Goodmail CertifiedEmail Blog

Waledac--A Victory For "Social Engineering" but a defeat for consumer trust

Security analysts are forecasting that there will be another outbreak of the Waledac worm over the Fourth of July weekend.  You can read about it here.

The last big episode was over Valentine's Day when pictures of fuzzy puppies and candy hearts lured people into opening their computers doors to malware. This time the bait will be email messages carrying fireworks and patriotic messages but the outcome will be the same. One bad click and the consumer's PC is another bot on the net.

Criminals of all kinds are adept at social engineering--manipulating basic human emotions to their own misguided ends.  A couple of years ago it was scams based on Hurricane Katrina. Last week it was scams based on Michael Jackson's death.  They are as adept as pushing people's buttons as they are at pushing keys on their keyboards.

In the end though, the biggest damage will be to consumer confidence in email. Consumers are already skeptical about email.  Widespread botnet outbreaks only fuel more skepticism. No brand--whether media, finance or commerce--will be immune from being collateral damage. In the first case as unwilling carriers into the consumers inbox and later when their messages are ignored.

CertifiedEmail counters this breakdown of trust. The blue ribbon envelope icon is the only way that a consumer can actually tell that an email is legitimate. It means that Goodmail has accredited the sender and verified that they are really the entity that is sending. It means that we have evaluated the senders email practices initially and continued to check them in real-time as each message is sent and received. It also means that Goodmail has ensured delivery from the moment that the message left the sender to the time that it lands in the inbox. No other firm or technology can offer this level of trust and security.

How big a hole will you dig for yourself during this recession?

No one gets up the morning and says "I want to move my business backwards today." We get up and think about new stuff. New products, new customers. But if you don't' save some time and effort for your current customers, you will be sliding backwards before you know it.

This hit me yesterday, when I saw this article in the online edition of AdAge. The CMO Council and Catalina Marketing looked at data from supermarket loyalty card accounts. More than a third of previously loyal customers had left Tylenol, Pine Sol, Crest and Hunt's.There are lots of smart people working on those brands. I am sure that they want to do the best that they can for their brand, their company--and their career. But they are losing one in three loyal customers.

I am willing to bet that the reason is that they aren't focusing enough of their marketing effort and budget on retaining their best customers. No question about it: loyal customers are your most profitable customers. If you look at the ROI of a customer relationship over time, you'll see that it is often negative in the first year, break even in the second year, somewhat profitable in the third year and VERY profitable after that.

Consumer products companies have gathered millions of email addresses from their customers over the past five or seven years, Now is the time to use that valuable resource effectively. Email has been Cinderella in the marketing department. Ignored and abused. The budgets have been small relative to other media--particularly offline--and the glory non-existent. That needs to change.

Email has always been a great marketing vehicle but now is the time when it should really shine as the belle of the marketing ball. Goodmail is working closely with marketers to use email in exciting new ways to not only retain customers but maximize their profitability.A recent study by JupiterResearch showed that marketers using CertifiedEmail got 38% higher ROI than ones that didn't. Plus, it's much cheaper to keep a great customer than to find a new one. Talk to us about how we can work together to make your email marketing more exciting and more profitable.