Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Good Solution For Email Marketing

Posted by Anonymous on 3/28/2008 at 9:21 AM ET 500 Points
Hello,

I'm looking for recommendations of firms that provide flexible, reliable direct email execution (and also offer options like quick direct mail postcards) at a good price.

I'm familiar with Vertical Response, but am looking for what else is out there.

We are not doing huge volumes of direct email - probably about 10k/month across a couple of deployments.

In addition, since I've not done a lot of email promotions, I'd love to hear your advice for key criteria to look for in a provider (and what to look out for).

Many thanks!
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 3/28/2008 at 9:44 AM Accepted
    Unless you're looking for an agency or marketing service to coordinate postal mailings and email promotions, I'm not familiar with a actual "direct" supplier that offers both.

    For wholesale post card printing and mailing, the best two sources I have found are at www.DirectMarketingPrinters.com

    As for the email service, it depends on what target market you're trying to reach for me to recommend a certain company. Most legitimate email services are list brokers/managers, and handle finding you the right list and also the sending. I recommend staying away from someone that offers to sell you the actual list and gives you possession of it to send out. These are most likely harvested emails and not real opt-in lists.

    If you're looking to implement your own in-house email list building, management and sending service, I recommend checking out Aweber: https://tinyurl.com/296jlg
  • Posted on 3/28/2008 at 10:18 AM Author
    Thank you, Schulte!

    The pricing on directmarketing printers is great. I'll definitely look into that for the occasional postcards.

    Aweber looks interesting as well.

    Do all firms that help with set-up and deployment of email marketing require pre-confirmed opt-in client lists? At times, salespeople build their contact database with names from visits and conferences, or they use an industry directory to identify prospects. In these cases, we don't have formal "opt-in" status.

    Thanks!
  • Posted on 3/28/2008 at 11:07 AM Author
    Thank you, Nathan

    I have had experience in the past with email vendors like those you mentioned, which is why we stay away from them.

    The lists used are generated by the sales force, largely through direct contact and use of an industry database. (The industry is institutional financial services.)

    The target market for my client's product is rather small, and we design specific messages for subgroups within the target. That's why the emails tend to be small runs. The response rate has hovered around 1%.

    To answer your questions, we have limited ability in-house to produce HTML. Recently, we've found better success with a direct letter format from the CEO, which is easier than having a designer re-do graphics. However, we'd like a vendor that had flexibility to turn around/troubleshoot html.

    The company does have an email system, and the marketing database is maintained in-house as well. There are email addresses for all contacts.

    There are limited resources for email/list management, however, which makes it appealing to have a provider that can handle de-duping, scheduling and deployment.

    I'll definitely check out ECOA, though, as prospect lists can age.

    Thank you for sharing your expertise.
  • Posted by Ed D on 3/28/2008 at 3:54 PM Accepted
    I like campaignmonitor.com they're cheap, per-per-use, and have rich features.

    Ed D
    ---------------------
    Whamwiki.com
    Just the juicy bits.
  • Posted on 3/28/2008 at 4:10 PM Author
    Thank you, Ed

    I'm getting some great info to sort through.
  • Posted on 3/28/2008 at 6:10 PM Accepted
    Hi Peggy,

    Hope all is well. I worked for an online marketing firm and being worked in this marketing field for more than 3 yrs, I feel there are so many ways to reach your customers, like through direct marketing or telemarketing, email marketing, by advertisement, etc, but the best way is to first reach your customers through email marketing. The reason I would prefer email marketing is because firstly it the execution cost would be low, then it’s the best to reach your target audience and its legal and most importantly it would bring more ROI. There are so many companies who would provide you with the list of customers who had shown interest in these services. But you have to be very careful in this as there are so many companies who just provide junk or old lists without verification and you might end up with spamming these contacts.

    Opt-in email campaign: - List rental based on your specific target market. We will undertake the entire campaign management right from designing, planning and positioning the campaign. With this you can track down details like leads, clicks, email response and opens. All we need is the content for the HTML template and we will undertake the entire campaign management.

    The client would be given a unique Username and a Password and they can login anytime on their convenience to view the live performance of the Campaign. This will help them in knowing:


    1) Number of clicks, leads, email responses and reviews (view the details with contact name, business name, telephone number and email address)

    2) Details and time

    3) Number of unsubscribe

    4) The client can download/ export the above either in Excel or Word format at their convenience.

    Also, view the demo of our nine yards of our Real-Time Email Campaign Tracking by logging in to our website with following user name and password

    www.optinbuilders.com

    Username: demo
    Password: open2007

    Please revert back to me incase if you need any further information.

    Also, Could you help me with your contact information so that I can take you through our email campaign tracking platform.

    Regards
  • Posted on 3/28/2008 at 8:23 PM Author
    Thanks, Shelley!
    I did not know that, and I will check it out.

    Thanks, Everyone!
  • Posted on 3/28/2008 at 8:59 PM Member
    To answer your question, yes, most email services will want you to re-opt everyone on your list back in

    However, since you have salesman, you may want look into this service called oprious. I don't think you'll have to re-opt in when you have salesman doing work similar to what you say. https://tinyurl.com/ypuxmb

    It has other features that may be of great benefit to you too.
  • Posted on 3/30/2008 at 12:18 PM Author
    Thank you, Lori.

    I hadn't heard of this and will check it out!

    Have a great weekend.
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