE.  WRAPMAIL CAN PROVIDE THE SAME OPPORTUNITY!!!  Every carrier sends emails to confirm travel plans. What better place than to cross promote and sell advertising.  Same concept. Low barrier to entry and a new revenue opportunity.  The main difference with WrapMail is the timing of the delivery of the message.  With Sojern, the consumer will see the offers very close, if not on their travel date which right away eliminates hotels and car rental companies.  With WrapMail, an airline could include ads in a confirmation email that arrives months prior to travel which opens more opportunities to sell advertising.  More opportunity = more revenue.  

Lets take it one step further.  The scenario I describe above is related to automated confirmation emails.  WrapMail could do the same thing in EVERY email from EVERY employee.  Delta has 1,000′s of employees sending emails every day all day.  Literally millions of potential impressions to potential consumers.  All of which could rotate in every email – offers for hotels, concerts, attractions, car rentals, restaurants, museums, etc….The airlines are leaving a ton of money on the table.

Maybe we should call Sojern?

Dave Kustin – EVP Marketing, WrapMail

Is a picture SPAM?

NO – a picture is NOT SPAM by itself. If somebody sends you a picture why would that be SPAM? SPAM is emails from people you do not know and typically either come from an impersonator or a “do-not-reply” email address.

Impersonation we can solve with sender verification such as SPF.

“Do-not-reply” is an oxymoron – why do you send me correspondence i cannot reply to – monologues are for soap boxes.

If an email from a friend goes to SPAM because it had a picture embedded the there’s something wrong with the filter.

When can we get to the day when WE decide what’s SPAM and what’s not – why do we have all these robotic filters making up our minds for us based upon such faulty logic?