This weeks post comes from a good friend of mine. Boris Bugarski, CEO mUrgent Corp. Boris is recognized in direct email marketing as an expert. He has spent over a decade online building internet centric businesses and mastering internet enabled technology. I’m sharing a recent article he wrote for the International Franchise Association monthly magazine. I thought everyone I know should be aware of the important role direct email marketing service providers play in any online business (or offline businesses using online marketing solutions in their marketing mix). I was a founding user of mUrgent direct email marketing technology and have always loved the ease of use I’ve found in their system. I hope you find this article helpful and informational. Happy mailing.20 Questions For Evaluating An E-mail Service Provider
By Boris Bugarski
April 24, 2006
With e-mail marketing heating up in 2006 as one of the strongest returns on marketing investment, many concept owners are looking at service providers to leverage the expertise and provide compliance for federal laws. When searching for the right e-mail service provider it is best to ask the right questions.
Consider using these 20 questions to help clarify which ESP best suits the marketing efforts of your business.
1. What type of services do you offer?
This question should uncover whether the company is spread too thin for marketing dollars across a fast array of services or has a direct focus on a specific industry, which in turn means expertise that your members can trust.
2. Do you offer bounce handling and opt-out management? Do you prepare bounce and opt-out reporting for reverse database cleansing?
A “bounce” is caused from an e-mail that is sent to a recipient and rejected since it is no longer in use by anyone (hard bounce); it had an illegal character ($,%,^; hard bounce); or the mailbox was full (soft bounce).
The server the e-mail resides on rejects it for these reasons and sends it back to the e-mail server that sent the e-mail. Handling these bouncers should result in cleaning them out of the database and reporting to the “client” a list of the bounces so that they may clean their database as well (reverse cleaning). If they are not cleaned, it will result in poor open rates and campaign performance.
An opt-out report should be sent to notify any company of their current opt-in and opt-out subscribers. Knowing the number of opt-out subscribers is important to address issues, to name a few:
If an increase in opt-outs occurs it can be due to:
• Content or offers that are not relevant,
• Content that was not asked for,
• Too many e-mails being sent to the recipients to often,
• Incorrect opt-in procedures–non-CAN SPAM compliance.
3. Do you have an Internet Service Provider Relations person?
ISP relations are important for an ESP because of the possible blocking of e-mails that an ISP does due to “recipient complaints. It is important that someone constantly monitor which ISPs are blocking e-mails so that contact can be made to explain why the e-mails are being sent and to establish a connection without being blocked.
4. Are you white listed with major ISPs?
With strong ISP relationships, an ESP may be put on a white list with a particular ISP. When you are considered a spammer, you are put on a “black list” or blocked from sending e-mail into a particular ISP. When you are “white-listed” that ISP trusts the ESP and places them on a list as a legitimate sender, thereby allowing all e-mail from the ESP to be sent through their network.
5. Do you belong to the Bonded Sender or Habeas e-mail accreditation services?
Bonded Sender and Habeas are legitimate e-mail marketing accreditation services that organizations, including ESPs, can be certified under. For instance, Bonded Sender identifies legitimate e-mail traffic for the benefit of e-mail senders and receivers.
Originators of legitimate e-mail post a financial bond to guarantee the integrity of their e-mail campaign. ISPs and corporations use the Bonded Sender Program to identify bonded e-mail and ensure it is delivered to the recipient’s inbox.
6. What is your primary target industry?
This question should address whether they focus on a particular industry and whether additional expertise can be gained by your customers.
7. Are you focused on a particular segment of the
industry?
Small business versus enterprise? This is to verify that a particular ESP has interest in serving a broader audience or just a specific larger or smaller group.
8. Do your services differ for small vs. enterprise
businesses?
An ESP should offer services that are similar for small and enterprise businesses. What failed in the customer relationship management industry is that the larger CRM programs were stripped of features to make them affordable to small businesses–the result was unhappy customers who wanted those features. It is important that all services offered by an ESP can be delivered to small, mid and enterprise members at an affordable price so that it levels the “playing field” for all members who want e-mail marketing services, rather than price discriminating.
9. How do you perform implementation for your
customers?
Implementation is everything when it comes to strategy and tactics for an effective e-mail marketing (and all marketing) plan. Try to uncover if the ESP has the effective and efficient tools to conduct a strong implementation schedule for small to enterprise businesses. It is the key ingredient for short and long term success, and has been a big topic among companies that are not seeing results with some providers.
10. Do you offer HTML validation and spam filter
checking?
From Yahoo! Mail and GMail to Outlook 2003 and Eudora, people have been using different programs for viewing and checking e-mail. To create a standard for how an e-mail will look in each “view panel” the Worldwide Web Consortium (WW3) has come up with a set of accepted HTML standards that most programs use to view the HTML. Compliance with the accepted standards of the consortium is important when designing an e-mail campaign so that it “looks” and “acts” the same in each browser and view panel. Validating the HTML code according to the standards, and checking them against spam filters is important for, not only deliverability and consistency, but for total effectiveness and maximized click through rate potential.
11. Do you offer black list monitoring, feedback loop
set-up, abuse board monitoring, ISP relations and mediation, and support for coming authentication standards?
Black list monitoring is much the same as ISP relations, however, the monitoring is done based on black lists that ISPs look to. Black lists, such as RBL lists, are popular resources for ISPs. When people complain about SPAM they actually send the e-mails to Black list providers. These providers check the e-mail and, if complaints are high about a particular sender, they place them on a list that ISPs frequently check with their e-mail servers. When an ESP sends an e-mail to a recipient, the chances of the ISP clearing it with a black list are high before letting it continue to the recipient. If the sender is on the black list, the e-mail will be rejected or “tagged” as SPAM, and the ESP or network it came from will be recorded. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly monitor and contact the Black list, abuse boards and other feedback loops setup for catching spammers. By being compliant with the CAN SPAM authentication standards, the chance of landing on a black list is narrow; however, from time to time it can happen.
12. Do you publish your SPF records?
The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) was developed by Microsoft and pushed by major ISPs and e-mail networks. Basically, it is a small identifier in the back code of every e-mail sent by a sender telling a network that they are who they say they are. An SPF record essentially is an identification tag. Spammers are notorious for not publishing one because they are usually not who they say they are. Moreover, ESPs who publish their SPF records have higher deliverability rates than those that do not.
13. How does your network handle redundancy?
Because data is stored on a server, be sure that the ESP has certain practices to back up the data in case of an outage or accident. As well, be sure the ESP has standards in place to have their network running in any emergency or power outage, or in the case of their “data lines” failing due to their data service provider.
14. Who owns the data?
Be sure that the data is not used, rented or sold to third parties and is kept private for your members only.
15. What type of promotions materials do you include
with your pricing?
It is important that an ESP understand the marketing aspects of the program. ESPs tend to be technical and not having a marketing assistant is detrimental to the success of your marketing efforts. In addition, knowing how to promote an e-mail marketing club to your customers is vital to successful implementation and list growth.
16. Do you offer data entry services?
Too often data entry is not included or is too expensive for the small business to leverage e-mail marketing for success. Having an ESP that includes data entry affordably for small to enterprise business is important.
17. What do you see is the most important issue in
starting an e-mail marketing service for “my type of business”?
These marketing questions will uncover whether the ESP has marketing staff on board to assist the client in a successful ROI with the program. Ask additional marketing questions to gauge the marketing savvy of an ESP. For small- business owners, talking to a technical person can be overwhelming.
18. Do you offer online tools for your customers to see
progress and reporting?
It is important to know that additional tools are available for the “client” to know where their marketing dollars are at any time.
19. Do you offer packages or is every service custom or built-to-suit?
To further see if the ESP is capable of delivering unique services that fit both small and enterprise needs, this question will uncover if there are smaller “starter kits” available for both small and enterprise companies to test the service. In addition, some smaller companies do not require custom services because of the cost. This question will uncover a suitable pricing plan that may suit your specific needs. Again, if everything is custom, then it can become more expensive.
20. Define your CAN SPAM compliance and procedures of opt-in/opt-out?
It is important to know whether they are meeting the CAN SPAM Act specifications and provide the most effective use of opt-in and opt-out tools for guests. Redundancy in opt-in and opt-out procedures is also a great service to have for an ESP. That is, having multiple ways to opt-in and opt-out–more confidence for the guest in knowing it’s legitimate versus questionable.
Choosing an ESP can be difficult if you don’t know the jargon and beginning your search without a proper plan of attack could be counterproductive. Leverage these 20 questions to get a better understanding of what your choices are and what benefits the potential ESP has to offer. By going through and grasping these 20 important questions you will gain the information for finding the best ESP to fit your needs and reap the rewards of successful e-mail marketing.
Boris Bugarski is CEO and president of mUrgent Corporation.
Best Regards,
Kenenth Knapp
www.homeloancoaches.com
949-294-0403 direct