choose your esp wisely - delivra · choose your esp wisely. introduction fact: today’s businesses...
TRANSCRIPT
The right email service provider
can help you win more customers
Choose Your ESP Wisely
Introduction
Fact: Today’s businesses can’t survive without email. Email was once a novelty but today it’s an essential part of our lives. Email is the most common way to communicate with your customers — and the easiest way to prompt them to take action.
But your customer’s inbox is a vicious, cutthroat place. Your messages face a fierce battle to stand out from others and avoid the dreaded mass delete — or worse, to avoid ending up in Marketing Email Purgatory: the Junk folder.
Effective email marketing is critical to your business and your bottom line. In this eBook, we’ll discuss effective and practical ways to make your messages stand out, reach your audience, and get results.
Email Marketing: The Money Maker
Why email marketing? It’s simple. It works. And it brings in one of the best ROIs in the industry. Just take a look at these numbers from McKinsey:
• Email marketing is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter combined
• Conversion rates for email marketing are nearly three times as high as social media prompts
• The average purchase price from a marketing email is nearly 17 times that of social media
• 91 percent of all US consumers use email daily
Bottom line? Email marketing is considered one of the best investments for bringing in more customers and more dollars at a much lower cost than other alternatives. We’ll show you the first step in building out a successful email marketing campaign — choosing the best email service provider to reach your goals.
What is an ESP? We’re not talking about the ability to read minds. But an effective Email Service Provider, which we call an ESP, could very well make you feel like you’re reading your subscribers’ minds — if you
choose the one that suits your objectives.
Chapter 1: Get Results by Doing it Right
It’s not enough to shoot off an email campaign and expect to see the type of results you’re looking for. Think about it: over 100 billion emails are being sent — every single day. 100 billion. That number is projected to reach 132 billion by 2017.
Your emails have a good chance of being ignored, sent to spam, or banished from your subscribers email list — if you don’t build out the right campaign on the right platform using the right email provider for your business. Get your customer’s attention with these tips, and pay attention; some of them may be counterintuitive:
Personalized does not mean customized. None of us enjoy receiving form letters. Form letters that are desperately (and obviously) trying not to sound like form letters are even worse. Using your customer’s name in the subject, greeting, or body of your email comes off as fake. Never take for granted that you’ve earned the right to use your customer’s name. It insults their intelligence and has invoked many an eye-roll. Instead, personalize your message in other ways. Identify your customer’s past habits and preferences and use this information to more directly target their demographic and peer groups. For example, customers who have expressed interest in or have purchased baby-related items may receive a warmer message addressing this need rather than an informal form letter.
Subject is king. People don’t open emails. They open subject lines. We’ve trained our eyes and our minds to immediately seek out the most relevant information in any given message. The subject line is where you make or break your conversion rate. Statistically, emails with shorter subject lines are opened more often that those with longer ones. Research by Adestra indicates that subject lines containing fewer than 10 characters garner a 58 percent open rate.
Make it mobile-friendly. Well over half of all internet traffic is now mobile. To remain competitive you must meet your consumers where they are — and they’re everywhere. Millions of consumers get their information on-the-go, and they don’t have the patience to fiddle with clunky websites that don’t translate well on mobile devices.
Consider these two facts:• 80 percent of mobile searches for local business information convert to sales• Faced with a website that’s not optimized for mobile use, 40 percent of consumers will search for a different result
Do the math. Go ahead. We’ll wait.
See all those digits? That’s some serious cash you’re leaving on the table if your website and marketing emails can’t play nice with mobile.
132 billion emailssent daily by 2017
Chapter 2: Understanding the ESP Differences
You wouldn’t purchase a car without considering gas mileage, passenger capacity and your driving habits. The same goes for email marketing. That’s why it’s important to study the differences among email marketing providers. Plan to invest sufficient time to pick the email marketing provider and platform that will help you reach your goals. Your choice can make the difference between email marketing success or failure.
Here’s a breakdown of the different types of email service providers:
All email service providers offer these basic functions:
• Uploading subscriber lists• Scheduling email messages to coincide
with higher open rates• Reviewing reports to determine the
effectiveness of campaigns
However, the similarities end there. Different ESPs may provide some or all of these additional options:
• Ability to segment your lists based on preferences, geography and other factors
• Ability to design creative and semi-custom emails using templates
• Marketing automation and targeted drip campaigns
• Integrations with third party tools like Salesforce
• One-on-one training and consultations• Support and strategic advice• Ability to send messages through SMS• Options to improve deliverability
Now let’s take a closer look at how to choose an ESP that will suit your business goals.
Chapter 3: Ready to Pick an ESP? Not So Fast
You may be tempted to think the process of choosing an ESP is simple. If you’re operating a small business with a smallish budget, you should just go for the simple low-budget platform, right? No extras necessary. You also may think that larger companies should automatically invest in the priciest options with the different layers of support and consultation.
Well, let’s just say you’d be wrong to jump to that conclusion. The process of choosing an ESP is much more complex — and it has a lot to do with what you’re trying to achieve. Ultimately, it has a lot to do with how effective you want your campaign strategy to be.
Here are 4 steps that are critical to choosing an ESP:
1. Let’s figure out exactly what you are trying to do. As noted before, an email marketing campaign can pay significant dividends. You must be strategic in your approach. Determine what you want to accomplish within six months, 12 months, etc. How many people do you want to reach? How many customers do you want to add? How do you want it to impact your brand? By clarifying your goal, you’ll have a better idea of the type of ESP you need to help you meet them.
2. Identify the dealbreakers. When choosing an ESP, begin by making a list of the goals you hope to accomplish with email marketing. Goals should be measurable and attainable; these are the criteria against which you will judge all ESP functionality. Identify your dealbreakers — a short list of 4 to 5 functions that an ESP must provide in order to be considered.
3. Vet your vendors. Reputable vendors should be happy to put their money where their mouths are. Request in-house demonstrations with live representatives from each vendor. Live demos give your key stakeholders an opportunity to judge the utility of the platform before committing to a contract. These demonstrations are crucial in establishing vendor credibility as they provide an opportunity to show that the vendor can meet your needs. Additionally, schedule informational interviews with each ESP’s current and previous clients to ask for candid reviews. Ask them to talk about the support they received, issues they encountered, and responsiveness from the vendor. Any good vetting process should end with a free trial so you can test the product prior to committing, but be aware that free trial software may not include all of the features you’ll receive when you sign.
4. Be prepared to ask plenty of questions. More than likely, you’re setting yourself up for a long-term partnership with your vendor. Take the time to ask plenty of questions to make sure you’re secure the vendor can meet your needs as you grow — and that it’s constantly seeking ways to be innovative. You don’t want to have to go back to the drawing board a year or two down the road with a new ESP. Take the time to write down your list of questions and be prepared to ask them.
Chapter 4: Shop and Compare
Now that you have a pretty good idea of what you’re trying to achieve, it’s time to shop around. You’ll find that ESPs will have a varying list of services, features and customer services that can fit the needs of startups and corporations equally. You just need to figure out which best suits you. It could be that you have lofty goals and an ESP with a wide range of features is an ideal fit — even if you are a startup.
Marketing software automation is the core quality you want in an email service provider. It can elevate your campaigns to stellar cam-paigns. Here’s how:
Marketing automation is keyImagine being able to send an email message — automatically, at that — based on how a person is responding to previous emails — whether it’s going to your site or hitting all the right buttons. Based on a person’s behavior, you can have automatic messages sent to him or her based on specific triggers such as those. That’s how marketing software automation works.
Here are some other essentials that you may be looking for:
List segmentation: This feature gives you the ability to easily send more personalized messages to your subscribers based on their tastes, purchase history, searching habits, demographics, etc. Segmentation is critical because it helps you tailor your messages to subscribers — so that it seems like you “get” them. It also increases the likelihood that they will continue to open your emails.
Content list builder: Compare the tools ESPs use to enable you to upload, access and build lists, as well as format emails and other customization options.
Templates: While it’s important to have unique content for each campaign, having a variety of templates to work with speeds up the process of uploading text and images.
Delivery options: You want the ability to deliver emails on a specific date, based on hol-idays, seasons, or higher click rates. Again, this is another feature that enables you to main-tain high open rates.
User-friendly: Take the email software of each provider for a quick spin. Is it easy to use? How easy is it to populate templates with content? Is training and support provided? Make sure you’re not investing in something no one will ever use.
Innovative: You should get a sense that the email service provider you choose is able to keep up with the rapid changes in the industry. Ask about their responsiveness to mobile devices, for example. How quickly did they offer optimization as an option? The answer should give you a good sense of how willing the provider is to adapt to keep up.
Customer support: How easy — or difficult — will it be to get support when you need it?
Integrations: What type of integrations are offered? You want an email service provider that can easily integrate with other platforms, therefore giving you the ability to be more productive with fewer headaches.
Chapter 5: Take Care of the Final Details
A successful email marketing campaign — one that produces results — is an ongoing process. You can’t just set it up and forget about it. In addition to A/B testing, you have even more options. Find out which campaigns are performing better, then tweak accordingly.
Depending upon the results, you’re going after you may need a provider to help you determine how to nurture and eventually guide prospects through the marketing funnel. What you need to do to stay engaged in the process, fully utilizing services, training, updates provided by your ESP.
Select Your ESPNo competitive business can afford to overlook the importance of email marketing. However, not all ESPs are created equal. Selecting an ESP that fits your needs, budget, and goals is absolutely critical in your email marketing success. The platform you select should be able to provide meaningful information that allows you to make strategic business decisions. Features like list segmentation, automation, and reporting are tools that will help you tweak and tune your marketing emails into ruthless conversion machines.
Find out more about Delivra’s email marketing solutions here, then contact us for a free initial consultation.
