WrapMail: Making Email More Viral

by Sam on July 29, 2008

I don’t often review companies anymore. However WrapMail is a company worth talking about, especially in light of my recent focus on effective methods for marketing early-stage companies.

I initially encountered WrapMail in the latest section of Techcrunch’s new section Elevator Pitches. After writing a post calling into question the marketing copy used by WrapMail, the founder Rolv exchanged a few comments with me on this blog and then offered to walk me through a product demonstration (Incidentally, this is also a great example of a CEO going the extra mile to win some businesses).

Concept: WrapMail allows emails to be jazzed up with eye-catching marketing in the form of banner ads. It’s like an email signature on steroids. When an employee sends an email the receiver gets the email ‘wrapped’ in advertisements. The ads can be tracked to show conversion rates and monitor campaign progress. Also the ads are dynamic so they can populate ads based on the context of the delivery. Semantic inklings.

For example, say you are a boat dealer and you knew your email recipient was only interested in buying boats over 10 feet in length. Using WrapMail you could limit the inventory being shown in the ad to be only 10�+ boats. Likewise you could have different boats displayed for each delivery based on the inventory then in-stock .

Conclusion: My impression is that WrapMail is interesting and has the potential to be a key catalyst for a viral marketing campaign. For startups seeking low-cost distribution it’s a good place to consider some marketing dollars.

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  • Viral? Where the fuck is the viral in this?

    Dear god. It is more noise injected in to a relationship (business<->consumer) that is already so noisy and messy that most of us can't bear it.
  • Thank you for the kind words!

    What I'd also like to point out is the fact that we do this without installing anything on anyone's desktop, i.e. nothing to learn and emails can be wrapped from any email client (including cell phones).

    This is NOT mass email but rather adding an interactive letterhead around the regular external email that employees send every day. Every employee becomes a marketer and helps expose products services AND drive traffic to the corporate website (and not only the home page).

    We charge $5 per user (email sender) per month - hard to find a more effective, targeted and viral marketing tool out there at that small expense. Never mind the fact that we have clients who turns WrapMail into a revenue generator by allowing selected 3rd party ads in the wraps.

    Thanks again, I will monitor this thread and answer any questions readers might have.
  • Jevon:

    ever forward an email?
  • workstreamer
    Hey Jevon,

    I think that there is significant value add for a receiver based on WrapMail's use of imaging and video -- marketing that would not be appropriate as an email signature. For example, someone from BlendTec (the Will It Blend? folks) might send out an email with some of their awesome videos wrapped on the outside. Now those videos arrive at a new audience who may forward them, or share them with friends and colleagues. WrapMail can be a really nice distribution channel to complement a viral campaign when used in that fashion.
  • Well I think that this is great and innovative idea.
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