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Email Newsletters. Where To Find Evaluation Of Best Software?
Posted By: dsmith* on 7/11/2004 9:16 PM (CST) 250 Points
We are ready to launch an email marketing campaign. Should we outsource and use an ASP? Or should we buy a software package and do inhouse? For each solution, where can we find an independent rating study?

Posted by: Inactive Member Moderator Response
7/11/2004 10:16 PM (CST)
Hi,
Not sure if I can help too much on this, although as the publisher of MarketingProfs I can at least tell you a few things to think about.

First you need to think about whether you mind giving your database of user information out to an ASP source. For our site, because each user's email address is stored with other information we need, I didn't want to give an ASP the whole database table. That would have been ok if we weren't signing up so many people each day such that I'd have to upload the database to the ASP's site each time we wanted to send out a newsletter.

Of course, having said that, I did find a company (Cheetahmail) that we use but I had to write an API to sync our databases together on a continuous basis. Other companies have this same capability now, but I like Cheetahmail for other reasons.

Another thing I've learned about ASPs is that they differ, not so much in terms such as features, but in their speed of constructing various ways to break out email list, such as segmenting based on when the user signed up, opened the last email, etc. This is an experience that you would need to test out with any ASP you are thinking about using. Don't take their word for it, make sure you actually can test it out by uploading a bunch of data and seeing what you can really do with it.

As for software systems, which is something we built when the site was small and still use with our Know-How Newsletter, they tend to work fine as long as your list is small (say, less than 10,000). They have many fine features but the most important for a list of any size is how long it would take to send out the newsletter. Even on a dedicated machine it could take an hour or so just to send out your newsletter to a large list.

So while you're making your decision be sure to think about these issues, since even if they aren't relevant now, they could be extremely relevant if your newsletter list grows. This is something I needed to learn through experience as we grew from 500 to over 100,000.

Best of luck.
 
Posted by: Pepper Blue Accepted Answer
7/12/2004 12:27 AM (CST)
Hi dmsith,

Allen has given some good advice, here is what I see happening on my side of the email marketing world:

If this is you first foray into e-newsletters, the quickest, cheapest, easiest, most goof-proof and most effective way to go is without question using an ASP.

Why? Because they do all the back-end stuff that will take you a long-time and a lot of money to accomplish, and for the most part they do it very, very well, very inexpensively.

For example: Secure, redundant backed up databases. Multiple IP addresses. Well-trained 800 customer service. Good online help. Detailed bounceback and block code interpretation. Granular send, open and clickthrough statistics. Major ISP whitelisting and fulltime antispam and "stay on the ISP whitelist" staff. Easy to use HTML template. Automatic MIME formatting. The list goes on.

If you start sending out email blasts from your server or your ISP's server and you get enough spam complaints, and you will get spam complaints, and you get blacklisted, you are own your own trying to get re-whitelisted, and the reality is nobody is going to listen to you - but they will talk to the ASPs.

This alone is reason enough for most people to not go in-house.

I have not seen an independant "PC Magazine" type study and if I did, I wouldn't hold much faith in it because this can be a very subjective decision-making process. Your wants and needs are completely different than the next company.

All the ASPs offer free trials - 1 month, 2 months, 100 subscribers, 500 subscribers, it is all over the place, so a good first step is to start signing up (see list below) and trying them out.

As far as recommendations go, every company on this list is established and respected, with pricing to fit every budget and goal.

Constant Contact
Exact Target
Emma
Bigfoot Interactive
CheetahMail
Digital Impact
EchoMail
Responsys
Silverpop
Yesmail
IMN
Tailored Mail

I hope that helps, if you want to discuss this in more detail, click on my name and contact me!
 
Posted by: santafescribbler* Accepted Answer
7/13/2004 11:18 AM (CST)
For me, the big issue is getting past spam filters. I've always just sent out my own newsletters for various employers and clients (I'm currently working for the State of New Mexico). Just recently outsourced (to Sparklist for one, to Vertical Response for another) - largely to get data on clickthroughs, responses, etc. However I find that I'm running into Spam Assasin all over the place and my newsletters aren't getting through to many key readers (and of course the more key the readers the better their corporation's spam filters).
So I'm considering the balance between great data on my outbound marketing versus the possibility that 20% of my marketing doesn't reach its audience......
 
Posted by: Val (Moderator)* Moderator Response
7/31/2004 10:16 PM (CST)
Hello all. I am closing this question since it's more than 2 weeks old. We do this to reward the contributions of participants in a timely manner + to give increased visibility to the newer questions.

Thanks, so much, for participating!

Val (Moderator)
 


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