Choosing an Email Management Provider

Email marketing can be a great way to engage with your customers and encourage both first-time and repeat sales.  However, the provider you choose to manage these valuable lists can play just as big a role in your success as the content you send out in each message.  For example, if you choose a provider with a low deliverability rate, you’re throwing away your money on messages that aren’t getting delivered.

If you’d like to get started with email marketing but aren’t sure how to move forward, check out the following guide on how to choose the email management provider that best suits your needs and your business.

Criteria #1 – Deliverability

Not all email management providers are created equal.  In fact, there’s a huge amount of variation in terms of the quality of different providers’ services, which means that choosing a ‘fly by night’ provider could result in your messages getting stuck in your readers’ spam boxes – or not delivered in the first place.

There are a number of factors that go into email deliverability, both on the part of the email management provider and from within your user account:

 

• Provider quality – Because the larger, more established email marketing programs (like Aweber, Mail Chimp, Constant Contact and Infusionsoft) implement strict quality standards that prevent the use of scraped email addresses or other unethical behaviors, they’re able to work with the major email providers (including Gmail, Yahoo Mail and others) to ensure that messages sent from their users’ accounts wind up in recipients’ inboxes – not their spam folders.
• Provider size – In large part, the ability of these top-tier providers to negotiate with email programs comes from their size and clout within the industry.  Working with a smaller, lesser-known provider may result in lower deliverability rates, as these services don’t have the bargaining power to negotiate directly with email management programs to ensure that messages get where they’re supposed to go.
• Internal tools – Another important consideration when it comes to email marketing message deliverability is the spam score of the email’s content.  No matter what provider you use, packing your messages full of spam words and links to junk websites will result in a high spam score being assessed, which could prevent your message from being delivered.  The best email management providers offer tools that help you estimate the spam score of each message you send out, enabling you to correct issues that could otherwise result in your email going undelivered before you queue up the message.

 

In general, though, the most important thing to keep in mind when it comes to email marketing message deliverability is that the established providers typically have an advantage in terms of high deliverability rates.

 

Criteria #2 – Testing tools

 

On November 1st, we discussed how split testing different elements of your main website can help you to improve your conversion rates and increase your sales.  As you might expect, gathering this type of information about your email marketing campaigns can be just as valuable, which is why some email management providers offer testing tools that allow you to generate data to help guide your efforts.

 

For example, two of the different split tests you could conduct through your email marketing campaigns include:

• Open rates – Some email management programs allow you to split test your broadcast or follow up messages to determine which subject lines result in the most “opens”.  This information can be extremely useful when drafting future messages to your subscribers to increase the number of people who respond positively to your subject line and open your message.
• Web forms – Many email management providers give you the option of creating multiple versions of each  web form you deploy on your website, enabling you to find the most effective combination that results in the most new subscribers.

Be aware, though, that not all email management providers offer these tools.  If you feel that this type of data would be useful to your business, be sure to confirm that your chosen provider offers testing before you sign up.

Criteria #3 – Email template options

When it comes to sending email messages to your subscribers, there’s a huge range of stylizations you can employ – from simple text-based messages to full graphics-based HTML messages.  While there’s no set rule as to which type of message is best for any given industry, you’ll find that the most successful campaigns in the ecommerce, retail and professional services fields make use of the more visually appealing HTML campaigns.

Of course, if you plan to implement this type of campaign on your website, you’ll want to be sure that your chosen email management provider offers good looking HTML message templates that will complement the look and feel of your website.  While you can always hire a graphic designer to build a template for you, your costs and time invested will be much lower if you’re able to work off a template provided by your chosen email management program.

Criteria #4 – Cost

While cost shouldn’t be your only consideration – as  mentioned earlier, choosing a cheap but disreputable provider can result in wasted money if your messages aren’t delivered at all – it certainly is a factor for most business people!

Fortunately, even the highest quality email management programs are generally very affordable, although you’ll need to do some comparison shopping to understand how each program stacks up, as you aren’t always comparing apples to apples.  Most email management providers price their services in tiers based on the number of subscribers you sign up, but since the tiers don’t usually line up between programs, you’ll want to estimate the number of subscribers you plan to enroll in the future to choose the program that makes the most financial sense for you.

Criteria #5 –Training Tools

Email marketing has a learning curve, so finding a provider that offers free support and training resources can be a big plus.  To get a feel for the tools each email management provider offers, navigate to its “Help” section.  The best providers use this space to offer video training, knowledgebase articles and a host of other learning materials designed to improve their customers’ email marketing skills.

Of course, a lack of training tools shouldn’t be a deal breaker – after all, there are plenty of free articles and resources online that can help you hone your email marketing skills independently.  However, keep in mind that any training tools provided by your provider represent their best practices as determined by actual user data, making these resources much more valuable.

So before you sign up for an account with a new email management program, be sure to take these factors into consideration.  Although most email list managers don’t require lengthy contracts, switching between providers because the one you had chosen doesn’t have all the features you need is a time-consuming hassle.  Get your email marketing campaign off on the right foot by choosing the program that’s right for you from the start.

 

Image: Micky.!