Life is good when the ESP relationship is good!

When the ESP relationship is good, it’s all rainbows and unicorns.

The program is humming along. Your team and company employees all happily use the email platform, maximizing its potential and taking advantage of much of the functionality. You have a good handle on how your email marketing is going, because your email reporting rocks and you can easily scope out your roadmap for the next 18 months or so.

On the other hand, a bad ESP relationship can be quite negative. If your relationship with your vendor is a rocky one, it might be time to either take action to improve the relationship or take steps to get out of it. Like all relationships, a stagnating one can easily continue to decline, although one hopes not to the point of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the fictional married couple hired to kill each other in the 2005 hit movie of the same name.

Below are five signs your ESP relationship is in trouble. If any of these sound familiar, you need to act:

Poor communication

John Smith: “I never went to MIT. Notre Dame. Art history major.”
Jane Smith: “Art?”
John Smith: “History! It’s reputable.”

For a few years now, we in the email industry have been saying organizations switch ESPs every two years on average. I’ve yet to track down the actual source for this number, but anecdotally based on my own observations, I think it’s about right.

When you consider the high cost, as well as the enormous hassle of switching Email providers, it’s surprising that someone does it at all — and that brings us to another unsubstantiated but probable statistic: Poor customer service is the number one reason people switch ESPs.

If you’ve ever been in a serious relationship, you know the importance of good communication. You can’t have a healthy relationship without it! This isn’t only true of a marital or romantic relationships. Relationships between parents and kids, siblings, friends, even between bosses and employees all require at least decent communication to survive and great communication to thrive. Looking to improve your internal communication? Check out these internal newsletter examples for inspiration.

No communication

Jane Smith: “There’s this huge space between us, and it just keeps filling up with everything that we *don’t* say to each other. What’s that called?”
Marriage Counselor: “Marriage.”

Eventually, as a relationship breaks down, the parties move from poor communication—meaning there is talking going on but no one feels heard, listened to or understood—to no communication whatsoever.

Have you known couples who stopped talking to each other when things got so bad there didn’t seem any point in trying? This can happen with your ESP too, as you give up going to them with issues and simply soldier on. Or it could be your ESP has given up communicating with you. An account manager who is routinely ignored will simply focus on other clients.

Knowing something is wrong but not knowing how to fix it

Jane Smith: [about the new curtains] “If you don’t like them we can take them back.”
John Smith: “All right, I don’t like them.”
Jane Smith: [pause] “You’ll get used to them.”

Perhaps one of the most challenging roadblocks to a relationship is not being able to identify the problem. Usually it’s poor communication that leads to this unhappy state, and poor communication that keeps us there—although we don’t know it when we’re in it.

When you or your team express regular frustration with the ESP, or start looking for workarounds rather than use the platform, or—worse yet—give up on a goal altogether, something is seriously wrong.

Living like roommates

John Smith: “Your aim’s as bad as your cooking sweetheart… and that’s saying something!”

Number 4 is a natural progression from number 3. It’s a sign of giving up and putting up. If you or your team barely uses the ESP, relying on only a small fraction of the advanced functionality you need to use, let’s face it, you’re more like roommates than spouses. This is particularly true if you’re turning to other third-party vendors to accomplish tasks that you should be able to do with your email service provider. When your ESP is more like a problem than a partner, you’re in trouble.

Staying together because it’s easier than breaking up

Jane Smith: “Who’s your daddy now?”
Couples will stay together for all kinds of reasons, because really, breaking up is more than hard to do—it’s heartbreaking. And marketers will stay with an ESP for the same reason: to avoid the time, hassle and cost of switching ESPs. Think about all that’s involved with leaving: First, you have to find a new email provider which is a job in and of itself. Then you have to get your house in order so you can move. Then you have to go through the migration and implementation. Then you have to learn the new platform, ramp up the new IP addresses, and slowly master the new interface. And who knows if you’ll be happier?

If not wanting to go through all of this again is your real reason for sticking with your current ESP, there’s a problem.

There might be a fix

All of that said, it’s not necessarily a hopeless situation. In the movie, even the Smiths put down their weapons, reconcile and stand united. Sometimes you just need a little help—and help is out there, for difficult marriages and unhappy marketers alike.

Seeing out a new email provider is not your only solution. You can try to make things better with your current one. You can go to a consultant for guidance, to see if the relationship can be improved. You can download the ESP therapy ebook for help. Or you can turn to your email marketing peers for advice.

Yes, your relationship with your ESP might be a troubled one, and one you’d rather just walk away from. But don’t quit yet. Save yourself some time, hassle and money by first exploring the idea that—despite signs to the contrary—your situation can improve.

The post 5 Signs Your ESP Is no Longer Your Valentine…and 1 Thing You Can Do About It appeared first on Email vendor selection.

Why franchises have specific email marketing needs

Franchises are like many other business, when it comes to the benefits of email marketing.

For your franchise email marketing is used to:

• Drive sales,
• Engage customers and prospects,
• Build loyalty and repeat business.

There are distinct ways that franchises are different and these differences affect the choice of email marketing tools:

1. Franchise business model

The way a franchise structure their email marketing programs depends on their franchise business model. That might consist of a franchisor with franchisees. It can also include company-owned units or locations. For instance, it is also a part of the email marketing for restaurants guide, just because in restaurant chains – the franchise model is so popular.

A franchise can have a master franchisee structure with sub-franchisees under it.

2. Central versus decentral marketing

Franchises vary in how much power, control and flexibility they want to keep central vs. handing it over to the franchisees.

Some franchises have their own corporate-owned stores alongside franchisee locations. In hard franchise headquarters might have control of everything. In other situations, franchisees to create their own direct email promotions for their local audiences.

A large restaurant franchise moved their email marketing model from 100% HQ sends to 60% HQ sends. By allowing each franchisee to send communications and offers to their local clients on their own (with some checks and controls). The net result was a 8% increase in opens, 11% increase in clicks and an overall increase of 3.7% in direct sales.

Sometimes corporate crafts the promotions and content and the franchisee can choose to run those promotions (or not).

3. Size, shape and franchise

Franchises are built to be streamlined and scalable, with easily replicated processes. But There is a range of franchises sizes and shapes. Franchises can vary in numbers of locations, size, products vs. services, geographical area, target audience, corporate owned vs. privately owned and myriad other ways. And those differences affect each franchise’s email needs.

For example, a large franchise with hundreds of units in locations all over the country will need a different email software than a smaller local franchise. This means there is no single best email marketing software for all franchises and it will depend on your situation what is best.

The 5 franchise-specific criteria to consider when selecting email marketing software:

Franchises need to find an email solution that fits your specific needs, is flexible, and can grow with your business. To help with your ESP selection process, here are five franchise-specific criteria to consider:

1) Parent and Subaccount Structure

Many franchises need an parent account / subaccount setup for email marketing. The parent account is at the corporate level and the subaccount is at the franchisee level. There might even be sub-subaccounts if their are master franchisees that owns multiple units or locations.

With an email software that allows for subaccounts, data must be central and decentral.

That way, the franchisee, can have their own email database in their subaccount. Corporate oversees the whole account. Corporate can access (and compare) all data on performance, loyalty programs, and more.

Smart selection questions:
What kind of Parent subaccount structure do you need?
Are you allowing email marketing at the store level or a higher level?
Do you need sub subaccounts?

2) Branding and email campaign template library

Franchises must protect and build their brand at the same time. This can be tricky when dozens or even hundreds of independent franchisees are part of the business and brand. An email tool has to have the option to use email campaign templates and content that can be “pushed down” to the franchisees.

Templates make sure you maintain a consistent look, feel and message in every email. Franchises can share images and content with their franchisees. But templates need to be flexible enough when franchisees are given content choices or blocks of content they can change.

An example of locking and unlocking content in your email marketing system.

Smart selection questions:
What kind of control do I need over the brand, email templates and content?
Do you need the ability to lock and unlock content?

3) Access Levels in the Email Marketing Tool

Franchises need varying degrees of access to functionality and information. For example, headquarters will want to see all statistics and have access to the complete database of each franchisee.

Franchisees might only see aggregated email reporting and analytics and only have access to their own campaigns and subscribers. Permission levels will depend on user function of course. But also if someone is part of the corporate marketing team, a franchisee, the manager of a brick-and-mortar location, or an employee at one location in charge of marketing. It is how much independence corporate wants to grant that user.

A good ESP will allow you to set rights based on roles in the account.

Smart selection questions:
Who will be involved with email creation and at what level?
What kind of access to the tool will the users need?
How much control will you need?
Do you need to limit access to just one aspect, such as only data or only content?

4) Data and Email Marketing Reporting

Franchises need data so they can make informed business decisions. They need know what their franchisees are doing and how well they’re performing.

HQ needs access to data through a central dashboard so they can compare different units, geographies and more. The challenge is often being able to bring together the data from many sources into one. The people at headquarters need to be able to analyze all email campaign performance in one place. That includes data from franchisees too. Making this data aggregation critical. They need to see it all in one place and in one view for comparisons for informed decision making.

Smart selection questions:
What kind of insights do you need?
At what level and with what kind of reporting?

5) Integrations

Finally, franchises need to integrate with other solutions. For example, a retail restaurant might want to integrate with their WiFi provider or Point of Sale provider to tie offline and online together.

With this kind of functionality, the franchise can send relevant messaging via multiple channels at that time as well as track patterns of behavior.

Marketers might be gathering data for more targeted messaging, or using incentives to bring people in. This is all data they’d want to integrate with their email marketing software to get to the next level of segmentation and sophistication.

Franchise Email Marketing Is Good for Business

All franchises can benefit from email marketing. Email has the best return on investment dollar for dollar. It can reach people on the go on their phones. It’s easily tracked and measured. Email works well in cross-channel campaigns. And it generates priceless data to further improve the email program – and results.

Yet you have to have the right email marketing provider to tap into the potential ROI email offers. Your franchise business model is set to be uniform and scalable. Chances are, you have your own unique goals for your franchise based on the way you will fill in the five selection criteria. Keep your franchise-specific needs in mind while comparing ESPs. Zero in on an email marketing service that offers the ease-of-use, power, flexibility and scalability.

What is the best email marketing software for franchises?

With a franchise model, you want the email platform to be easy-to-use. The end user is often not an email marketing expert. But it has to have a powerful back-end to offer all the above features as well.

Look for an email provider that offers power combined with ease-of-use. Drag-and-drop email builder functionality, access to data, and flexibility in setting permissions and locking content.

The post Choosing the Best Email Marketing Solution for your Franchise or Retail Chain appeared first on Email vendor selection.

Not only marketers dread the RFP; often, so do the vendors, as Jeff Ginsburg makes clear in his bluntly titled post, “10 Things I Hate About the RFP Process.”

Does it have to be that bad? Must we all recoil when we see those three dreaded letters R, F and P? No. There are ways to hate the RFP less, both on the client side and the vendor side. If 2019 is the year you run an RFP, here are some tips to make the process easier—or even bypass it altogether…

The benefits of doing an RFP

Although I have in the past suggested foregoing the RFP altogether (and we will address that later), there are benefits to going through the RFP process. For one thing, doing your homework upfront will ensure you and your team are clear on your goals.

Preparing for an RFP should give you insight into the aspects of your old ESP that caused problems. That means you can avoid those same problems moving forward. The RFP standardizes the questions and criteria, to ensure you’re asking all the ESPs for the same information.

The challenges to doing an RFP

An RFP can also be problematic. It’s time-consuming and can be distracting. It can have us comparing apples to oranges without realizing we’re doing so. It can trick you into thinking you’re being productive by rewriting drafts and sitting through demos. The responses can sidetrack you, leading you off on tangents irrelevant to your needs and goals. And the RFP process doesn’t measure everything.

For example, if top-notch, responsive customer service is vital to your organization, you won’t be able to gauge that quality of an ESP through an RFP.

How to optimize the RFP process

For many organizations, however, the RFP is essential for selecting vendors and therefore must be done. If the RFP is not to be avoided, then let’s at least take steps to make it as quick, painless and effective as possible. Let’s optimize the RFP process.

Limit your ESP shortlist

One of the best ways to optimize the RFP process is to limit the numbers of vendors you reach out to. As email consultant Jordie van Rijn points out, every extra vendor you ask to pitch adds more time and effort to the process. Having more vendors also means less effort on the part of those ESPs.

If the email software vendors see you’re pitting them against a high number of competitors, they know they have less chance of winning, and therefore won’t put in as much time and effort trying to win your business. With a shorter shortlist, you save time and money, and the ESPs you do include will try harder to win you over. How many vendors? Jordie says your shortlist should include three to five ESPs.

That makes sense, right? But then the question is, how do you start with a shorter list? First off, you don’t start with the RFP. Save the actual RFP for later in the process. Rather than put the RFP first and use that to make your shortlist, make your shortlist first and do your RFP second.

To create your shortlist, start with a well-defined list of requirements. Then you do your homework to find potential candidates. After those steps, your three to five ESPs should be obvious choices.

Start with a well-defined list of requirements

The best way to streamline the whole process is to know upfront which capabilities you really absolutely positively have to have, both now and in the near future.

You want this ESP relationship to last as long as possible, and the ESP to be compatible with your growth goals. What are you hoping to accomplish in the next 6 months, as well as over the next 3 years? For suggestions of capabilities and questions to consider, download an ESP guide as a reference.

During this process, it’s critical that you distinguish between what you really need vs. what you really want. In other words, be clear on the features you want vs. why you want them. Identify which features are a must-have, which fall into the would-be-nice-to-have category, and which ones are “shiny things” you’ll never use. Ask yourself:

• Does this feature fit into our roadmap?
• Will it help us to reach our goals?
• Can we do the same thing in another way?

The danger of “shiny things” cannot be overstated. Avoid them and you will definitely save time and money in the long run. If you’re not sure whether a feature is a shiny thing or not, use this scoresheet.

Once you’ve determined the features and capabilities you must have to achieve your highest priority goals, stay laser focused on those features.

Do your homework and find the right ESP

After you’re crystal clear on the capabilities you need, get to know the vendors. Research drives your second step to building your shortlist—a lot of research. Study what’s going on in the industry. Which ESPs do your competitors use? What about other businesses similar to yours in email volume and sophistication?

Also look for email programs you admire and find out the ESPs used by those marketers. Use information like the ESP directory or Marketing Automation tools directory to find suggestions you might not otherwise come across. Ask people that have done ESP selections before for their recommendations.

As you’re evaluating potential vendors, consider every ESP through the lens of your requirements list. Which ones can likely meet your needs? And remember, times change. The vendors who dominated the space two years ago when you last did an RFP might not be your top picks this time around.

Besides, do you really need a big name, top-tier ESP? What about niche vendors? Look at mid-size ESPs too. Is there a mid-market ESP that can handle your email marketing program? Many mid-market ESPs have specialized to serve niche needs, so get to know what they’re offering.

By now, you should have a good start on your shortlist, as well as a good start on a very specific and targeted RFP.

Is it possible to forego the RFP process altogether?

And perhaps by now you’re realizing you might not need an RFP after all. David Baker hopes so. In a recent post he argued, “…the day of the RFP has outlived its purpose. RFPs were created decades ago as a procurement vehicle, not a pure capabilities fit.” He continues,

…we are in a world of prove it, show me and hands-on. The feature sets across a Lumascape of 1000 vendors who have email campaign management and mobile/social capability are so generalized, it is hard to distinguish who is good, best or better without simulation testing.

David suggests organizations call on ESPs to prove themselves instead of going through the RFP process. I’ve touched on this in an article about avoiding canned demos. The traditional RFP process tends to lead us down the path of predictable answers and generic demos, which can then trick marketers into focusing on price alone because we can’t distinguish other differences.

A proof of concept demo, on the other hand, using a use case scenario you’ve assigned to the ESP, will be (or should be) closely adhered to your well-defined requirements list we discussed earlier in this post.

Perhaps the alternative to the time-consuming and painful RFP process is to determine your needs, do your homework, create your shortlist, and ask the vendors on that list to prove they can meet your present and future needs. How much easier would that be, for everyone involved?

The post How to Optimize the RFP Process, Without Losing Your Head appeared first on Email vendor selection.

So…you’re investing in a new email marketing software solution and you want to save money. Everyone wants to save money — or at least everyone who is working within a budget.

But only looking at out of pocket costs often leads to decisions that are penny wise, pound foolish. Avoid swapping short-term gain for long-term pain. What if there is a smarter approach? Let’s talk about ways you can save money—without only focusing on price—and make money—by choosing wisely.

1. Choose the right-sized ESP

Before you start with your ESP selection, do a reality check and determine what size ESP you can justify based on your business needs. You might be drawn to a big name, top-tier enterprise ESP because it’s so familiar, and familiar seems safe. But can your needs justify the cost?

Alternatively, if you’re thinking cheaper is better, you might be looking at an ESP that’s too small to either meet your needs now or grow with you. In either case, consider some of the mid-market ESPs. Many midmarket ESPs now have the capabilities needed by enterprise-level email marketers—without the enterprise-level costs.

Related article:
We have compared 7 cheap email marketing software tools for SMB so you can have a look what is the price and features.

2. Move beyond the initial price tag

Your price isn’t simply what you’ll pay at the outset when you sign the contract with that solution provider. Your price is also what you might pay in the future when you want more support, or customization, or functionality.

In addition to those costs, you have to take into account time and ease of use and most importantly ROI—and other factors that affect the budget and bottom line if not the initial price tag. And then there is the cost you’ll pay when you can’t do something and you miss out on that potential revenue.

I often hear marketers express frustration because ESP pricing seems to be all over the map, and there isn’t a rhyme or reason to it. I understand the frustration. It’s akin to walking on to the car lot and seeing two cars that look the same from the outside with two different price tags. The issue is, what’s under the hood?

Vendors differ in pricing for many reasons, including what’s under the hood, and you should be paying more attention to the “engine” than the price tag. Sometimes you do want to pay more if it brings a higher ROI.

Reasons you might want to pay more for an email marketing solution:
You want to customize.
You want premium customer support.
You want functionality above and beyond the basics.
You want relational databases.
You want deeper segmentation.
You want more automation/triggers.
You want customized reporting.
Etc.

You might want to pay more for an ESP because you’ll want customization, or better customer support or for some other reason. In addition, paying more upfront can pay off later when you make incremental improvements to your program—improvements that increase your engagement, deliverability, results and ultimately ROI.

You should be willing to pay more if the ROI justifies it. You can’t do an apples-to-apples comparison if you’re only looking at price. For example, if one vendor is 20% cheaper than another, but the more expensive one offers features that could lead to significantly more sales, then crunch some numbers and see which one will help you generate the highest return.

Yes, strive to save money when choosing your new vendor, but don’t focus on the initial price tag or you could end up paying more money in the long run—or worse, losing out on potential revenue because you don’t have the functionality that could improve your ROI.

Growing ROI on the back end

By thinking about the ROI (Return on Investment) on the back end, you can “save” money by choosing the email marketing solution that packs the most punch per euro / dollar / pound. Which can lead to the conclusion that spending more allows you to make more.

That’s because the right functionality and access to all your data will enable you to achieve a higher ROI. If you look at a solution that’s enabling you to do more—like better targeting, right integration and deeper segmentation—you will be able to improve your ROI.

Too few marketers take this approach when choosing a solution, essentially leaving money on the table as a result.

Start to look beyond the hard (out of pocket) costs to consider costs like the cost of employees and teams outside of marketing like IT. It is a benefit of reducing time spent. If you can automate more, that’s a cost saving for you.

Functionality that lets you to grow your email list and capture the email addresses of people that bounce off websites is another example. You might pay for it, but you’ll be able to do things like capture emails or send cart abandonment emails and drive more ROI as a result.

So tear your eyes away from just the price tag and let’s talk about what really matters. Because it’s less about saving money and more about enabling ROI by:

1) Streamlining the buying process so it takes less time (and therefore money).
2) Choosing the right vendor the first time so you stick with that vendor longer, thereby saving money because you don’t have to go through the selection process all over again.
3) Most importantly, investing in the solution that is going to give you the biggest payback over time.

3. Consider a best-in-breed model over an all-in-one platform

You can also save money by piecing together your own best-in-breed stack rather than buying an all-in-one marketing cloud solution. Buying an all-in-one solution can lock you into a higher price point without giving you the functionality you need, or at least not the best version of that functionality.

By choosing a best-in-breed approach instead, you have the flexibility to focus on what matters most and spend your budget accordingly. Plus you can make changes later without having to undo your whole marketing stack.

4. Look for an ESP with built-in integrations

Speaking of best-in-breed, that doesn’t mean you’ll have to shop around and figure out the third-party vendors on your own. Many email marketing solutions and marketing automation providers have already partnered with other MarTech providers, so you can get built-in integrations without investing in an all-in-one solution.

If a vendor doesn’t have an integration with a particular MarTech provider you do want, don’t ask for their roadmap (because roadmaps change). Instead ask for the best type of workaround or costs of a custom integration.

5. Know upfront what kind of service you’re paying for

Anecdotally, most organizations switch ESPs because they are unhappy with the customer service or account management. Switching ESPs costs money. No, you don’t pay a charge for doing so, but the process is time-consuming and time is money.

Therefore, I say you should know upfront what kind of customer service, technical help, etc. you’ll get for the price on your contract. Also be sure you know upfront what kind of customer service and support you need. You can do this by reviewing your relationship with your existing (and soon to be prior) vendor. What types of support did you want and not get? What types of support were included in your contract and beneficial to you?

Determine if your organization will rely on self-service, collaborative services, or will be using a full service email marketing agency because the degree of support you need will come into play. Also determine what kind of training you can expect at the outset and ongoing.

Beyond customer support or technical help, consider what other services you might want to use. Agency-type services such as strategy, design, deployment, coding and integration can help you optimize your email marketing program, especially if your department is understaffed or less experienced.

6. Be crystal clear on the functionality you want

While you need to be clear on the types of service and support you want, you need to be just as clear on the functionality. It’s surprisingly easy to be distracted by the shiny things (see #7 below) and spend money on features you’ll never use, either because you didn’t really need them in the first place or they’re simply too complicated for your team to master.

Make a list of features you absolutely have to have, those you would like to have, and those you really don’t need but you think are nice features. Then stick to this list! Otherwise, you’re like to spend money on extra features that don’t contribute to your ROI, or that no one uses because they really weren’t needed in the first place. While doing so, focus on those on those features that might cost more but will make you more money too!
Being clear on your actual email marketing requirements also helps you to stick to your guns when a salesperson starts showing you the bells and whistles that will take you down the shiny things path. There are some advanced email marketing features you might need, but know upfront what they are.

7. Avoid the shiny things

Although I have written extensively on the topic of shiny things before, it is worth repeating here because we are talking about saving money and maximizing ROI. And spending money on shiny things will not save you money. Shiny things are those cool and sexy features that suck marketers in but never get used—even though they get paid for. When you start getting into the advanced features like those mentioned above, you start getting into the danger zone of shiny things.

How do you know if something is a shiny thing? Try the email marketing shiny things scorecard.

8. Forego the RFP

If you really want to save money during this process, skip the RFP. You can build a short list instead, without the time, money and hassle of an RFP. This doesn’t knock money off your purchase price, but it saves you money nonetheless by saving you precious time.

Even if you do the RFP, if you take steps to at least optimize the email marketing RFP process, you’ll probably conclude it’s not necessary if you can focus on creating a short list and being crystal clear on your wants vs. your needs.

4 Steps to Building a Shortlist and Avoiding an RFP

1. Limit your shortlist to 3 to 5 potential vendors.
2. Create a well-defined list of requirements, staying laser-focused on the capabilities you need now and in the near future (including those that will enable you to increase your ROI).
3. Get to know the vendors through research and conversations with others.
4. Avoid canned demos and insist on a proof-of-concept demo instead.

Choosing a new email marketing solution won’t be a quick fix to what ails you as an email marketer, especially if you’re focused on price alone. Focus on capabilities instead, and take the time to figure out the features that will help you make more money, not spend less.

Then follow this advice to make a well-informed decision—and maybe one you can live with for the long-term, which will save you plenty of money too!

The post 8 Ways to Save Money When Buying Email Marketing Software appeared first on Email vendor selection.

I often hear anecdotal stories about buyers who withhold important information during the ESP selection only to make their already bad situation worse.

It is understandable why buyers are guarded: The process of buying email marketing software seems broken and companies usually don’t trust the sales process or the salespeople as a result.

Below are some tips you can use to empower yourself as a buyer ,to overcome distrust, open up about your challenges, and find the ESP solution that can meet your needs. But first we need to understand why the ESP buying process is broken.

Why the Email Marketing Software buying process seems to be broken

Most working in B2B will agree that the marketing software buying process is broken, certainly in email marketing software. Google the phrase “the buying process is broken” and you’ll see plenty of reasons why this is.

The following in particular are problems when buying email marketing and automation tools.

• First, the buying process is broken because marketers at companies are not experts at picking an ESP, and it’s human nature to hide a lack of knowledge (whether aware of it or not).As a result, these marketers are easy victims for the promise of bells and whistles and other shiny, sexy features they will end up paying for yet never use. Nor do they have the confidence to ask the right questions, as they try to hide their inexperience.
• The second reason stems from buyer concerns about being taken advantage of if they reveal too much. The buyer fears that being transparent about needs will weaken their position at the negotiating table, that they will undermine their ability to say “no” during what they anticipate to be a pressure cooker sales process. But this doesn’t have to be true, as you’ll see with the tips laid out later on.
• Third, the buying process often has a big gap because of a lack of trust. According to one study, buyers consider only 18 percent of salespeople they have met to be trustworthy and respected. Buyers of software have been duped in the past and now they’re wary.They’ve been through the discovery process, been made promises, and purchased software based on those promises—only to be disappointed in the end result when promises aren’t delivered on. If the buyer can’t trust the seller, why would the buyer want to be open about their needs?
• Fourth, buyers are wary because we have a lack of transparency in pricing in the ESP industry. Marketers many times think they are getting more for their money than they really are. Then it turns out the extra functionality they need costs extra, or they need technical help or customization and discover that’s going to cost them money they didn’t budget for.

When you look at all of the reasons why the buying process is broken, it’s no wonder we have such a disconnect between buyers and sellers in the ESP space.

How to overcome the broken buying process and choose the best ESP

With the high cost of investing in an ESP plus the time it takes to research, implement and learn a new one, we should all of us have a vested interest in bridging the gap between buyer and seller. Why not fix this broken process and ensure more success for everyone? If the sales folks aren’t willing to bring this about, the onus is on the buyers to do what they can to make the right ESP choice—despite this situation.

To figure out how to help buyers combat this broken process, I drew upon my own experiences plus those of Cameron Kane, CEO at iPost.

As someone who has been working in the marketing technology space for almost as long as I have, Cameron has been part of the email marketing software selection process many times. Based on those experiences, below is Cameron’s list of seven tips for ESP buyers, to help you be more confident and transparent during the buying process—so you get what you really need.

1. Be crystal clear on wants vs. needs

Make a list of features you have to have, would like to have, and really don’t need. Then stick to this list! Otherwise, you’re like to spend money on extra features that don’t contribute to your ROI, or that no one uses because they really weren’t needed in the first place.

Being clear on your actual email marketing requirements also helps you to stick to your guns when a salesperson starts showing you the bells and whistles that will take you down the shiny things path.

2. Get everyone to the table

The sales team at iPost strives to meet with everyone involved. If the ESP you’re talking to isn’t making that same effort, then take the initiative and be the one to bring everyone to the table.

That includes the business sponsor, the tactical users, and the VP who will be signing off on the sale. Know how to put together your ESP selection team. Even if three different departments will be using the ESP, get all three involved. “We want to talk to all the tactical users during the discovery phase,” says Cameron. “It’s the only way we can understand their workflows and pain points.”

The salesperson has to understand the use cases and to hear from everyone who touches the ESP platform in order to map the solution back to the pain points. What do the users like about the current ESP? Dislike? Want to change? This is essential information that must be shared with the ESP if you want to end up with an email marketing company that meets your needs.

3. Understand that people will resist change

Internally, accept that people prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t. Sure, they’re struggling to accomplish much-needed tasks using the current ESP, but at least they know what they’re dealing with.

When you start talking about switching ESPs, users are likely to get nervous and imagine a steep learning curve and lowered productivity until they master yet another interface. The internal sales job is to get the buy-in when selecting the new ESP.

In this case, you must help them to see that the change will be for the better. Switching ESPs is all about what to expect and to deliver. If your team is involved in the discovery phase, and they get to talk to the ESP sales team about their issues and pains, they just might believe you!

4. Insist on use cases

A canned demo is a cookie-cutter approach to showing off the software, not a way to demonstrate how the software can address your particular problems. Canned ESP demos are always a bad idea. You should not settle for one. Ever.

Ask the salesperson to tackle at least three use cases for you. If more than one department is involved, have use cases for each department. Ask for small, specific use cases and tell the salesperson straight up, “This is really what I need to see.”

Be very specific in your use cases. For example ask: “How do I build a four-part email series, but when the status of a user changes, automatically pull them from the drip campaign?”

Yes, you will have to invest time to describe and see the use cases, but you will learn whether or not that ESP can address your particular needs, and your users will have more confidence in the change if they can see a demo relevant to their pain points.

5. Don’t let a sales engineer do the demo!

“Why do ESPs insist on sending in experts to do product demonstrations?! We see this time and time again,” says Cameron.

Think about it: The folks who will be using the platform are not experts in a particular ESP, and they probably won’t ever be power users of any email platform. But who does the ESP send in to do the demo during the sales process? You would expect it to be the salesperson the buyers have been talking to all along, but no, they send in a sales engineer. Talk about a power user!

Imagine if you were buying a car and you’re there at the dealership talking with the salesperson and you decide you want to test drive the car—and the salesperson calls in a NASCAR driver to do the test drive for you. Would that make any sense at all? Of course not, but that’s what happens during the ESP sales process all the time. If the salesperson can’t do the demo, that should be a huge red flag for you!

6. Drop the RFP

If you take steps to at least optimize the email marketing RFP process, you will likely realize that it’s simply not necessary—not if you focus on more efficient ways of creating a short list and being crystal clear on your wants vs. your needs. Foregoing the official RFP will save you time and help you get to a shortlist faster, with a more specific requirements list.

7. Ask the right questions and be extraordinarily open

Do your homework to compile your shortlist while skipping the RFP, and you’ll be able to ask pointed, relevant questions of the salesperson because you’ll know what you need and what’s possible. Then only be willing to ask those questions. Have a look at the blog I wrote before: 21 Questions to Evaluate Even The Best Email Service Providers And See If They Are “the One”.

Then when it’s your turn and you’re the one answering questions, Cameron recommends you be “extraordinarily open” during the discovery process, although that doesn’t mean you have to spell out your exact budget or tell a salesperson which other ESPs you’re talking to.

Your assumption might be that you’re weakening your position if you say too much, but we believe the opposite to be true. If you’re crystal clear on your wants vs. your needs and the use cases you insist on seeing, you will empower yourself to have a stronger position at the negotiating table, not a weaker one. You will have told the salesperson what you need and if you’re not getting it, you can say “no” without worry—and walk away.

The post Empowered Email Marketing Software Buying, 7 Tips appeared first on Email vendor selection.

But do you realize just how important customer support is to your bottom line? More than you’d think, let’s see how that works.

I would argue that good customer support is so important to your success (and ROI) that you are better off with an ESP that’s a good fit with excellent customer support vs. an ESP that’s a great fit with mediocre support.

You need comprehensive customer support

Customer support is not something you’ll only need periodically or when you have a problem. It’s something that should be available to you in some form 24×7. That’s why it’s called support.

If you invest more money to get a more powerful ESP, but you can’t use that ESP to the full extent because you haven’t received the right degree of support and guidance, then aren’t you losing money? You’re paying for the power and features, but not using them fully. Therefore, you’re not getting your money’s worth.

In my opinion, it makes more sense financially to invest in an ESP that will help guide you, to enable you to take full advantage of the platform.

In this scenario, you’re going to be able to use that ESP to its fullest extent, getting all of your money’s worth out of the platform, its features and its power, and therefore optimizing your ROI. It might turn out that the best ESP is mid-tier in size because many mid-tier ESPs today can compete with the top-tier ESPs, serving clients with large-scale, complex email marketing programs.

How to find the ESP with the support worth the cost

When you’re researching ESPs, it’s not as if you can go to them with these concerns and get straightforward answers. Of course they are going to believe their support is all you’ll ever need. No, you need to be proactive in your research. Try this advice for help:

• Set a clear plan for what kind of support you want. What does it look like for setup, training, troubleshooting, and on an ongoing basis? Is there premium support and how much does it cost?
• Look at the next 18 to 24 months of marketing evolution you plan to achieve. How much will you rely on the capabilities of the ESP?
• Review options in the Service Level Agreement
• Talk to customers of the ESPs you’re considering and see if that platform can support your existing and future needs by asking about their experiences. Ask specifically about setup, training, problem-solving, day-to-day support and any customizing or integrations that were above and beyond the typical support. Do they fully use the platform? Are their issues dealt with in a timely fashion? What was training like? Decide which issues or concerns are the most important to your goals and ask about those.
• Look at the available service channels for support and customer success

A powerful platform with poor support is not worth the money

As ESPs evolve and grow in size, their platforms tend to grow in complexity, as they add functionality, integrations, cross-channel marketing, reporting, and much more. Some of these features are user-friendly like drag-and-drop journey builders.

But often they are complicated to use and therefore don’t get used—or at least not used to their full capacity. And sometimes it’s a five-figure spend to get that part of the functionality enabled for you to use!
When that happens, you’ve invested in a very expensive ESP in part because of the powerful features offered by the platform, yet you can’t use these powerful features because you’re not getting the training and support—or because you can’t afford it—which means you’re not going to get your money out of this expensive investment.

And it’s not just the money: You invested a lot of time and effort into choosing that ESP, migrating over, and getting ramped up, not to mention the time spent on training.

The four parts to support and why they matter

There are four areas where you need to be able to lean heavily on the ESP’s support in order to maximize your investment in and use of that ESP…

First, at the very start, with setup and training

Two critical pieces must be in place from the very start of your relationship with this new ESP. One is the setup and the other is the training. For the setup, it’s imperative that your data, integrations and automations are set up correctly from day one.

As for training, if the ESP doesn’t provide the initial training to the degree needed to ensure everyone on your team really knows how to make the most of the platform and features, then you are screwed. This also applies to the training of new employees you might hire during the duration of your relationship with that ESP.

Second, when something breaks

As much effort as ESPs put into their technologies, things will break. That’s to be expected and doesn’t necessarily reflect poorly on the ESP. However, if something does break, quits working or not work correctly, you as the client need that problem resolved right away. You need a prompt response from the ESP recognizing the problem, and resolution as soon as possible.

Without that immediate resolution, you’re unable to fully function on your end and your email marketing program will suffer. The degree to which it suffers will depend on large part to one how big the problem is, and two, how sophisticated your program is.

Technical Support Nerds that are very knowledgable are often a better choice. And sometimes they wear cool matching plaid shirts.

If the problem is only that your reporting is not working right that’s one thing, but if you’re suddenly unable to send email to any Gmail accounts, or your automated emails aren’t being triggered, or something else goes awry, then you’re losing money and potentially customers as they become annoyed with your brand and move elsewhere.

Deliverability, in particular, is a big issue. What if you can’t send to Gmail accounts? What if Comcast blacklists you? What if your deliverability plummets, and you have no idea why? A customer support team that can dig in and find answers—and solutions—for you is worth its weight in gold, almost literally, because every email not delivered is potential revenue lost.

Third, support on a daily basis and Customer Success

The third is the least commonly provided but just as important as the first two: the day-to-day support. You and your staff will only learn a limited amount during the initial training. As you use the platform and master the features, you’ll want to get more advanced and use the features that made this platform so appealing in the first place. However, you will likely need some help. Who will be there to show you how to easily execute sophisticated campaigns, if anyone?

And it’s not just wanting to become masters of more of the features. Amazing customer support means someone is paying attention to what you’re doing on a regular basis, not just leaving you to flounder.

It means that someone looking at how your data is set up, how well you’re optimizing your campaigns, how well you’re using the features you have mastered. It’s less like support, and more like ongoing guidance.

Fourth, when you’re ready to go to the next level

The fourth is supporting your evolving needs. When you’re ready to go to the next level, with deeper segmentation, more dynamic content, more sophisticated integrations, or more complexity overall, you want to know your ESP will be there to help you make it happen…without an exorbitant expense.

There’s the strategic guidance, but you also need to know how to use the platform to get to the next level. That might mean digging deeper into the functionality, knowing how to use the tool systematically vs. doing tasks manually, or having someone on the backend who can get the task done faster than you can by doing it through the interface.

When you’re ready to go from A to B, you want the ESP to help you understand the best way to get there, including going as far as building something for you if you need it.

The importance of great support

The importance of good support can’t be overstated, especially when you weigh that support against the money you’ll invest in the ESP. A platform with poor support is not worth the money if you can’t get your money’s worth out of the investment because the support isn’t there to guide you. Dig really deep into these support issues well before you decide that a certain ESP is the right one for you.

And get your money’s worth.

The post Choosing Features Over Support? Good Bye, ROI! appeared first on Email vendor selection.

The demo stage is when the ESP’s sales team has to start walking their talk, switching from words to action, from “tell me” to “show me.”

Why plan an email marketing demo?

Would you buy a car without test driving it first? (OK, I’ve done that, but only for a vintage car halfway across the world… doesn’t count!) I would never buy a family car without test driving it first. Nor would you sign a contract with a new ESP without seeing a useful demo of the platform first.

This is, of course, after you’ve narrowed down the field to at least a short list. The demo is where the pedal meets the metal. It plays a key role in the vendor selection process. Take it seriously.

Beware the canned demo

But a canned demo won’t do. You need to see more detail than a canned demo will show you. In our experience at ClickMail, nine times out of 10 when a client comes to us unsatisfied shortly after having moved to a new ESP, it turns out that they didn’t dig in deep enough to make sure the platform could do what they wanted to do. They settled for the canned demo and only realized later that they should have asked to see more before signing a contract with that ESP.

A canned demo is never good enough

A canned demo is okay as a starting point. You can accept a general demo to get a general impression. However, you can’t accept a canned demo as a “good enough” representation of whether the platform can meet your functionality needs. If the ESP only wants to show you canned demos – meaning the demos they choose to show that are the same for every prospect – ask to see a demo specific to your needs instead.

The problem with the canned demo is that it is controlled by the sales person, who is showing you what he or she wants to show you, while that is often not the whole story. These kinds of presentations are often also very smooth, as if they have done it dozens and dozens of times (which they probably have). And there might just be a man behind the curtain.

If they can’t or won’t show you a demo based on one of your use cases, it’s time to step back from the negotiating table and focus on the next ESP on your short list.

Insist on use cases relevant to your business

To really learn from the demo stage of the process, give the ESP three use cases that are specific to your email marketing program today, or things you want to be able to do in the future. Ask them to demo those use cases for you.

Try to make one or two of them more complicated, and set five parameters for each and some rules. Tell the ESP to literally show you how it can be done using their platform. And ask a lot of questions. Don’t make assumptions.

Those use cases might be automated and triggered email programs, segmentation, automated testing, personalization and dynamic content, or something that has annoyed you with your current system.

Remember, you’re going through the demo stage because you’re still comparing email systems to determine which one is the best email marketing software for you. Be very wary of these red flags!

Better still, take it for a test drive

Let’s say you walk into a car dealership for a test drive, but the salesperson wants you to sit in front of a computer screen and watch a simulated test drive instead. Will that satisfy your need to feel how the car handles? How it brakes, turns, accelerates, maneuvers? Not at all.

What if the salesperson at the car dealership let you get into the car, but only on the passenger side, and they insisted on doing the driving? Would that count as a test drive in your mind? No, it wouldn’t.

In a similar way, you can learn a lot about the ESP platform if you can actually test drive it. See if you can “get the keys” for a couple of days. Let key users give it a try—your programmers, IT department, creative people, email staff—whoever will be using it should get a chance to give feedback. When you access the platform, make sure a test set of your data is accessible for segmentation, automation, and personalization. Try to make an email or set up an automation. Send trial emails internally or to your seed list to go through the whole process.

One (big) caveat to this: There is a risk that because you won’t be fully trained on the platform, so you might assume you can’t do a particular task when in reality it’s only that you don’t know how to do it. Be aware that you don’t know exactly how to “drive” this platform and ask the ESP if you need help figuring it out.

Just as you’d insist on a real test drive of that new car, you should try for a real test drive of that ESP platform—or at the very least, some very specific use cases pertinent to your email marketing program and goals. And no matter what, do not except a canned demo as a real representation of what the platform can or can’t do.

The post Canned demos don’t work, do this instead appeared first on Email vendor selection.

On the other hand, I see others choosing an ESP that costs more, but also offers more. Which path will you choose?

Why do email service providers charge such different prices?

ESPs differ in price in part because a lower-end one will offer less functionality and support, and therefore costs less, compared to a higher-end (and higher-priced) ESP that offers much more functionality.

With the lower-end ESP, you’re typically limited to what you can do and usually, you only have one way to do a task. That means you might find out, for example, that the third-party data you wanted to use in your new automation initiative can’t be accessed—because it’s not available in that part of the platform.

Do you always get what you pay for?

On the other end of the scale, an ESP can be pricey because the platform offers all kinds of functionality, enabling you to segment using relational databases, do multivariate testing, use drag-and-drop automation, integrate with third-party data sources, and much, much more. The challenge with these platforms is typically support and the cost of implementing more sophisticated campaigns.

Support and expertise as the middle layer

The reality of “you get what you pay for” applies to support too. While the lower-priced ESP that offers fewer buttons to push will be easier to learn and use, if you need advice, you’re often limited in how much help you get. The higher-priced ESP with the sophisticated platform will take more time to ramp up on—and as you master the various features and functionality, you’ll likely need help with each new one.

You’ll need their assistance at implementation to ensure everything is set up right. Then you’ll need their support as a kind of “middle layer” to make sure you can do more and more with the platform moving forward.

Consider this analogy: You might be able to fly a Cessna, but you’ll be overwhelmed by the cockpit of a 747, so you’ll need a pilot to help you out. It’s the same with the higher-end ESP: You need expertise and guidance, someone who will help you get what you paid for out of the system.

Paying for expertise beyond the platform

Then there’s the expertise you need beyond simply using the platform. Because let’s face it, if email were easy, we wouldn’t have—or need—email marketing services. We would simply do it all in-house. But email is far from easy. It’s complex, ever-changing, and made up of all kinds of little moving parts that can have a big impact on your end results.

In order to get the Outcomes, the combination of in-house and ESP needs to be able to offer the right level of Capacity and Ability.

Maybe that’s why so many businesses switch ESPs because they are unhappy with the customer service they’re getting. The businesses need the assistance in order to fully make use of the ESP platform as well as to optimize their email marketing programs to maximize their ROI. But they often can’t do it alone.

When spending more money upfront can mean more ROI later

This matters more than you might think because, over the long run, the customer who paid more for the ESP initially can come out financially ahead later on. They’re able to make incremental improvements to their email program, thereby improving deliverability, open rates and click throughs. Those incremental improvements that lead to better engagement, deliverability, and eventually sales can more than make up for spending a little more on the ESP at the outset.

Make sure you know what you’re getting with that ESP

Most of the complaints we hear at ClickMail are from companies getting nickeled and dimed for little things that they assume they should be able to do in the platform when they selected it. We also hear from companies that are frustrated because they don’t get a lot of deliverability help when they have issues getting into the inbox. Companies also complain to us that they have to pay in order to get premium customer support—usually because they wrongly assumed that level of service and support would be part of their contractual agreement with the ESP.

Consider just the deliverability issue for a minute: What if you’re having deliverability issues with Gmail? Will the low-cost ESP
1) be willing to help you and
2) have the knowledge to help you?

Can they help a client go from a 2% open rate with Gmail to a 22% open rate? It can take time and effort to fix deliverability issues, but it’s worth it because any email not opened might as well be an email not sent in the first place.

And what if you want to customize?

This is also true when an organization wants to add a new level of customization to their email program, one that has the potential to dramatically improve the communications to their customers and prospects, and increase their ROI. This is where it’s less about the cost and more about the ESP. If a company wants a customized dashboard built, for example, they obviously wouldn’t expect to get that for free. However, choosing the cheapest ESP at the outset means the ESP might not have the expertise or ability to do the project at all.

The three most common requests I see are for additions that have the potential to be game changers for the marketer, yet the cheap ESP might not be able to deliver them. They are:

• Custom reporting capabilities
• Adding data and being able to access it in automations, segmentation and content
• Adding triggers or automation via an intuitive interface

Not every ESP has the capabilities, knowledge, or resources to tackle projects like these, forcing the customer to turn to a third-party vendor or move to another platform – both of which can be a substantial additional cost.

Why cut corners on something that’s already so cheap?

Email has the highest ROI per dollar out of all your marketing options, so I don’t understand why so many marketers want to choose the cheapest ESP when email is already cheap to begin with. In my opinion, it makes a lot more sense to invest in an ESP that offers the best suited capabilities and right level of support to draw on those resources to create an email marketing program that’s constantly improving—and increasing in ROI.

When the cost per send is so low with email marketing and the ROI so high, why cut corners on your ESP? You’re already ahead financially simply by using email. Focus on your results and spend a little more for the expertise.

The post Choosing an ESP; You Get What You Pay for—so Pay for More appeared first on Email vendor selection.

So dig up some dirt. Ask some hard questions. Do your due diligence.

Go beyond what the ESP’s sales team tells you to get the real numbers and answers so you can make a better choice.

There is no such thing as the perfect ESP. Sorry. If there were, we wouldn’t have over 100 to choose from! No, every email service provider is like every one of us: a mixture of strengths and weaknesses, good points and bad ones.

First, What’s the Difference between ESPs?

In my experience, ESP features tend to follow a version of the 80/20 rule: They all do the same 80% (although the various ESPs accomplish it using varying technology). While you want to make sure they do it well, the 20% differentiation is where you look to pick the platform that will grow with you.

Before you get caught up in any bells and whistles of extra features, be crystal clear on those advanced esp features you’ll actually use, those of medium importance, and those that you would like to have but can live without. Then stick to that list. Time and time again I see clients asking for a feature they never end up using. You want to avoid getting sucked in by the shiny object syndrome, with “cool” features that you don’t need now or won’t realistically use in the next 18 months. To be sure, try the Shiny Things test here.

Once you’ve done that homework, it’s time to look at the differentiators touted by the ESP you’re considering. In all honesty, ESPs vary only a little in the main functionality offered. That’s the 80% they all do the same. However, how they function can differ, so really pay attention to the interface. How something gets done is as important as what is getting done, because if it’s difficult to do, it probably won’t get done.

Now you can look at the 20% that’s different but look at it through the lens of, “What do we realistically need?” like we talked about above. Also look at the features offered by the ESP you’re leaving. Were there any you thought you needed but never did use (or figure out)? Which features did you actually use? Which ones did you wish for? Let this insight inform how you view your next ESP choice.

Second, Does That ESP Deliver?

We could talk about delivering on promises here, and that is a concern! But I am specifically talking about deliverability. In truth, deliverability is not the ESP’s job. It’s yours. However, the ESP should be bolstering your results by doing everything they can to ensure the highest possible deliverability rates for their platform.

So what does that look like? Don’t simply ask them for a number. They could come back and tell you their clients average a 96.2% deliverability rate, and that is meaningless. For one thing, that could mean someone is down at 80% if you’re averaging. More importantly, you need to know the deliverability rate you can expect for your emails, not someone else’s emails.
You, ultimately, are the one who determines your deliverability rate for your organization, by adhering to email deliverability best practices.

(image source 250OK)

The ESP needs to be on your team to make sure they are only enhancing your efforts. To dig deep into their deliverability capabilities, ask:

• Which deliverability tools are built into the platform?
• Does the platform allow you to measure Inbox Placement Rate (IPR)?
• How does the ESP monitor deliverability?
• What will the ESP do if you have deliverability problems?
• Is there a team of deliverability experts in-house? What is their training, experience and skill set?
• Is there support for both dedicated and shared IP addresses?
• What kind of sender reputation support is offered?
• Is there real-time monitoring and alerting for blacklisting, domain blocking and abuse reporting?
• Which types of authentication does the platform offer? SPF, DomainKeys, DKIM and/or DMARC?

Third, What Does Downtime Really Look Like?

When your ESP’s platform is down, you lose the ability to send not only manual but automated emails too. That means downtime is a really big deal.

No ESP can guarantee you 100% uptime. (If one does, turn and run the other way.) When an ESP tells you a downtime, dig deeper than the number they give you. If the ESP tells you their downtime is X, verify it, and do the math, keeping in mind that even a tiny percentage of downtime can mean a huge issue for you. You might think 99% uptime sounds great, but what’s 99% of 365? The answer is 361.35 days…leaving 3.65 days of downtime.

Talk to customers of that ESP about their experiences with downtime. What is the reality? How often does it happen? How is it handled? Is the ESP proactive when it happens?
Also ask the ESP some questions to learn more, like how often do they release updates that require a temporary service suspension? How much unplanned downtime have they experienced in the last 24 months? What caused it and what did they do about it?

Fourth, the SLA, a.k.a. When Things Go Wrong…

OK, it’s a miserable job, but someone has to read the Service Level Agreement — maybe not you, but someone. It’s not a perfect world (and remember there are no perfect ESPs) and something could go wrong, as much as we hope it won’t. What recourse is provided should the Service Level Agreement (SLA) not be met? Know that going into the relationship with a new ESP, so you won’t get any ugly surprises later.

While reading through the SLA (or having someone give you the highlights of it), you will probably realize it says nothing about compensation should things go wrong.

Remember my earlier point about downtime? If you lose money due to an outage or some other glitch that prevents you from using the ESP’s platform, you probably won’t get reimbursed. So really pay attention to that ESP’s performance record and ask a lot of questions. Dig deep.

Lastly, Is Your Data Safe?

Your customers and subscribers trust you with their personal information—not the ESP, but you. Protecting that data is your job, but there is a vulnerability you can’t avoid because you have to use that data in order to use that ESP. That means your ESP must guard the data as diligently as you do.

(Source: Gemalto Breach Level Index)

Security should extend beyond the platform to cover access to the network as well as local access from the platform facility. Before evaluating the security capabilities of any ESP, be clear on the requirements of your organization and industry, and the level of security wanted or mandated.

Ask the ESP about audit trails and security tools. Do they provide monitoring and alerts? What about data breaches? Has the ESP had a data breach? If so, when and what steps were taken to prevent a recurrence?

Then get granular: Does the vendor offer encrypted fields for email? Does the vendor offer tokenized sending?

While these might seem like almost confrontational questions, it’s worth the time (and discomfort) to seek out the answers. You don’t want to be switching ESPs any time soon, right? And investing more time now can help you make a better choice. Besides, the ESPs might also be vetting you. You present a potential risk to the ESP and they need to make sure having you as a client won’t damage their sending reputation (or make their lives miserable). This is such a serious matter that Andrew Bonar compiled a list of resources for ESPs for the OnlyInfluencers blog.

Switching ESPs is always a hassle, so make sure you’re switching to an ESP that’s going to work for you for a long time. Be willing to dig deep and ask a lot of questions, about even seemingly minor issues. You might just uncover some dirt that will save you from bigger issues later.

The post 5 Things you need to know beyond what the ESP’s salespeople tell you appeared first on Email vendor selection.

Why go this route? Because it just might be cheaper, faster and better compared to buying directly from the ESP. Here’s why…

You get the best of both worlds

When you use an ESP through a third party, you still get all the powerful features that ESP platform offers. However, you also benefit from dealing with the smaller size agency that can offer personalized service in a way a large ESP can’t. Which leads me to the next reason…

You might get better customer service

Anecdotally, organizations switch email service providers every two or three years due, in large part, to poor customer service. And really, ESPs aren’t in the business of customer service: They are in the business of software. For many ESPs, offering services is just a necessary evil. They try to offer the service you’ll need, but it’s simply not their core business.

So what if you didn’t have to put up with poor customer service? You don’t, when you skip the ESP and go with the third party. Working with a smaller agency means you could get better service, and also more personal.

Fewer people on staff means you’re more likely to talk to the same person each time you call with an issue. Think how much time you’ll save if you get to talk to someone who already knows you, your email marketing program, and any issues that you’re dealing with, rather than having to explain everything all over again.

You get access to a bigger ESP’s platform

While you’ll have to meet a minimum to work with a bigger ESP–as in minimum pricing or send volume–you shouldn’t have such a minimum when working with a reseller. The reseller already has enough size because they are reselling the use of the ESP platform to several clients: They can justify the cost and volume. That gives you access to a top-tier ESP without requiring that you pay the top-tier price or email at that kind of scale.

Your email marketing program might be smaller, but that doesn’t mean you won’t want to take advantage of the power offered by a large ESP’s platform. Buying through a third party lets you to do just that.

You get industry expertise

ESPs are very good at what they do…but that also means they must stay focused on what they do: the development and constant improvement of their platforms.
On the other hand, an agency, consultant or other kind of reseller has the time (and the need) to be experts in the field, keeping up with constantly changing technologies and trends.

When you choose the third party access to the ESP rather than buying directly from the ESP, you have access to a degree of expertise you’d otherwise have to pay for separately—increasing your costs, but also complicating matters because the outside consultant won’t be an integral part of your email marketing program from the start. Start with the consultant first, and they will.

You get smoother, faster, easier implementations

Does anyone look forward to an ESP migration? I doubt it. Migrations can be time-consuming hassles and seriously slow down your email marketing momentum until you’re fully up and running on the new platform. When you go through a third party instead, however, a lot of the migration work will be done for you. In addition, it will be done by people who have done multiple migrations and implementations, making them much faster at it than you’ll ever want to be.

You get those customizations finally

When you buy directly from a top-tier ESP then find you need customization, you could be in for a very long wait. When you buy through a reseller, however, your needs are a higher priority because you a) have fewer clients competing for limited resources, and b) the reseller is not consumed with the management of the platform the way an ESP’s team is. It might not be the agency that does the customization, but the agency can help make it happen—on a much faster schedule than an ESP can.

You can skip the RFP process

When you choose to work with a third-party vendor rather than buy directly from an ESP, you save yourself time and hassle because you can skip the cumbersome RFP process. Imagine all those hours spent putting the RFP together, combing through responses, coming up with a short list, meeting with ESP salespeople. Now imagine getting all of those hours back and being able to devote them to generating email ROI instead. Do you still want to do an RFP?

You might get to do a trial run

Some third-party vendors such as agencies and consultants will let you take an ESP for a test drive to make sure it’s a good fit. Although ESP interfaces are in general easy and intuitive to use, you’ll still benefit from an actual hands-on trial run…not a demo version. An agency or consultant can offer that trial run.

Tips for choosing that third-party vendor

If all of these benefits have you convinced that you might be better off with a consultant, agency or VAR, the next question is, how do you choose one? Just as ESPs differ, so do the vendors.
If you’ve already chosen an ESP, ask which certifications the vendor has related to that ESP. Also ask for specific examples showing how that VAR or agency made a difference for a client.
Review the Service Level Agreement (SLA) and, of course, ask for references. Find out if the vendor has a different way in to the ESP platform than you would have as a client.

If you haven’t yet chosen an ESP, look for a reseller that can help you choose one. Does that reseller represent ESPs in the right size for your organization (i.e. top tier, SMB, mid market). Do they resell more than one ESP? You want a vendor that will set you up with the best fit for you, not them. Do they publish guides or whitepapers to help with ESP selection? Is the pricing lower than you’d pay buying directly from the ESP? Will you have a dedicated account manager?

Consider the skill set of the reseller, whether you have an ESP picked out or not. Although your situation might require a different list of capabilities, in general you’ll want proof of expertise in:
o Strategy
o Deliverability
o Deployment
o List management
o Customization and integration
o Design
o Testing
o Segmentation
o Personalization
o Dynamic content
o Automation
o Analytics
o Compliance

In addition, you might have particular needs in areas such as SMS or international email marketing. Obviously, you’ll want to ask about those capabilities as well.
When it comes to ESPs, you have a lot of choices, although only a few are likely to be a good fit. Increase your likelihood of success by considering working with a reseller instead.

Check out our review of the best software reseller programs to find out which tools have resellers and agencies in their network.

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