CUMULO9 CEO UPDATE – IOD Conference, Technology Overview and Digital Communications Trends

The digital communications environment

Another key element for success is a clear communications strategy and today, digital integration is essential for all communications strategies. There are literally hundreds of software products being marketed today to “solve” your digital communications. Everything from Hubspot to Salesforce and massive Oracle or SAP ERP/CRM solutions are being touted as the Cumulo9 digital environmentultimate solution to your customer acquisition and retention challenges.

While these solutions offer glossy user interfaces and scalable database architectures, they all use some elements of third party software to drive their solutions. The most common third-party software in all of these solutions is the Mail Transfer Agent (MTA). This piece of software executes the necessary communications to allow email to be passed from one computer to another using SMTP. These third-party MTAs are responsible for processing more than 90% of the world’s email and they are invariably tuned by their licensees for speed.

Deliverability trends and reporting

At Cumulo9, our focus is on digital precision and providing the best possible deliverability. With our focus on desktop and essential email, it is imperative that any communication trusted to us is delivered and if for some reason, it is not, then robust reporting tools and alternate delivery mechanisms are automatically executed. We’re proud of what we have achieved and here’s why.

With over 200 billion emails being sent every day, there are a number of highly regarded businesses focused on measuring deliverability. Two of the key players are Return Path and Radicati. Return Path’s latest Deliverability Report indicates that globally, 18% of emails went “missing” in Q2 2016. In the industry, these are called “soft bounces”. We know which emails failed to deliver (hard bounces) because the parties involved in the transaction invariably use SMTP correctly to provide a result that can be clearly interpreted.

Obviously, some countries are far better than others and in Australia for Q2 2016, 8% of email went “missing (was soft bounced). We know historically from when Return Path used to report on Australasia, that New Zealand statistics are similar.

So, 8% of Australasian email goes missing!

If you are emailing contracts, invoices, payslips, invoices or statements – what the market terms “Essential Email” – are you happy if one in twelve go “missing”?

Deliverability at Cumulo9

Cumulo9’s deliverability is audited by New Zealand Post. We constantly deliver more than 99.5% of the email entrusted to us and for those 0.5% that are not delivered, we have implemented automated, fail proof procedures that provide for their printing and delivery via traditional post.

This means that for every 10,000 essential emails that you send, Cumulo9 will deliver 750 more than the vast majority of alternative providers.

Using Deliverability to improve cashflow

Assuming a monthly cycle, that’s over 9,000 more per year. If we conservatively estimate the combined cost of printing, folding, stuffing and lodging plus a stamp is $0.70, then you will spend $6,300 on “missing” email. That equates to $0.0525 for every single email you send.

So, when someone tells you that you can get email for less than a penny an email – think again. Even if the cost is $0.0001 per email the minimum real cost is $0.05251 per email.

So there are a few thoughts. We’re always happy to have a discussion and welcome any questions or inquiries. If you would like information on any of our digital communications tools, please contact us: Phone +64 9 377 8885 or email support@cumulo9.com.