Email marketing is one of the most effective modes of outreach available to marketers today. According to some studies, email generates approximately $38 for every $1 spent on email marketing campaigns.
But to effectively market your business through email, you’ll need an email marketing platform – and there are a lot to choose from. Here are some factors to consider when choosing an email marketing provider to handle your bulk emails.
1. Integration
If you already have a serious digital marketing strategy, you probably have CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, such as SalesForce. Ideally, your email marketing platform will seamlessly connect with your CRM and allow you to port over valuable email lists and data, without having to make changes in both systems.
This will save you a lot of time in manual tasks such as updating lists and sending emails.
2. Metrics
Most email marketing providers offer email performance analytics such as click-through rates, open rates, bounce and delivery rates, and so on. Some let you monitor click-through rates for individual links within each email. Others have better capacity for A/B testing and more complicated testing scenarios.
When choosing an email marketing platform, it can be helpful to take a few for a test drive and discover whether the analytics they provide are aligned with your needs.
3. Accessibility
Your email marketing provider should offer mobile-optimized templates that look great regardless of the screen your reader is viewing on.
Email trend reports show that over 47% of people use a smartphone to access their email. If your emails don’t appear in a readable and attractive format on their phone, they’ll click away and you’ll lose that lead.
4. Automated Responses
When you send emails, you may get some responses back. These need to be handled promptly and professionally.
If you’re sending to a very small list, you might have the bandwidth to reply personally to all or most responses. But if you’re sending to thousands of people a month, you’ll need some kind of automated solution.
Some email marketing providers will allow you to send automated responses to customer emails, or even route customer emails to specific tickets. This can save your team time and improve customer service.
5. Templates and Design
Depending on how visual you want your emails to be, you may want a platform that provides a variety of mobile-friendly automated templates, with various levels of customization. Some email marketing platforms have more to offer in this area than others.
If you’re looking for advanced design capabilities, you may want to find a tool that allows hands-on, backend development of templates. If you aren’t looking to get too technical, what you’ll want is an intuitive, user-friendly interface for customizing templates without the need for programming skills.
6. Up-Sales Capabilities
Some email marketing platforms offer additional functionalities to help guide your audience toward a sale, such as targeted SMS messages aligned with your email marketing campaign, shopping cart reminders, and more.
It’s not always easy to sift between email marketing providers to find the one that’s right for you. You may have to try a few, but whether you need something simple and easy to use or a platform with advanced capabilities, the solution is out there.
Sources and further reading
- campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/pick-perfect-email-service-provider/
- chamaileon.io/resources/how-to-choose-esp/
- segment.com/blog/choosing-the-right-email-service-provider/
- mailbakery.com/blog/how-to-choose-an-esp-questions-to-ask/
- omnisend.com/blog/email-service-provider/
Check out our previous blogs on email marketing:
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