What e-mail will look like in the future

Found on Internet Retailer on Thursday, 15 April 2004
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Despite concerns about spam, retailers are still finding e-mail a profitable way to market to customers. But according to Doug Mack, CEO of online imaging technology provider Scene7, over the long term, e-mail in its current familiar format risks the same fate as banner ads. "Much like banner ads, after they first started, e-mail will atrophy in its performance because it starts to burn people out," he says. "So the next generation of e-mail will be dynamic."

Mack envisions e-mail in the future as a rich HTML message with images and graphics dynamically generated and customized by recipient, based on a shoppers’ online shopping and browsing behavior. Images, even video, could launch in an e-mail to grab the shopper’s attention. "People have the capability to delete an e-mail when it’s in preview, before they have actually read one word of it. But it’s almost impossible not to look at that image before you hit the delete button," he says.

Put the right image and right product in front of the right customers, overlay them graphically with, for example, a free shipping offer if the customer has been shown to respond to free shipping promotions, and you have what Mack calls "the double whammy. It’s just going to pull you in."

Spam is spam. And if those spammers think that videos and flash are the next big idea, I will modify my filters a little and give them a double whammy. People hate spam not because it doesn't look fancy, but only because spam sucks. Perhaps we also should start to whack those a little who actually respond to spam. After all, spamming only works because there are enough idiots who fall for it.