A press release crossed the wires the other day about Informz joining the WebEx Connect Developer Network. WebEx has been actively touting the many companies signing up to be a part of its "mashup" networkdesigned to foster better collaborative and communications-oriented business processes.
I hadn't heard of Informz, but I was intrigued by the description of their services, so I called and talked to Meghan Curtin in their Channel Sales group. She explained that Informz has been around since 1997 and over the past seven years has been helping companies with email marketing and promotion. In 2005 they started working with WebEx to tie in the email design, delivery, and tracking services they offer with WebEx Event Center webinars.
Informz has a three-pronged approach to assisting companies with their email campaigns. A professional services group will work with the client on graphics, layout, and copy to attract attendees to an event. Their delivery network will push the emails out to the client's recipient list and track delivery. Then the software tracks delivery success, mail opens, and link-throughs to the promoted event. The delivery side of things is said to be more effective than many self-service models used by companies, as Informzis "white listed" on major ISPs such as AOL to allow messages to go through that might otherwise be blocked as spam.
This is in some ways a turbo-charging of the facilities already available in WebEx Event Center, since that software lets you build email templates and schedule invitations, reminders, and follow-up messages. But integrating with Informz gives you more control over the email content (I have had troubles with HTML layouts in the WebEx templates) and adds the benefits mentioned on the tracking and delivery side.
The big caveat on using Informz is that they do not work with external list vendors. They assume that the names on the recipient list are owned and vetted by the client. That effectively means that you can't use them to drum up new leads in big outbound marketing pushes. Meghan confirmed this, saying that they were used mainly for events related to customer training and communications or fee-based seminar offerings to selected audiences. Although Informz has worked out an integration with VeriSign to processpayments for events on behalf of their clients, they haven't used it in action yet.
I asked Meghan about their relationship with WebEx as a vendor partner and how the Cisco takeover had affected them. She told me that they haven't had any communications from Cisco or WebEx related to the deal, so she has to assume it's business as usual. But she did admit that some words of comfort would be welcome at this point! She also said that development on tying into the Connect Network was in the earliest stages, so she couldn't comment on how the new application platform would affect their services.
I had hoped for more utility with outbound marketing campaigns to the general public, as my clients tend to work in that space. But I can see how this integration could be useful for companies using Event Center primarily for client-based communications or those with large internal email lists.
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Technorati Tags: email invitations, Event Center, Informz, marketing, Meghan Curtin, web conference, web conferencing, web event, webcast, webcasting, WebEx, WebEx Connect, webinar
