Email Marketing First Time Buyers Guide

Email Marketing First Time Buyers Guide
There can be a bewildering range of types of email marketing solutions each with a number of different feature sets.
This guide aims to summarise the pros & cons of each type of solution and what to look for.
Contents
1. Key Features to look for in your first email marketing solution
2. Inhouse software
3. Hosted ASP solutions
4. Bureau / Managed Services
5. The Maxemail Family of Email Marketing Solutions

Key Features to look for in your first email marketing solution
Key functionality that any solution and supplier should offer should includes:
1) UK support via telephone & email
If the support is based abroad you may have to wait several hours for a response. By the time the response has arrived you have gone home and it will be a couple of days till the issue is resolved.
2) Multiple users supported
This is essential if you want multiple members of your marketing department to access the solution.
3) Approval process
If the solution has no approval workflow then it will only be a matter of time before your campaign is delivered incorrectly.
4) Test & Seed list functionality
The ability to test your email to a single or set of seed addresses will save you time and ensure there are no issues with your campaign.
5) Multiple lists
You will require more than a single list if you are going to be sending more than a single newsletter. Check to see if the solution offers this capability.
6) Deduplication of email addresses
This should be automatic and prevent you from bombarding customers with multiple copies of your email.
7) Store data other than email addresses
You will want to store information such as names, purchase history, content preferences and more to use when personalizing and segmenting your campaigns.
8) Appending data
As you collect more data offline you will want to add it to your lists. There should be an option in the solution to add this information to the solution without having to create a new list.
9) Unsubscribe management
This should entail the ability to add a link to your email that takes your recipient to a confirmation page stating they have unsubscribed. This should also flag the record in the solution to automatically ensure they are not sent to again. Advanced solutions give you two types of unsubscribe – global and list unsubscribe. A ‘global unsubscribe' will unsubscribe the recipient from all lists while ‘list unsubscribe' will simply flag the record as unsubscribed from a single list.
10) Exclude lists
There will be times when you need to exclude certain customers. There might be people who have already taken you up on the offer, or addresses that have bounced. Therefore there should be an option to exclude a list of addresses you have uploaded.
11) Bounce Management
Receiving bounced messages into an email account and removing these is a very time consuming process. Make sure your solution collects the bounces and gives you the opportunity to view a report of these showing why they have bounced that can be downloaded.
12) Resending of soft bounces
This will ensure that emails that did not get delivered because of a temporary problem such as the receiving email server was offline, will get automatically redelivered.
13) Scheduling of campaigns
The ability to schedule emails for delivery will enable you to setup and queue emails well in advance.
14) Delivery speed & Scalability
If you are sending high volumes of emails (50,000 – Several Million at a time) ensure the solution is capable by asking for a pilot campaign.
15) MIME format
Around 5% of your list cannot read HTML emails. Ensure the solution can automatically deliver a plain text alternative. This is referred to as MIME format.
16) White listing
Your supplier should take an active role in ensuring your emails will get delivered by ‘white listing' your IP address with major ISP's.
17) Personalisation
This at the most basic level should be the ability to insert ‘Dear First Name' into an email message.
18) Segmentation
The ability to send different messages to different segments will ensure that you achieve better open and clickthru rates as your messages will be more relevant.
19) A/B Split Testing
This is the ability to test and compare variables such as the subject line or content to samples of your list before delivering the best performing to the remainder of your list. This functionality will enable you to maximise your email campaign performance.
20) Reporting
As a minimum this should include:
· Statistics on total deliveries, bounces, unique opens, clickthru's and unsubscribes
· Time stamping of opens and clickthru's in order to report on recipients opening and clicking thru multiple times.
· Ability to download reports showing who opened, clicked, unsubscribed and which addresses bounced and why
· Breakdowns of the links in the email and how many times each one has been clicked upon.
21) Proven deployment of the solution
Many suppliers who are not specialists in email marketing will offer to design and develop a bespoke solution for you. This should be avoided at all costs. The wide range of solutions now available on the market means that there is a proven solution, at an affordable price with dedicated support and development teams available. A bespoke solution cannot be produced at a
price that provides the same level of functionality, reliability and support. In addition these suppliers will not be able to help you with issues such as white listing. These guidelines are a minimum you should look for to make running your campaigns smooth and getting good results from your campaigns.

Inhouse software solutions
This is software in the traditional sense that is installed on a server within your own IT infrastructure. Of the solutions available in the marketplace most offer a web browser interface into the software. There are also a few additional suppliers that offer PC based solutions – these do not offer the same level of functionality in terms of tracking and reporting and generally use your existing business email for delivering the emails.
Pros
· Licence fee as opposed to a cost per email like hosted ASP solutions. This can be far more cost effective if you are sending high volumes of email.
· All data is stored inhouse
· Dedicated server and IP address – you are not sharing servers with other organisations
Cons
· Cost is usually an upfront licence fee
· Requires some internal IT expertise and resources
· Some inhouse solutions need to be plugged into your existing mail servers and databases causing huge delays and slowdowns to your existing business email
What to look out for
· Look for UK telephone and email support. Many inhouse software suppliers only have a US office.
· Does the solution have its own send engine and database or does it require use of your existing systems?
· PC based solutions cannot offer the same reliability, delivery speed or reporting as a server based solution despite what their website may say
· Find out if the supplier offers any support for ‘white listing' your IP address

Hosted ASP Solutions
The vast majority of suppliers offer a hosted solution where you login via the Internet to manage your campaigns. All of your data is stored online and the supplier's server handles the delivery and tracking of the email campaigns.
Pros
· No software to install – access everything from your Internet browser
· Scalable pricing based upon how many emails you send
· No hardware or bandwidth requirements
Cons
· Shared server and IP address – can cause issues with deliverability if other users of that server are sending out junk
· Can be more expensive for higher volumes due to the cost per email
· Data is stored on external servers

What to look out for
· If the servers are based in the USA you might be breaking the Data Protection Act by placing personal data on these servers
· Check whether the email servers are blacklisted by Spamcop
· Find out if the solution is there own or whether they are reselling it – if they are reselling the solution this could cause delays in support issues.

Fully outsourced bureau / managed services
If you are undertaking your first email marketing exercise this can be the most appropriate way to ensure you get everything right. It can also be the best solution to organisations that do not have the appropriate skills or time to setup and manage email campaigns
Pros
· A managed service will fill skill gaps and overcome time constraints
· Suppliers are often able to provide additional advice and expertise on best practice
Cons
· Can be expensive in comparison to selfservice solutions
· There can be delays as work gets passed between client and agency for approval

What to look out for
· Find out how much experience they have had working on email campaigns
· Do they have skills in data processing, creative and a reliable technology solution to deliver and track your email campaigns?

The Maxemail Family of Email Marketing Solutions
Maxemail inHouse
A licenced software solution for inhouse deployment. There are no 'per email' costs and therefore Maxemail inHouse can save you up to 90% per annum.
Further information:
Maxemail onDemand
Maxemail onDemand is a hosted ASP solution. The solution is accessed purely from your Internet browser and enables marketers to take onboard a fully featured, scalable and robust solution with minimal upfront and ongoing costs.
Further information:
Maxemail Agency
A specialist solution for marketing agencies. Each customer can be given their own area on Maxemail for their email marketing and provided with a login to view the latest tracking reports or to authorise campaigns. The user interface can also be customised with your own logos and branding.
Further information:
Maxemail Managed
For marketers who would prefer to outsource the running of their email marketing campaigns we offer a full range of professional managed services from HTML email template design through to running viral marketing campaigns.
For futher information on email marketing software, please visit the site at http://www.emailcenteruk.com

Sean Duffy is Marketing Manager for UK email service provider Emailcenter. Sean has been working on email campaigns within retail, travel, B2B and other industry sectors since 2001. Sean is also author of the book “Permission Email Marketing: The Strategy & Tactics of Successful Email Marketing.”