Find a Solution that Fits
After you have set your strategy and goals you will have to work with your IT department to see if it is something that you can build, manage, and grow in-house or if you should use an Email Service Provider (ESP) hosted solution. Because email is already integrated into businesses, many companies explore the possibilities of adding features and functionality to the system they already have in place. While this might work for small companies with small lists, mid-size or large enterprises will find outsourcing email marketing to an ESP to be a better, more cost-effective alternative. The list size alone could cause major problems for a company’s server so a home grown solution could end up costing the company down time and lost business on top of the costs to develop and integrate the system and tracking metrics.
There are many different email marketing solutions on the market. And, on the surface, you might think that they’re all pretty much the same as they allow you to import a list of subscribers, design and send an email campaign, and track results. However, each solution offers different feature sets and if you choose one that offers too many features or too few, you won’t remain on budget.
For example, many email marketing solutions offer pre-designed templates for you to use for your email campaigns. While this might work for some companies, others might want to create their own templates with their own branding in place. To do this, they will either have to budget for a graphic designer to build the template and the IT department to load the graphics onto the server, or they can select an email marketing solution, like Listrak, that has a built-in media library so it is easy for the marketing department to design their own templates, store the graphics online, and reuse as necessary without any additional costs. While a solution that doesn’t offer this feature might be less expensive, you could end up spending even more money in the long run because you will have to pay designers and developers to perform the tasks.
Other options you will want to look for in your email marketing solution include the ability to personalize subject lines and email bodies, tools to increase deliverability such as list hygiene, spam score, and a dedicated IP address, integrated tracking and analytics, and easy to use list management. These features will ensure your emails are received, opened, and read by your audience and will allow you to easily track campaign results and ROI.
At the same time, you don’t want to implement a solution that has too many features that you don’t need and won’t use as you will end up spending more per email campaign. For example, if you choose a solution that offers the ability to embed e-coupons with unique tracking but you don’t have an Ecommerce site, than you’ll end up paying an excessive amount for unnecessary technology that doesn’t fit into your business or marketing strategy.
According to e-consultancy.com, the average company spends one-fifth of their online marketing budgets on email marketing, but 81 percent of all marketers admit that they aren’t using their email marketing tools as effectively as they could. To ensure you don’t fall into this group, set goals and your growth strategy in advance, research different email marketing solutions, and take the time to get proper training on the product prior to sending your first email campaign.
To maximize your budget, look for an email marketing solution that offers additional marketing tools that you will use in your business, such as RSS. That way, you can implement both technologies without incurring additional costs for integration, development, and training. The web-based nature of RSS goes hand-in-hand with email marketing. You can use this technology to drive more customers to your websites, update customers on corporate or industry news, and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. All of this translates into additional business and increased ROI. To learn more about RSS, read Listrak’s white paper Implementing RSS as a Marketing Tool: Delivering Content to Drive Leads.
After you have determined a short list of email marketing solutions that meet your current and ongoing direct marketing requirements, ask the vendors if they offer a free evaluation trial period. This will give you the opportunity to measure the products’ ease of use, feature sets, and effectiveness. Be sure to keep all of the sample data so you can base your decision on actual results of your campaigns rather than simply reviewing sample data from other organizations.
At this stage, you should also request detailed price quotes from the vendors outlining the costs for implementation, training, customization, and maintenance fees, and the exact amount of what it will cost to send each campaign. Many email marketing solutions have a monthly fee that includes sending emails to a certain number of addresses per month. Then they charge additional fees per email if you go over that amount. While this cost is typically small, less than one cent per email, it can really add up fast if you’re sending thousands of emails per month over the limit. To choose the vendor that is right for you, you must understand the pricing and payment schedules, and you must budget accordingly.
