Email marketing is no new concept – but if you’re a rookie looking to add email to your marketing mix getting started can seem daunting. There are several steps on the road to email marketing greatness, the first of which generally starts with choosing a platform.
The quest for the right email marketing platform for you should start with a list of what you plan to accomplish through your emails and what features and functions you really require to get the job done.
First let me throw out this general rule of thumb – if you are sending an email and have more than 4 people in the CC or BCC line think hard about whether or not it is a marketing email. It most likely is (or it is a tacky forward which you should immediately delete anyway) and should be sent through your email marketing tool. Not through Outlook.
List management and segmentation – The foundation of a successful email marketing strategy is a high quality list of prospects/leads or at least people with an interest in your products or topics. You absolutely must have the ability to easily manage these contacts into lists and segments if you plan to send targeted, highly refined messages to them. {and you do plan on doing that, right? You do. Trust me.}
Look for tools that make it easy to add your own custom fields of different data types; text fields, check boxes, multi and single select pick lists, numbers, dates, etc. Then check that you can easily create segments based on these fields.- Design tools – If you are sending newsletters and offers that require formatting, do you have a designer and html pro on staff to handle the heavy lifting or will you require some easy to use design tools and a library of ready to use templates? The look of your emails really do matter, and while I generally prefer a simple, no frills approach to email communications your newsletters and other promotional emails do need to be very well designed and send the right impression.
Campaign Monitor offers some fantastic templates and one of the most user friendly design engines I’ve seen – start with one of their templates or use and reuse a template from your professional designer. - Scheduling – Nearly every email marketing tool will allow you to easily schedule future emails. Some take it a step further though. For example MailChimp’s Time Warp lets you set the time you want emails to hit inboxes across the world and they send appropriately for each time zone. This is a key feature for marketers with a world-wide list or looking for serious delivery time control.
- Automation – You may not need automation, at least not right at the beginning of your email marketing quest, but the option to automate messages down the road may be more important than you realize.
As your lists grow and you learn to use email to communicate regularly with your customers and prospects, the ability to automate messages will become more and more important. If a tool you are considering doesn’t offer any automation, I would consider if it is really a platform that will grow with you as your needs evolve. - Integration with current CRM and other platforms – Generally, whether or not you require integrations depends on the size of your sales force, dependency on automation, and need to share data. Do you live and breath by Salesforce.com? Do you have a near meltdown when that one sales guy who always forget to update his records forgets to update a record? If so, integration is probably very important to you. Do you have a small, tightly woven sales and marketing team? Is communication and hand-off a simple thing to do because you wear both hats or sit right next to the guy in the other hat? Then you may not need to integrate directly with your CRM, accounting package, or other platform. Most email marketing tools on the market will communicate with any other application that has an open API. {Not sure what that means? Basically just means that the websites or web-based tools can talk to one another} Just keep in mind, your CRM or other receiving application will need to have an open API as well.
- Support and training – Depending on your technical skill and willingness to read through blogs, user guides, and wikis to self-teach, you may not even need any real training. Support is always required though. Never settle for an email provider that won’t jump to help when their system does something crazy.
- Compliance – CAN-SPAM compliance should go without saying. If an email marketing solution you are considering does not automatically support CAN-SPAM compliance, run – do not walk – away. {CAN-SPAM is an act signed into law by George Dub-Ya in 2003 that addresses unsubscribe, content, and sending behavior compliance}
Depending on the field you work in, you may also require specific features for marketing compliance and oversight. - Reporting – Undeniably the most important piece of the puzzle for email marketing whiz kids is reporting. Reporting is how you know what’s working and what’s not. Reporting is how you know exactly who is showing interest in your emails and offers. Reporting is so important – and yet some platforms still get it wrong. A few general things to look for
- Reports on custom fields – you want to get the goods out of your reports, including the custom field data you’ve already built into the system. Some tools make it very difficult if not out right impossible to report on custom fields.
- Exports to CSV – pretty much a no-brainer and I don’t think I have seen a platform in a long time that doesn’t, but be sure you research just what format it spits your reports out in.
- Reports detailed recipient-specific data.
To Contract or Not to Contract
Email marketing tool payment options tend to come in a few flavors, primarily:
- Pay as you go – a set dollar amount per campaign + a fee per contact emailed in the campaign
- Monthly fee – generally based on list size but some platforms will also limit the number of emails sent under this type of plan. Add more subscribers? Change email frequency? Your rate automatically adjusts with you. And you’re only on the hook for one month of service at a time.
- Annual contract – usually based on list size and number of emails sent. Reach your limit and you’ll likely pay a premium for each additional contact/email sent per month or for the contact term.
My personal preference for payment options tends to fall in the first two categories. Companies just starting out in email marketing most likely won’t know how to predict their list size or monthly send volume and will do best to pay as they go for a month or two. Those with a well developed plan will likely save a few bucks by packaging a monthly fee. I like either of these options because they are very safe – no annual commitment to one provider.
I don’t want to directly knock the annual contract route. I’ve been down that path, and it has worked for me in the past…back in 2006 when email marketing of this kind was still a fairly new concept and strong tools and providers were not so prevalent. Today though, with so many options, rapidly evolving technology, and an ocean of free educational content, I see very little reason to get tied into an annual contract. If the service provider that is a perfect fit from your list of needs above only offers an annual contract, by all means don’t let me stop you. But protect yourself – insist on a minimum of 30 days to try the product (fully functional – no ‘freemium’ versions) and be sure you understand and are comfortable with the terms and exit clauses in your contract.
What other criteria are you considering when shopping for a new email marketing platform and service provider?
