E-Mail Service Uses Site Surveys to Target Customers
1st Net Technologies Inc. yesterday announced the availability of EnvoyMail.com, a Web-based e-mail marketing service designed for retaining customers and targeting prospects.The way the service is used hinges on the answers provided by viewers when they respond to a survey while signing up to become subscribers or members of a company's site. EnvoyMail sorts the answers according to the marketer's promotional needs.
Surveys can be made available to Internet viewers through such applications as pop-up windows.
1st Net, San Diego, will help companies design the surveys into their sites.
Marketers can also target e-mail campaigns based on responses elicited from preceding campaigns. Clothing retailers can change their offerings if their audience begins to show signs of shifting from one set of seasonal colors to another.
The service gives users their own secure Web page where they can get real-time results from their campaigns. Users can view the number of recipients who clicked through html links, or the total that signed up for a promotion or newsletter.
EnvoyMail is also designed to ensure that e-mails are not sent to the same customer/prospect more than once.
The service allows people without information technology backgrounds to change graphics and text. The html coding can be clipped and pasted within the e-mail program easily, said Shannon Lillenas, marketing manager for 1st Net Technologies.
Lillenas said EnvoyMail is targeted at large firms and organizations that have yet to use e-mail for targeted efforts, and to small businesses in general. She said the service was flexible, but has been designed as a customer retention tool more than a prospecting channel.
Companies using the service include the American Lung Association and automotive industry consulting services firm Ziegler Supersystems Inc.
The service is being offered as a free 30-day trial at www.envoymail.com. The free offer is limited to lists of 500 names, but allows for unlimited sends. EnvoyMail is priced according to e-mail sent and the size of the user's database. Lillenas said that a list of 100,000 would cost $500.
