Black Friday – Too Good To Be True?

 

Black Friday has arrived and the special offers are overflowing in my inbox.  Many look too good to be true. 

 Here are some offers in my inbox:

Is there really a 50% off sale at eBay?  That has to be too good to be true.  Just like the 40% off at Rolex and 80% off at the WatchStore. 

 Now, let’s look at the same inbox with eMail ID activated:

 

The eBay sale is real!  I know this because the email is marked as real by eMail ID.  Without eMail ID I would not have opened that email — I would have concluded it was fake.  Several other real offers jump off the screen due to the clear logo indicators.  eMail ID acts a visual management system making it easy to spot the things that interest me. 

Have a great holiday season.  Don’t get scammed. Get the deals you want. Get eMail ID.

Help – I Want To Find My Specials

With Thanksgiving fast approaching, our thoughts turn to family, friends and holiday shopping.

I don’t know about you, but for me, shopping is both online and old-fashioned brick & mortar.  No matter the shopping venue – virtual or actual – one thing is common for both:  I want a good deal!

Yes, I am on the mailing lists of many retailers driven by a single common purpose – good deals.  While my lust to save money is not as strong as that of Erin Libranda, who was recently profiled in the Wall Street Journal, I do want my specials. 

I enjoy the convenience of getting specials in email.  I appreciate the specials that target the stuff I like.  And I really like the fact that with eMail ID, email from my preferred retailers stands out in my inbox.  Likewise, knowing who sent the email allows me to avoid those pesky emails to which my spouse subscribes. 

I can go right to the offers from my favorite sellers on eBay and quickly by-pass the stuff that doesn’t interest me right now.  I hadn’t thought about travel.  I see Expedia has deal for me.  Knowing who sent it at a glance – that’s eMail ID.

Iconix Streamlines Icons

Iconix, Inc., the industry leader in visual email solutions, announced today that it is streamlining its icons.  The target release date is early December, 2010.

Since December of 2005, Iconix has marked legitimate email from thousands of companies with this logo, which we call the Check-lock^SM:

  In the inbox the presentation looks like this:

 

Many of our users told us that when several Check-locks are present, the Check-locks are too dominant in the display.  We take user comments seriously and explored alternative marking schemes which could be more subtle yet still quickly convey integrity.  After testing several alternatives, we settled on a simple, smaller green check mark.

This is the same inbox with the new streamlined icon:

As you can see, the sender’s identity shines through and the integrity indicators are still noticeable.  This should make it even easier to find what you want while ensuring that the messages are legitimate.  We are confident that you will like our new icon.

When Is Spam Not Spam?

Spam filters do a pretty good job.  But we all know that sometimes good stuff ends up in the spam/bulk folder.  It is a good idea to check the spam folder to find good stuff that is there by mistake.  But how do you actually do that?  You are confronted with a screen full of stuff that you really don’t want to see.  The easiest thing to do is just not look at it.  But, what are you missing? 

eMail ID identifies stuff you want in the spam folder just like it identifies stuff in the inbox.  This is my spam folder.  I have 219 things to survey.  Do I really want to look at 219 spam emails?  How much time do I want to spend and will I even see anything I care about?  And if it looks interesting, can I trust an email that my email hosting service says is spam?  I don’t want to examine 219 messages – I need something that will highlight emails I want to find.

In this spam folder, two real emails stand out.  (You may also notice that this image uses checkmarks instead of our traditional Check-lock – I am using the seeME version of eMail ID, which marks emails from my friends.)  I like buying stuff from the Smithsonian and I am happy to have this email.  I like getting 70% off from JC Penney. 

Let’s focus on the JC Penney email.  Without eMail ID I would have surely passed on this supposed special offer – and I am sure you would, too.  This email is really suspicious: 

Strike 1.  It is in the spam folder. 
Strike 2.  It claims to be from a respected company. 
Strike 3.  It has a very strong call to action that seems too good to be true – 70% off!    

With eMail ID, I was able to overcome the three strikes and get a nice deal from a company that I like. 

When is spam not spam?  When the email is really something you want.  Now you can find emails from thousands of senders easily using eMail ID.