A standardized element of modern email marketing services provides statistical results of the campaign – what % of messages were opened, what % were forwarded. These large campaign services struggled with being able to scale their service to the point where they could enable or justify this functionality for the casual or individual emailer who might value knowing that the one addressee of the message had in fact just opened the email in question. No doubt, competition for the high volume emailer, which roughly costs the same to service as the individual emailer, prevented a lot of email processors from looking at the individual segment.
Now for the first time, XLTechnologies and the Zendio service bring big emailer analytics and notification capabilities to individual users. Individuals don’t have to use the service provider’s web-based templates and don’t have to co-brand every email with the email service provider’s logo.
Zendio incorporates a new monthly hosted service that binds a Microsoft Outlook plugin script to the hosted software. Users merely use the plugin controls to attach attributes to outbound email and process tracking elements that provide timing, location of opening and state of reading for each message sent with the aid of the plugin.
Links in the email are assigned unique codes which also report statistics about whether or not they have been clicked, when they’ve been clicked and so on – all on an individual email basis. In fact statistics about commonly emailed contacts such as when they typically read email, where the email was opened, and what the disposition of the email has been can be amassed and presented to the sender. Senders get service generated email receipts too.
The service is turned on or off from within Microsoft Outlook as the message is composed and before it is sent.
One of the most popular features among the early adopters of the service is the mobile texting notification of the message being read. This way, the sales executive can call the customer while the customer is looking at the proposal which had been emailed an hour before – even if they’re in the car on the way to the office.
Target user. Zendio will be popular among sales executives because it enables more timely salesperson-initiated-dialog with prospective customers without having to depend on the customer to act. It will surprise some customers, but I expect this will delight most to have a sales person so attentive to their needs and with such great sense of timing.
I expect future revs of the service to more tightly integrate the plugin with CRM services and extend to mobile email services so that the benefits of the service can be extended to more email scenarios.
Pricing begins at $9.95/month with merely a credit card to initiate the service after a free 30-day trial. Enterprise licensing available. Requirements are Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Outlook 2003,2007 and 32-bit 2010.
