Exclusive Interview With Mr. Joshua Baer, SKYLIST CEO
In this exclusive interview we asked Mr. Joshua Baer, SKYLIST CEO to discuss current trends in email marketing business with the focus on CAN-SPAM and steps that have to be taken in order to minimize SPAM problems.
Joshua Baer’s role in shaping email marketing solutions and best practices is unparalleled. Over the last decade, SKYLIST has displayed outstanding growth and remains private and profitable.
While growing SKYLIST, Josh has also continued to actively contribute to the email community at large. His email community contributions include influential roles in industry standards development forums, authorship, and frequent conference and panel presentations. He is a steering committee member of the Email Service Provider Coalition.
In 1998, Mr. Baer co-authored Internet RFC 2369, establishing a standard way for users to subscribe and unsubscribe from email lists. UnsubCentral is his latest brainchild and spin out company dedicated to aiding CAN-SPAM compliance obligations.
Dejan Bizinger: What do you think about the future of email marketing and email publishing?
Joshua Baer: We just went through a scary dip for past year and half since the enactment of CAN-SPAM and the explosion of affiliate marketing, but the viability of email marketing is starting to climb again as people become more comfortable with the new regulations. CAN-SPAM is helping, as is authentication. People are sending more targeted and personalized mail, rather than high-volume mass mailings, realizing that more is not better when it comes to email.
DB: What do you think about the importance of blogs and RSS in e-publishing?
JB: I think they are still peripheral. There has been hype surrounding it, which has been encouraged by the spam problem, but in essence, it is still fundamentally not push technology, which is what makes email “the killer app.” Email is powerful because its push technology, not pull. If you sign up for something you don’t have to remember to go back and get it.
DB: Do you think that a lot of email newsletters and SPAM that cause email overload will have for the result that less people will include email marketing as an item in their online marketing budget and tactics? What does this mean for list hosting companies such as SKYLIST?
JB: People are increasing budgets now, people feel more confident in the viability of email, as spam solutions continue to emerge and grow stronger.
DB: What is the greatest benefit of email marketing?
JB: The efficiency of cost and feedback. Cost, time and functionality. It costs less and takes less time to produce, deliver and get feedback than ordinary channels and you can get much more clear and detailed feedback. It makes marketing more of a science, less of an art.
DB: SKYLIST is one of the first companies that offered CAN-SPAM compliant product StormPost. How effective is the CAN-SPAM law?
JB: It is important to understand how effective any law can be. Murder is illegal yet people are still murdered every day. The law isn’t the end-all-be-all solution to the problem, but it has helped heightened awareness and encouraged best practices. No law can solve this problem outright; it must be combined with best practices such as authentication and reputation. Solving the spam problem is not about figuring which mail to block, but which legitimate mail to accept.
DB: Do you think that Microsoft SenderID is the first big step in fighting against SPAM? What have to be done more in order to minimize SPAM?
JB: Authentication is the first step, it helps identify legitimate sources, and has cut a wide swath in the amount of fraudulent senders. However, it won’t solve problem by itself. We must build on a foundation of authentication with accreditation and reputation, making it a transparent open process.
DB: Should regular business e-mail be encrypted?
JB: No, encryption of all business email is overkill and unnecessary. In the future, business email will be cryptographically signed, i.e. validated but not necessarily encrypted.
DB: Please describe your three products: StormPost Hosting, StormPost Software and UnsubCentral (target companies for each product) and how they help companies to do their email marketing more effectively?
JB: The StormPost™ Software License is a top choice for organizations who want an internal solution that will deliver both email campaigns and cost savings.
StormPost customer benefits include:
• Enterprise level email database marketing capabilities.
• Unparalleled scalability and deliverability
• Advanced personalization, targeting, tracking, and reporting
• Unique reporting shows true delivery
It comes in three levels, Small-Medium Business, Enterprise and Service Provider.
StormPost Hosted Edition ( ASP ) provides self-service access to secure and private email marketing accounts. All StormPost hosted accounts are managed by a dedicated account team that provides both technical and ISP relationship support.
Hosted customer benefits include:
• Dedicated account management
• 24 / 7 emergency support
• No hardware costs
• Free, immediate upgrades
• Sliding scale CPM pricing based on email message delivery requirements
Fore more information on the StormPost Licensed and Hosted forms, please visit www.skylist.com.
UnsubCentral, Inc. provides email suppression and consumer preference management solutions to leading advertisers, ad networks, and affiliate networks. The Austin, Texas-based corporation offers solutions that create a secure environment for managing opt-out lists across the enterprise, affiliates and various third parties. Integrated with major affiliate networks and email service providers and reviewed by TRUSTe, the solutions ensure clients comply with the CAN-SPAM Act and data privacy requirements. For more information, please visit www.unsubcentral.com.
DB: You are a steering committee member of the Email Service Provider Coalition. Please tell us the main roles and activities of ESPC.
JB: The Email Service Provider Coalition is a cooperative group of industry leaders working to create solutions to the continued proliferation of spam and the emerging problem of deliverability. Our membership provides volume mail delivery services to an estimated 250,000 clients – representing the full breadth of the U.S. marketplace. The ESPC is currently working on solutions to spam and deliverability concerns through a combination of legislative advocacy, technological development, and industry standards.
The ESPC is comprised of three sub-committees:
Legislative – This committee guides our lobbying efforts on federal and state spam legislation. We provide direct advocacy before the FTC and Congress. For state issues, we have partnered with the Internet Alliance for monitoring and coordination. The geographic breadth of our group has allowed us to respond to many state spam statues directly, using members on the ground. This group meets weekly, with ad hoc meetings called from time to time to respond to state developments.
Technology – This committee is evaluating and developing technological solutions that would allow more accurate responses to spam (and fewer false positives). A technical working group has been formed within this group to explore and propose such solutions. This group meets as needed, with in-person meetings scheduled occasionally
Communications – This committee provides broad public affairs strategy for the Coalition. We have been actively working to highlight the consumer harm associated with false positives and filtering. This committee also provides guidance and support for our press relations.
DB: Describe a day in the life of Joshua Baer?
JB: A day in the life of Joshua Baer begins at 6am and usually consists of talking to customers and prospects as well as industry leaders. Many days involve press or analyst interviews and very often I am traveling all over the world to speak at conferences and trade shows.
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