Podbox Expert Interview Series

Last month I did an interview with Podbox about email, deliverability and how I became an email expert (breaking things, lots of breaking things… and having to pick up the pieces and fix them…)
Check out the interview over on their website.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about history and longevity. Next year will mark 10 years of the Word to the Wise blog and 20 years of me entering the anti-spam / deliverability space. That’s a lot of time. When I first started fighting spam it was really about my mailbox and getting rid of the junk I was receiving. At the time, a lot of people thought it was silly to spend so much effort fighting spam.
But as time as gone on, email spam and fraud became a big deal. Criminals realized they could use spam to further their gains at the expense of people. Spam is a network problem. Spam is a danger.
Personally, I’ve moved away from fighting spam. I’m now working more on making and keeping email a useful tool. Yes, that does include commercial email. Yes, it does include bulk email. Helping people get the mail they want in their inbox is a part of keeping the email ecosystem healthy. It’s the part I can do and the part I am good at.
Seeing email become such an important part of commerce, communication and modern life has been a journey. I look forward to seeing where the next 20 years takes us.
 

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Prepping for EEC


Tomorrow I head off to New Orleans to the EEC conference. It’s my first one and I’m really looking forward to meeting some of the people I only know online.
I’ll be speaking on two panels on Friday:
All You Ever Wanted to Know about Deliverability (But Were Afraid to Ask) at 10:50. This is your chance to ask those questions of myself and other experts in the field. I always enjoy Q&A panels and actually hearing from folks what their big deliverability questions are. (and remember, if you have a question, you can always send one to me for Ask Laura)
and the closing Keynote panel
ISP Postmasters & Blacklist Operators: Defending Consumer Inboxes at 1:10. I’m on a panel with various ISP postmasters, blacklist operators and we’ll be talking about what it’s like dealing with the deluge of mail. For instance, there is a huge outbreak of bot-spam at the moment, and a lot of the filters are struggling to keep up. In fact, I’m a last minute replacement for one filter company as they are in all-hands-on-deck firefighting mode to keep their customers safe.
Hope to see you there!
 

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Laura's Speaking Events early 2016

My speaking schedule is coming together for Q1 and Q2 this year.
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Email Evolution Conference. March 30 – April 1. New Orleans, LA. I’ll be participating on the “All You Ever Wanted to Know about Deliverability (But Were Afraid to Ask)” panel Friday Morning. The other panelists are Chris Arrendale, Alyssa Nahatis and Matthew Vernhout. This panel should be quite a bit of fun, as we all know each other and have collaborated in the past. I’m looking forward to it. Come prepared with questions!
Salesforce Connections. May 10 – 12. Atlanta, GA. Another panel on deliverability, this time with Mickey Chandler from SFMC and Melinda Plemel from ReturnPath. We’ll each bet giving our 3 best tips to improve deliverability and then be taking questions from the audience. We have all been around a long time, in fact Mickey used to work for me at MAPS back in 2000. We’re all ready to answer those questions you’ve always had but never known who to ask.
Email Innovations Summit. May 17 – 19. Las Vegas, NV.  Not a panel! I’ll be speaking about the technical things happening around email that will affect sending, marketing and deliverability. If you ever wanted to know how to talk to the technical folks this is the session to come to. I’ll be explaining some of the terminology and teaching attendees what they need to care about and what they just need to know exists. Register with my code (SPKATK) and save 15%.

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The truth matters.

bullhornCall within the next 10 minutes…
Consumers with last names starting with O – Z can call tomorrow…
Only 5 seats left at this price!
 
All of these are common marketing techniques designed to prompt consumers to buy. It’s not a new idea, create a sense of urgency and people are more likely to buy.
I think some marketers are so used to making outrageous claims to support their marketing goals, that it doesn’t occur to them that the truth matters to some people.
There’s almost no better way to get me to send in a spam complaint than to send me an email with a claim about how I opted in.
Example:

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