PowerInbox has merged with ActivePath to bring you an even better interactive email experience

Email hasn’t changed much over the last couple of decades, except for the fact that more people are using email than ever before, every single day. Now, thanks to breakthrough technology, email is finally evolving into its next incarnation: Interactive Email. And we at PowerInbox are excited to develop this technology to bring users the best, most efficient, interesting and engaging email experience possible, all without ever leaving their inbox.

Until now, email as we know it contained nothing but text and images, but with our free add-on, PowerInbox, email is transformed into a rich, interactive experience. Not only does PowerInbox finally make possible the display of a wide variety if rich media (including video) right inside the email, but it also endows senders of interactive marketing emails with instant brand recognition and authenticity thanks to our Inbox Icons feature, which displays the sender’s icon beside their email in the inbox.

As it turns out, however, we are not alone in our mission to bring interactive email to the world. ActivePath, a cool company that has also been developing a huge range of email apps designed to let you perform actions inside the email itself – also believes that the next generation of email will be collaborative, real-time, and interactive.

It seemed logical, therefore, for PowerInbox and ActivePath to combine their passion, technological expertise and funding. So today we are announcing our merger in order to forge forward as the leading force behind the introduction of Interactive Email to inboxes everywhere.

“Both teams shared a common vision for increasing engagement through interactive email so putting them together was a natural conclusion. There was a great chemistry and mutual desire to shake up the status quo of today’s static, low converting email,” according to Jeff Kupietzky, CEO of the new combined company, to be known as PowerInbox.

Although the merger is still fresh, the two teams at PowerInbox and ActivePath are already hard at work to develop an even better add-on that will include not only the best features of each of the individual add-ons, but even more cool functionality for our users to enjoy.

For now, existing PowerInbox and ActiveMail users can continue to enjoy their existing add-ons, however the ActiveMail add-on will eventually be phased out and seamlessly replaced by an enhanced version of the PowerInbox add-on, expected for release early next year. Existing users will not have to perform any new download to get the updated version.

“Our customers and end users are our highest priority and we are committed to ensuring the smoothest integration, with minimal disruption for our stakeholders” said Matt Thazhmon, co-founder of PowerInbox.

So whether you’re already using PowerInbox or ActiveMail, or not, if you’re interested in the future of email and in joining the growing community of interactive email pioneers around the world, then feel free to subscribe to our email program so we can stay in touch and let you know when our ground-breaking new add-on will be available for download.

The Next Phase of Phoning: How to Transform your Emails to Realtime Audio Conversations

Imagine opening an email and all those high hopes of immediately discussing its content with the sender are made feasibly by direct dial? 

Look no further!

The sender's mobile/office line/land line is reachable from your inbox.

With SociableNow running in your emails via PowerInbox, a phone or external audio-enabling application is no longer required to quickly connect.

SociableNow is currently in its alpha (pre-beta version) stage and stably integrated with PowerInbox! Check out the press release here. The company is working on trial integrations with social media sites and inbound marketing companies. Now, all you need to connect in a realtime audio conversation with your customers via SociableNow is PowerInbox and the SociableNow url - pasted right inside any email. It provides a direct link to the phone line of your choice!

This innovative approach to enhancing the email experience is exactly what we like to see at PowerInbox, and we feel lucky to have the opportunity to work with SociableNow to make your lives more efficient.

SociableNow is experimenting and growing to be as reliable as possible with the goal of redefining communication in both everyday life and the customer service realm. So try SociableNow inside your emails today whether it is for a business occasion or to call a friend. And as always, we are looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments below!

As you learned from our previous guest post for utest: from a product growth perspective, receiving feedback and is essential to developing the SociableNow experience. So try answering the following questions:

What do you think about the SociableNow idea? What are you expecting to experience? What do you like? What do you want to see in the next version? Is there anything you would eliminate?

Azigo and PowerInbox gets your email ready to Go!

We're excited to announce another email integration today - Azigo (www.azigo.com), a pinterest style email client that allows you to view any commercial email (think GroupOn, Gilt Group etc) in a visual, interactive stream, is now directly integrated with PowerInbox.

“PowerInbox technology brings a new level of interaction to individual

emails. Each becomes an app you can interact with directly. They’re

simply more compelling,” said Paul Trevithick, Founder and CEO of Azigo.

So how does it work? Well, with Azigo, each user gets an Azigo email address to use for subscribing to mailing lists and creating accounts online. Now, the next time the user gets a commercial email, it will show up at azigo.com and no longer overload your inbox. In addition, with the PowerInbox integration, those emails will now be completely interactive (live counters, one click shopping, Facebook/Twitter sharing etc.), providing the powerful PowerInbox experience to any and all Azigo users. Technology for the win!

With Azigo, PowerInbox is now directly integrated with five email clients: http://powerinbox.com/clients

Let us know what you think. We're looking forward to making your email experience as amazing as it can possibly be!

How to Increase your Email Marketing CTR to 100%

Drive It!

As a marketer, believing in your campaign and the message being transmitted to your audience is crucial to its impact and virality. That means one thing: it's convincing time.

Nearly 2/3 of email addresses receive some form of periodic newsletter. Close to 100% of those newsletters do contain interesting content that appeals to the majority of readers. The burden facing these campaigns, however, is that the only way to access such material is via links to external tabs and pages that the reader must launch in order to appreciate. At this point, more than half of your audience is lost. And this is where email campaigns lose traction. 

Reportedly, open rates span 8%-45% with the average number reflected in the high teens. Personally, I'd like to see that average increase tenfold. And I know just the trick - keep reading!

Where would I start? The answer to that is simple! It's with vision.

People are most stimulated when things are presented to them in an interesting way. It triggers curiosity, wonder, and captures their attention.

That being said, I loved how MediaPost phrased their confirmation here:

"Email marketers looking to improve their click-through rate should use video. If content is king when it comes to email marketing, video content is the crown jewel."

Try to envision dynamic, stimulating, productive, and interactive content that is uniquely arranged, that comes to life on your screen immediately upon exploring an email. Or imagine your webpage performing like it does inside a browser tab - now inside that opened email. Everything that is presented to the reader and everything that could stem from that email (like external webpages, videos, live comments) is tangible from within the frame of that opened email, and accessible right there. The endless number of opportunities for parties on either end of that email are greatly shaping the future of email marketing.

Seizing the potential

The inherent benefits of utilizing a revolutionary and reliable campaign vehicle, namely PowerEmbeds, in the fundamental structure of distribution emails yield increased CTR - to 100% - and immediate gratification for the receiver. PowerEmbeds prove to be revolutionizing how videos and media content are shared via email.

Adopting this unique and advantageous tool allows sharing of live, actionable, and dynamic content inside template emails themselves. As we speak, email distributors are harnessing PowerEmbeds and transforming their vision and impact by changing the face of traditional campaigns and newsletters that usually only offer web-based attachments and simple URLs. Now, they are distributing real-time emails and updates to target audiences that contain vibrant content embedded right inside. For instance, emails are sent with videos playing directly inside the emails and with live and customized social content, share buttons, and Facebook comments.

Reducing the static!

Finally, let's take a look at some example instances to visualize the full potential of PowerEmbeds. To begin, they can be incorporated into email templates such as those from Constant Contact and MailChimp, giving an innovative, upper edge to your end user's experience by enhancing the presentation and atmosphere in which your content lies. Design your distribution emails via HTML-based email marketing campaign services and when it comes time to add a video, include Facebook comments, and provide social media buttons, simply paste the URL containing the desired content into our embeds generator located @ powerinbox.com/embeds and copy the new, and powered, HTML code into the source code of your newsletter.

Recent analytics demonstrate substantial boosts in subscriber numbers in response to newsletters that deliver exciting, well designed and implemented content because targeted audiences thrive off of a brilliant UX. When given the fortune of information and media engagement and interaction from within the scope of the email, readers are increasingly likely to explore and refer that particular newsletter to others, feeding into the virality of these types of campaigns. PowerEmbeds make it easy to include such desired content, realistic to reach a significant number of people with your ideas and words, and spark really high engagement rates (25%+) via integration with social apps, such as Facebook and Twitter.

See how the difference is made

Here is an example of PowerEmbeds in action:

As always, we love to learn from your insights and hear your thoughts - keep the comments coming!

Cheers,

The PowerInbox Team

Crossing the Threshold: to more Apps, new Clients, and Inbox Icons

Thanks to our users, we crossed the "1M interactive emails viewed" line! Now that we're proud supporters of Pinterest, Hulu, Spotify and twenty other sites inside your emails, we want to announce direct integration with the Philterit email client.

CAMBRIDGE, MA, July 24th, 2012
Being the leader in providing email technology that enables live content to operate directly within the body of your email (for instance, one click shopping within email, viewing Facebook pictures and comments in email, and tweeting directly from email), we'd like to announced that we've crossed a million interactive emails viewed since our public launch last October. And a handful of other milestones including:

• Integration with more than 50 apps ranging from Facebook to Twitter to Pinterest to Hulu to Spotify - users can view all this interactive content (play a Hulu video, read a Wikipedia article, tweet etc) all directly within their inbox. 
• Daily engagement of more than 80%.
• Fun fact: The most popular app used in email is Twitter - 30% of our users tweet using the Twitter app in email.
• Over the last 8 months, we've built a stable platform for email apps, and we're now focused on raising a Series A for growth. 

Additionally, we are directly integrated with Philterit (www.philterit.com), a visual inbox that saves you time and makes emailing convenient by separating your content into personal messages and brand messages. Philterit is focused on providing a great user experience for tablet and mobile devices and starting today, Philterit users will have immediate access to all PowerInbox features, with no download required. How cool is that?

"PowerInbox’s interactive email connect API is the perfect extension of our visual, icon-based approach to email. Now, not only can our users easily prioritize and access the brands they love, they can take action directly within the email. This is a huge time saver for our users.” said Avi Levine, CEO of Philterit. This is the fourth email client directly integrated with PowerInbox - Fuser (http://www.fuser.com/), Unified Inbox (https://unifiedinbox.com/) and SMAK (http://mysmak.com/) have already paired with us - and additional integrations are planned shortly.

Thought that was all? Not quite! We've also released a new feature that allows users to view inbox icons directly in their email. With inbox icons, senders can highlight specific content in an email. For instance, retailers can send emails with icons that highlight a Gucci bag sale and users can then quickly scan their inbox and determine which emails they want to spend time opening. This saves PowerInbox users precious time as they can quickly look at the icon to decipher the content in their email and decide how to proceed. This also leads to increased open rates (hovers around 26%) for the email senders.

“We’ve seen great user engagement, with 80% of our users coming back daily and more than 200 requests for popular apps. With that in mind we’re pleased to announce support for more than twenty popular sites ranging from Amazon, ESPN, Hulu, Wikipedia to Pinterest, Grooveshark, Spotify to even the White House. This has more than doubled the interactive content now available using PowerInbox.”, said Dileep Thazhmon, co-founder here at PowerInbox. Our users are now viewing content from an array of sites directly inside their email; for instance, watching a clip for the latest episode of The Office from Hulu or listening to the latest Kanye West album on Grooveshark or scrolling through your favorite Pinterest pins of cute puppies. 

According to Thazhmon, “Email is still the most used medium to send links around. Every day, more than 247 million emails are sent across the word. With PowerInbox, we wanted to ensure that going forward; you can directly view and interact with any link you receive in your email - instantly, conveniently, all in your inbox.” Not enough details for your curious mind? Come on over to our website and make sure you're getting the FULL email experience http://powerinbox.com!

Philterit with PowerInbox: A Winning Partnership

Perfecting Priorities
With email facilitating both short and long term communication, driving 10,000 mile relationships, and running corporations, entrepreneurs everywhere are investing their time and resources into developing the best email clients that solve today's obtrusive and hindering email features. We’re excited to be working with a client that seems to have got it right.

A Little Eye Candy
Meet Philterit - the up and coming email client that integrates your messages with a warm, visually stunning environment. Not only is PhilterIt easy on the eyes, it is based on a brilliant, reliable algorithm that sorts and brands your emails in a manner that undeniably redefines and shapes the nature of emailing.

Sounds incredible, right? That's not the end of it. Just when you think they've thought of every combination and heuristic to solve impending email complications, a revolutionary collaboration takes us to the next tier of innovation. Another power pair: the PowerInbox and PhilterIt duo. Hitting home with users globally, appealing to a plethora of different email audiences, and inspiring a new inbox aura, the addition of email apps to the PhilterIt environment undoubtedly transforms your traditional and static emails into vibrant, intriguing messages.

So prioritize your experience. Bring flare to your emails. This is not a change you'll regret. In fact, it's one you'll recommend!

Last but Not Least
And of course, we would like to extend a special Thank You to PhilterIt for their integration with PowerInbox. Working with their team was incredibly easy and fun and we’re looking forward to see where this integration takes us.

So check out the new Philterit-PowerInbox integration and let us know what you think. We love to get your feedback!

Why you should Love Interactive Technologies

Remember going to the airport and seeing the ever-winding snake-like check-in line? They move slower than molasses and create flight attendance ramifications. The emergence of happy travelers came after the installation of kiosks that scan your passport or identification piece and instantly display your itinerary on the screen. Oh, and print your boarding pass a nanosecond after that.

Impressive.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, for a long while I consistently scrutinized the emergence of kiosks and self check-out devices. I don't know if it was because this is indicative of the fact that we are just one step closer to making robot control a reality or that it is increasingly suppressing human interaction. My hunch? It was both.

It all started when I was completing a transaction at a remote bank branch that happened to be located inside a Stop & Shop, right next to the overly intelligent machines. As the teller deposited my heap of baby-sitting bills, the robots began their descent. "Move. Your. Bananas." "Mooove. Your bananas." Of course, there was no person or banana in sight. As the frustrated robotic voice demanded that the bananas be moved down to the plastic bags, I couldn't help but wonder how it got so confused and how these self-serve methods actually help your average grocery shopper.

Overcoming the impression this made was undoubtedly a challenge, but in time I grew to realize that our future lies in the hands of technology. We can build these incredible contraptions and products to physically stimulate our world. Try and convince me that a store's uniforms are as dynamic as the strategically designed display on the screen where you are controlling the check-out yourself.

As long as the algorithms, databases, and other relevant resources are in tact, a human can be outsmarted. Employers view this as an investment and long-term profit - the brain simply doesn't function in the same way or at the same speed. From inventory counts to weight measurements, the kiosk knows the match between an item and a SKU number as if it was its own child. There's little room for mistakes (that's if you overlook the banana issue). Since kiosks, companies have measured a decrease of in-store dilemmas and increase in customer involvement and loyalty.

Why are customers really satisfied?

The most straightforward response: because it's fun. You get to do everything! But on a larger scale, it's because the experience is convenient, fast, and involved. It's energizing to the consumer, like a real life toy - goodbye childhood pretend cash register, so-long paper bills.

That's why innovation is such an asset to our culture. Taking our routine and spiritless daily encounters and transforming them into something legendary - that's the secret, that's the ticket to prevailing in our modern world.

People are drawn and committed to PowerInbox for the same reasons kiosks are declared a success. It is a quick, efficient, and effective approach that resolves common email concerns such as link-induced overhead and uncontrollable diversions.

The kiosk experiment has proven the positive effects and foreseen benefits of real-time user engagement. Events like these serve as confirmation that what we are building at PowerInbox is in the best interest of email users. Taking a standard form of communication, refurbishing it, and delivering the next version in hopes of wowing the crowds.