Supply, Demand, the Drug War, Email, and GoodMail

I think we've been fighting the drug war since I was born in 1964. That's 44 years and counting if I am right about that first sentence. And of course, it hasn't been all that successful a war, which seems to be because we focus so much effort trying to tamp down supply but very little on reducing demand.

I also think there are parallels to the fight to stop unwanted email, be it SPAM or phishing or whatnot. Naturally, most of our energy has been focused on stopping the supply with filters, crackdowns on SPAMkings, and the like.

But is there a way to address demand? GoodMail thinks so, and is working to build a business on the idea. GoodMail's flagship product is called Certified Email, and the idea is to help commercial emails stand out better in in boxes so consumers can pay attention to the emails they want and make quick work of eliminating the ones they don't. Voila, demand (read-open and buy rates) of unwanted emails plummets.

The way it works is that a commercial emailer like a retailer gets certified by GoodMail and when its emails show up in users' in boxes they bear a little seal of approval that attests that they come from the company they appear to (that the email is not from a phisher), and that you actually asked for the email to be sent to you. The second part would appear to be a bit of a googly -- but rest assured they aren't tracking you around the web and recording your preferences. Rather, they ensure that the marketer that sent the email maintains very high email list standards -- stuff like double opt-in and easy opt out.

In fact there are a number of standards, the highlights of which are:

1. Permission based emailer only
2. Very low complaint rates as determined by email service providers
3. Commercial or non-profit with a dedicated private domain
4. Transparent and easy opt out policies, and quick turnaround on the unsubscribe.
5. Regular use of suppression lists.
6. At least a full year of business history.
7. US, Canada, or UK based.
8. At least one year of history using the same dedicated IP address.



So Certified Emails come with a little flag, and when you open them there's a message at the top also attesting to their legitimate place in your in-box. The flags appear in web based email clients. Not sure if this works in Outlook - though surely that's coming. In any case, more and more people are using web based email.

The other advantages of GoodMail are that the email systems don't need to protect you from graphics and the like. because the sender is certified, these components of emails can be rendered automatically. Since HTML emails THAT DISPLAY PROPERLY are always better from an ROI perspective than broken HTML or text emails, this can be a distinct advantage beyond the consumer assurance component.

Companies can also make a more concerted effort to migrate consumers from paper to digital, secure in the knowledge that their messages will be displayed properly. This is surely a huge source of potential savings.

Here's a schematic of the process from their site.



GoodMail gets paid for by the sender, and the costs are .25 cents per email for businesses and.05 cents for nonprofits. Presumably recouped in better buy rates, open rates, and migration of customers away form paper correspondence.

Now, not every email provider accepts the GoodMail seal -- but they currently have about 65% CONSUMER coverage with ISPs like ATT, Comcast, Cox, Roadrunner, and web mail providers Yahoo and AOL.

On the other end, most of the major email providers are able to send Certified Email if you so desire to do as a marketer.

So there it is. As always, you will need to make a decision as to whether GoodMail will work for you. This post is not a recommendation to buy but rather a sharing of something to think about.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.