Iconix Issued Tenth Patent

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Iconix’s tenth patent titled “Authenticating and Confidence Marking E-Mail Messages.”

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Iconix Issued Ninth Patent for Email

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Iconix’s ninth patent titled “Rapid Identification of Message Authentication.”

 

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Iconix Issued Seventh U.S. Patent For Email

ICONIX, Inc., the industry leader in visual email solutions, announced on September 15, 2015, that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Iconix’s seventh patent titled “User interface for email inbox to call attention differently to different classes of email.” The abstract for U.S. Patent 9,137,048, dated September 15, 2015, states: “Sender emails have their Truemarks (icons) displayed in the sender column of a list view” and “fraudulent emails have a fraud icon displayed with a warning in the sender column.”

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Email – The Cockroach of the Internet Which Refuses to Die

The New York Times reports on the value of email.

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New Blog Location

We recently revised our website.  Our blog is now integrated into our website.  You can find our blog at:

http://sp-guard.azurewebsites.net/index.php/blog/

We appreciate your loyal readership and hope that you will continue to read our blog at its new location.

Consumers More Engaged With Email

According to recent research published by Forrester Research, “Consumer Email Attitudes Improve.”, consumers are more engaged with email.  

Forrester compared research conducted since 2006 that showed these very important consumer shifts in email attitudes: 

• Consumers forward promotional email more often: In 2010, 12% of consumers say they sometimes forward promotional email to others, up from the 10% in 2008, and 9% in 2006.
• Fewer messages deleted without reading: In 2010, 59% of consumers said they delete most email messages without reading them, down from the 63% in 2008 and the 73% in 2006.
• Integrate email promotions and personal email: Only 10% of consumers say they have a separate email account they use just for receiving commercial email, down from the 15% in 2008. 

You can read more at: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2011/4596/forrester-user-attitudes-toward-email-improving#ixzz1GFOLJOER

Consumers can make their email experience even better by using eMail ID, and senders can make sure their messages get noticed.  When the eMail ID app is installed, the undifferentiated text of the inbox is transformed into a highly informative visual presentation that makes quick work of finding the emails of interest.

 

Know Who.  No Doubt.  Email ID.

Iconix Whitepaper – Getting More From Email Authentication

Today Iconix released a whitepaper entitled, “Getting More From Email Authentication.”

As the whitepaper describes, Email authentication is a technical means of identifying the sender of email.  When a sender uses email authentication, a public record is created that that can be used by the recipient to verify the identity of the sender.  However, email authentication is a self-issued credential.  The owner of phishing.com can authenticate its email.  Email authentication alone does not solve the problem of bad guys pretending to be good guys.  Email authentication is used by email filtering systems as an important spam indicator.  Unauthenticated email is suspect and is less likely to be delivered.  Additionally, by combining the identity of the sending server (which is determined using email authentication) with email reputation data from vendors such as Return Path, spam filters can be fine-tuned to do a better job of delivering messages that users want.  

Email authentication can help senders get their email into the inbox, but the delivered message looks like all the other messages – lost in a sea of text that makes it hard to find.  Recipients want to find emails of interest that are lost sea of text.  And when they find it, they want to know it’s real!  That is where Iconix comes in.

 

Just as you distinguish your goods and services with your trademark, you can now distinguish email you send using the Truemark® service from Iconix.  Using patented and patent pending extensions of email authentication, Iconix marks your email so that your recipients can instantly recognize your messages in the inbox.

To learn more, visit us at http://iconix.com/business/.

01-01-11 “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” ~ Email.

In a widely distributed article entitled, “R.I.P. E-Mail, 1961 – 2010”, Edward Moltzen tells us, “E-MAIL IS DEAD.”   

Maybe Mr. Moltzen should read his email.  During December of 2010, at the time of its supposed death, two studies were released that demonstrated the continuing importance of email.

On December 16, 2010, the Pew Internet and American Life Project released a study of internet usage.  They found that email was the most ubiquitous online activity across all ages. 

On December 29, 2010, ForeSee Results released a study of on-line holiday shopping.  ForeSee found that promotional email had a larger impact on on-line sales than search and social combined. 

Communication Method	% of Sales Influenced
Social Media	5%
Search Engines	8%
Promotional Email	19%

With its pervasive presence and strong resonance with consumers, email remains a robust means of communication for everyone.  Reports of the death of email can only call to mind the response of Mark Twain to reports of his demise.  “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

Holiday Shopping Hits All Time High – Impact of Email

This holiday season online spending surged 15%, hitting an all time high estimated at $36.4 billion, according to MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse.  

What influenced online sales?  ForeSee Results’ Top 40 Online Retailers studied the influence of social media, search engines and promotional email.   These are the results: 

Communication Method	% of Sales Influenced
Social Media	5%
Search Engines	8%
Promotional Email	19%

What?  Despite all the buzz, hype and spending, social media influenced only 5% of sales!  Promotional emails influenced almost 4 times more sales than social media. 

The ForeSee Results report also emphasized the importance of brand to consumers.  ForeSee Results found that highly satisfied customers are 60% more committed to the brand. 

 

The intersection of brand and email promotion is eMail ID.

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.