10 Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs

In every written communication there is always the one line where you want to make your strongest impression, and the world of email marketing is no different. Is it your opening statement? Closing remark? Something in the middle that seals the deal? Nope. In fact, your most important line isn’t found in the body of the message at all. It is your subject line, the only line that your recipients are guaranteed to see once they open their inbox.

With that one short line, you can spur their interest or bore them to tears. The choice is up to you. Mishandled, you will disappear into a yawn and promptly be relegated to the trash (or recycle bin or whatever they’re calling it these days). Properly composed and articulately expressed, you can have a substantial return on a very limited investment. It’s your move.

In order to help you along, here are a few tips for getting the most out of that one solitary line:

Nothing Is Certain: At the risk of starting off on a dour note, there is no surefire formula for subject line success. Just too many variables involved, not the least of which is a constantly changing court of public opinion, whims, and tastes. What may work one time will bomb the very next. A meticulously assembled and well written blurb may generate no reaction at all, while one composed as an afterthought pays off handsomely. That being said:

Support The B Line: If the subject line is the most important element, then the “from” line is a close runner up. Many readers check the “from” line before the subject line. People want to know that the message they are getting is from a reputable source, so when they check that secondary source, make sure it is from a genuine domain name, one that can be responded to. This is an excellent way of branding your email in another location and giving the message some added credibility.

Maximize The Space: Some email programs allow more space in the subject line than others, but most allow for about 50 characters. Sit down and determine how you can best describe the product of service being offered in 50 characters or less. It may sound like a small thing, but a subject line that runs off the edge (and into apparent infinity) is much less likely to be opened than one that is short, concise, and informative.

Personalize: This works wonders. Just having someone’s name on something automatically ups the chances of it being opened and read. Find a program that will allow you to personalize your email marketing efforts. Face it; do you open snail mail addressed to “occupant” or the one with your name on the front? Email is no different. Establishing a personal connection gets you one step closer to the sale.

A Sense Of Urgency: Many purchases are impulse, especially in scenarios where you can see and lay hands on a product. You can’t do that through email, so you have to find other ways of spurring folks to action. Instilling a sense of urgency is the cure here. Setting deadlines like “midnight tonight” or “last day to ensure Christmas delivery” are good. You may even want to utilize a series of emails, starting with “4 Days Left…” and ending with “24 Hours Remaining”. Nobody wants to miss a good deal, and an urgent reminder will often spur folks to take action.

Use Four Letter Words: “Free” is always a good one. It’s not a crime and it’s not false advertising, provided you are actually offering something of value to sweeten the deal, such as free shipping. Just don’t go overboard with exclamation points or all caps (both of which may trigger spam filters), but find a way to add something to make the product that much more appealing.

Ask A Question: Subject lines that pose a question, such as “Are you in debt up to your eyeballs?” or “Looking for the perfect anniversary gift?” are always good because in many cases, we’ve all been there and we want to know the answer. They will open your e-mail to get that answer. As always, make sure your message is relevant to the question asked. If people are asked about refinancing home loans and the message is promoting your home renovation business, you can count on being reported as spam.

Don’t Over Promise: One of my favorite ads was from a car dealership advertising “buy one car, get one free”, a claim that was so over the top that nobody in their right mind bought it, and the whole promotion laid a major egg. Same thing with email. Be honest in your subject line. Flashy come ons and unrealistic expectations will do nothing to grow your business; more likely it will back fire and you will spend months or even years recovering from the fallout. Make sure your subject line accurately reflects the content of the message.

To quote a tired cliché’, you have one chance to make a good first impression. The subject line is that first impression. Take your time. Think on it. And come up with something that will wow your customers and make them want to check you out.

When it comes to maximizing your email marketing list and furthering your brand name or product in the eyes of the public, you’d be amazed at just how many people go out of their way to get it wrong. This isn’t always intentional, but a mistake made in ignorance can be just as detrimental as something done with malice and forethought.

Proper etiquette and good manners play just as much a part in the online world as they do in the real one. You’ll be surprised at just how far some simple respect and courtesy will take you. Here are some common sense suggestions for making your job easier.

Always Ask Permission – I will never forget the first response I got from somebody whose email addy I put on my list without their permission. Let’s just say they were less than pleased, and not likely to do business with me. Always make sure your clients or potential clients are good with the idea of you contacting them from time to time.

Build Your Email Marketing List Yourself – Yes, this takes time, but it is infinitely more preferable than shelling out good money for somebody else’s list, many of which are from questionable sources, and are highly unlikely to produce good results (no matter how “targeted” or “specialized” the seller may claim them to be).

Building your own email marketing list results in quality contacts from people who have actually interacted with you and have demonstrated an interest in hearing from you again in the future. The most obvious benefit is a better experience for the target audience as well as a much higher conversion rate for your business.

Clear Your List Occasionally – Over time, some email addresses will become inactive, and you don’t want to be sending messages out into limbo. Make sure all addresses are valid before sending out a mailing, and you may want to send out a reminder every six months or so asking people to update their information or profile with you. If people unsubscribe to your list, make sure they are actually taken off; once people hit that unsubscribe button, they logically expect to never hear from you again.

Make Sure You Have Something To Say – Don’t just send out an email blast for the sake of having something to send. If you are running a special or a sale or just introduced a new product, that’s one thing, but stopping by just to say “hi” is always a waste of time and effort.

Don’t Assume That Permission Is Forever – Just because someone granted you permission to send them messages doesn’t mean that said permission will still be valid in a year or two. At least once a year, begin one of your messages with the reminder that “You are receiving this email because you signed up for the mailing list at yourname.com”. You should also give them the option to unsubscribe if they wish.

Never Remain Anonymous – Always include a genuine return email address, one that goes to a live person. This will go a long way towards establishing trust with your clients. A company domain name is one of the single largest trust builders you can ever hope for.

Keep It Simple – Plain text emails work best. Not everybody’s computer can handle some of the graphics-heavy messages that are received. What’s the point of sending a message if it isn’t going to be received?

Make Unsubscription Easy – This should preferably be a link that folks can click once and be done. Directing them to another page where they have to fill something out and enter information that you already have is nothing short of frustrating. Provide a simple opt out option.

Run Through The Spam Filter – Certain words or phrases are tripwires for spam filters, and could easily relegate your great and wonderful message to the trash heap. Before sending, run your message to spam filters such as Lyris’ Content Checker. This can tell you how the spam-bots will read and interpret your message. Eliminate questionable words or phrasing and rewrite your content accordingly.

Take It For A Test Drive – Send the message to yourself first, and then go through it, making sure
everything appears as it should, that links work properly, etc. The last thing you want is for eight thousand messages to go out before you discover that an important link is on the fritz. Trust me on this one.

Don’t CC Your List – Doing this means that everybody’s email address is visible to everybody else, and replies are also far more likely to be sent to everyone on the list. BCC is always the better choice, and whenever possible, you want to personalize your messages, something that is impossible to do when using the CC option.

Remember, make the experience as pleasant as possible for the end user. Take the time to compose and assemble your message, and make sure it works as it should before unleashing it on the unsuspecting public. The end result will be much better for you and your product or service.

For my own business, I always tried to get as much mileage out of my email list as I could. I never missed an opportunity to add someone to it, and sadly I did not always wait until I had their permission to do so. Sometimes unrequested adds work, but most of the time they just serve to tick somebody off. It took a while for me to develop an understanding of the practices deemed acceptable for growing my e-mail marketing list and coming by it honestly.

What follows are some suggestions designed to make your email marketing life easier, from those of us who have already experimented with doing it the wrong way a time or twelve….

Ask For It – You have not because you ask not. You want your website to have a form calling people to sign up to receive e-mail updates from your company. If it doesn’t cost them anything, they’re likely to do it. This form should be located on every page of your site with a prominent call to action.

Most email service providers, hereafter known as ESPs, offer some type of tool or program designed to help you create such a form and place it on your site. Once the form has been created, you may need to know some basic HTML in order to install it on your site. Again, place it on every page. You’ll be surprised at how many contacts you get through a simple online signup sheet.

Don’t Go Overboard – Do you remember the popular electronics chain that asked for everything but the name of your dog when buying a pack of batteries? Nobody wants to do business like that, and they certainly don’t want to give up personal information like phone numbers and ages until they’ve established a measure of trust with you. So keep the sign up process simple. All you really need is a name, email address, and maybe their city of residence. If you coordinate e-mail with snail mail projects, then you should certainly ask for a mailing address.

If you treat your prospective customers with respect, then they will eventually share more information with you when you have properly earned their business.

Make It Personal – Sending mass emails can be just a tad impersonal, which is one of the reasons that many of us, this author included, simply trash them without ever opening them. People are much more likely to open a message that has their name on it, so make use of a program that allows you to personalize each email. You may see your rate of response jump as much as 30%.

Make It Part Of The Process – If you are an online retailer, have a place in the checkout process where people can enter their email address to be informed on future deals, sales, etc. If someone has already demonstrated a measure of trust in you by purchasing from your site, they are much more likely to continue that relationship by providing their contact information. Have the option for them to include addresses or phone numbers, but keep it just that, an option. Never try to force someone to give up more than they feel comfortable with.

Keep It To Yourself – One of the main reasons that people don’t sign up for e-mail lists is the threat of having that information sold. Nobody likes telemarketing calls at dinner, nor do they enjoy wading through e-mails advertising products they will never use every time they turn on their computer.

When someone gives you their email information, think of it as a sacred trust. Betraying that trust will do nothing to garner you their future business. Develop a privacy policy which clearly states that you will not transfer or sell their email address to any other parties, and display that policy prominently on your site. And then, keep your word.

Make Use Of Offline Sources – if your business exists in the “real world” (i.e. people can walk in), be sure to have a signup sheet by your checkout where people can leave their information if they wish. Update your email list once a week and be sure to send each person a message thank them for their business or for visiting your establishment.

Snail Mail – Speaking of which, nothing beats a good old fashioned organic mail out, something people can actually put their hands on and read. You can advertise your product or business, and direct people to your website where they can leave their information. You’d be surprised at just how many email addys you can scarf up through this process.

So yes, there are all kinds of ways to build up your email marketing list. Just remember the key word…respect. Respect your customers, don’t wear out your welcome in their inbox, and don’t pass their information on to third parties. Treating people right will not only get you business once, but most likely several times over.

So the time has come in your business where you’ve collected email addresses through your site, and want to communicate with them. The problem is you’re not sure how to actually send the mail to them. Or maybe the reverse situation is true. You’ve had an email list that you’ve been mailing for years, but now need a system that can handle larger, more complex campaigns. Or maybe you just need another email stream set up that has different functionalities from your current email provider. Either way, it sounds like you’re in need of a new Email Service Provider (ESP).

Email Service Provider – Defined

By definition an ESP is a solution to send, receive and store email for organizations and can even help you streamline your email strategy. There are so many different providers out there, be sure to take the time to properly investigate them to find the solution that fits your business’ unique needs. If you have the time and budget available, it might be a good idea to attend an email marketing conference and peruse the exhibit hall. Just about every major and minor ESP will have a booth, and it is a good opportunity to familiarize yourself with each brand and what they have to offer.

Full or Self Service?

To get started on the path to choosing your new ESP, you will need to decide whether you have (or don’t have) the internal resources to send all of this mail. If you’re just starting out with email marketing, the amount of set up work can be daunting. Unless you’re a jack of all trades, you will probably need help from a graphic designer, email marketer, network engineer and software developer…to name a few. Or maybe you just have aggressive email marketing goals and don’t have a dedicated team to work on achieving them. Whatever your situation, you will need to consider whether you want your account with an ESP to be full- or self-service. A self-service account means you will handle all of the email set up, launching and reporting yourself. Basically you will only be using the Email Service Provider as a means to send all of your email. A full-service account will have a team of account managers assigned to you that will assist you in – or completely perform – your email marketing efforts. ESPs will likely have a hybrid solution available as well to accommodate those in unique situations.

Email List Size

Once you have determined who will be sending your mail, you’ll have to outline a few quantitative goals for your email marketing strategy (if you haven’t already). You will need to be familiar with the size of your current email list and how much you expect it to grow in the next year. Then take this number and estimate how often you will be sending email to get a total count of how many emails you plan to send in a year. Remember to take any marketing initiatives such as segmentation, list rental or acquisition efforts into account. This number will be very important later when discussing pricing, so make sure that it is realistic and takes into account any up or down swings that could be caused by seasonality, website downtime, etc.

Budget

The next step in choosing your new Email Service Provider would be to decide on a budget. ESPs will likely charge a monthly base fee, with the amount based on whether you decide to have a full or self service account. In addition, you will pay for how many emails you send based on a cost per thousand (CPM) model. You will probably be quoted a tiered CPM amount according to the number of emails you plan to send in a given month with additional fees for under and overages. The tiers will also most likely decrease in cost if you commit to sending a certain number of emails each month.

RFP Process

Once you’ve determined your email list size, budget and service level, you should take a look at your proposed email strategy and understand what functionality is needed in order to execute your plan. From here, create an RFP (Request for Proposal) document that outlines all requirements you need – in the present or future. This document will be given to the ESPs and is their chance to demonstrate how their email product is the perfect solution for you. Be very specific and include ideas and details that can help ESPs understand your background and the goals you want to accomplish.

Next, begin contacting Email Service Providers to set up information sessions. This is also your opportunity to learn about each ESP’s functionality and to get some of your questions answered. Again, be specific and ask questions that apply to your email marketing goals such as sending capacity, throttle levels, system down time, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and how long email history data is saved for. If applicable, request demonstrations of their system(s), so you can easily determine if their user interfaces will fit in with your work flow. Now is also the time to start discussing their costs, how many emails you plan on sending and the budget you have available for email marketing.

Since there are so many Email Service Providers in the market today, take the time to meet with as many as you need to so that you are assured you are moving forward with those that have the best possible solutions. Since you might be sharing sensitive or confidential information with the ESPs, it’s also important to remember to have them sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

Now that you have interviewed several Email Service Providers, you probably have a good idea of which ones are more suited to handle your email marketing. From these, choose your top 3-5 ESPs and invite them to participate in your RFP process. If you are already using an ESP, it is a proper procedure to invite them to participate as well. Basically, this should be their opportunity to keep your business. In this process, you will send your RFP document to each of the ESPs and allow them to respond to each of your questions. They should provide responses that are very descriptive and complete, so that anyone can read them and know what their solution is all about. You will then need to thoroughly review the RFP responses with all key decision makers in your company in order to move forward.

After meeting with the Email Service Providers and reviewing their RFP responses, you will most likely have an inclination as to which provider will be the right solution for your business needs. If so, invite them to perform another demonstration for you and any another key decision makers for your business. This final effort will help solidify your selection for your new ESP.

So as you can see, choosing a new Email Service Provider can be a lengthy and intense process. It’s likely you will invest quite a bit of time selecting the service provider that best suits your needs. You will experience many different ESPs along the way, and some will stand out as definite yeses while others will be definite nos. Take your time and choose wisely, since the ESP will be responsible for delivering all of your email. And if all goes well, the ESP you select will likely become one of your most-trusted business partners.

Okay, so you’ve assembled an impressive email list of folks who have expressed an interest in your product or service. These people may become the lifeblood of your business. The last thing you want to do is alienate them or in any way put them off to doing more business with you in the future. How do you avoid this?

Well, the quickest way to avoid it is to know what not to do. Far too many companies take unfair advantage of their email lists, sending message after message, one on top of another in a short period of time, to the point where those on the receiving end have simply had enough. It doesn’t matter how good a service is; an overbearing approach is one guaranteed way to drive them to other providers.

Now granted, making proper use of your email list can generate additional business, and in some cases you can see a significant boost. Unfortunately, many people are wired to get turned off if you make even the slightest misstep, so you want to do all you can to maximize your reserves.

Finding the right frequency for sending out email blasts can be tricky. Too much and obviously you wear out your welcome. Too little and you end up disappearing into a yawn. You have to walk the fine line between unobtrusive and obnoxious, and granted it’s not always easy to find.

In my own business, I used to send out an update once a week, but due to customer response, I began to see that I was going to the well once too often. So I cut it back to about once a month. Then I started to get responses asking where I went. Eventually, I ended up doing about two updates per month, or once every two weeks. That seemed to balance the responses and I began getting the return I had hoped for. It was just a matter of finding the frequency that worked for me and my service.

Basically, there are three methods for determining the proper frequency for your email blasts:

1. Understand Who Controls The Frequency. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not you. “List fatigue” is the term given when recipients are alienated because of an overabundance of unwanted contact. Not only do you run the risk of losing contacts, but you may also end up being reported as a spammer, which can adversely affect any future attempts at getting your message out.

2. Choose Your Own Frequency. But do so based on your customers’ needs and feedback. Are you doing your current email blast because you have a new product on the market? Something new to say? A limited time only deal on certain services? Or are you doing it just because you haven’t hit the send button in a while and you’re concerned that your customers might forget who you are? Listen to what your customers are saying. If somebody unsubscribes to your list and says they were just getting too many emails from you, take it to heart and consider that before doing another one so quickly.

3. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. You have to respect your subscribers. Maybe you just sent out a mailing only to find out about an unbeatable deal the very next day. Do you follow up with another message that quickly? Well, in some cases you might, but don’t make a habit of it. Customers might forgive the occasional “piling on”, but if it becomes a regular occurrence, you’ll see them jumping ship like rats off the TITANIC. Time and experience will give you a pretty clear understanding of just how much your customers are willing to accept from you.

In conclusion, you also don’t want to underuse your list. Making too little use of this resource can be just as damaging as overdoing it. Going forever without sending anything and then jumping in with both feet around holidays or other special events can also trigger unsubscribe requests as well as spam reports, neither of which you want to see. At the very least, do a monthly update, if only to ask your clients to update their information. Sure, some may wish to unsubscribe, but it is far better to get it that way than to go too far and make somebody mad.

An email list can be a big plus….it is a simple, yet unobtrusive method of keeping your brand name in front of a lot of people, with very little in the way of financial expenditures. Treat the list for what they are, flesh and blood clients who deserve respect and top quality service. Finding the fine line when it comes to frequency will avoid the plague of list fatigue and go a long way towards building your business.

You have the product or service that you just know everyone is going to want to have but the problem is that nobody knows you’re there. Without some visibility for your product, you plan on staying home a lot. Of course as you get clients, you’ll obtain contact information and stay in touch with them that way, but there has to be a better way to get the word out to as many people as possible right away.

Mailing lists have been around forever, and with the rise of the Internet, the medium has quickly transmuted into the email list. No more stuffing thousands of envelopes; with the touch of a button you can have your company’s info in thousands of inboxes in a matter of seconds, with little or no outlay of funds. And now there are entire companies that make available email lists – customers grouped by purchasing habits or buying history, or through their interest in a given type of product. Sounds good, right?

Renting and Buying Email Lists

Of course one option is to rent a list of email addresses. This means that you never see the addresses you are sending your information to. Only the owner of the list does. You pay him a fee and your message is sent to everyone on that particular list. This can be a one-time thing or you can rent on a regular basis. Many business owners find this to be an easy and convenient method of email marketing.

The flip side of course is to simply purchase the list. It’s a one-time cost, and you can send out email marketing messages as often as you like. Unfortunately, there are also some serious downsides to purchasing your list.

The Pitfalls of Buying Email Lists

The most common affliction is known as “list fatigue.” You can only go to the well so many times before it runs dry, and sending too many messages in a short amount of time will put a lot of people off to the mere mention of your company name. In fact, receiving too many emails is one of the top reasons for customers deciding against doing business with a given company, unsubscribing to their email list, or worse, reporting them as spammers.

In addition, most list owners have worked very hard to assemble their list, and they aren’t likely to simply up and sell it while not knowing how it might be used (or abused). That being said, what does it tell you about the quality of a list that is up for sale?

Some list providers offer niche lists specifically targeting the market you are trying to reach. This sounds good in theory, but again, you have no way of knowing just how this list was assembled. Many times they are cobbled together through questionable means, even pulling addresses from websites with little or no guarantee that they are in fact a part of your target market.

It is important for those who are selling the list that it be of considerable size. The larger the list, the more they can charge for it. This makes it increasingly unlikely that they will be all that concerned with the quality of the addresses they are providing.

Many of these lists will have a disproportionately high number of dead links or invalid addresses. When the bulk of your emails are going to such addresses, ISP’s will often mark you as a “dirty sender,” which can lead to blacklisting. This effectively neuters your ability to get any bulk email projects delivered in the future.

Email marketing works the best when you are sending emails to people who have granted you permission to send them. Purchased lists do not include any such permission, and as a result, the percentage of folks who are likely to be put off by your unexpected message is going to be significantly higher than it would be coming from a list of people who have actively expressed an interest in your product and given you their contact info of their own accord. Most of the addresses on any purchased list did not make the decision for their information to be passed on to you, so you should not expect the warmest of receptions.

In the end, when it comes to assembling email lists for the purposes of marketing your service, it is always preferable to take the time and assemble your own. Yes, it is a much slower process, but most businesses are marathons, not sprints. There are no shortcuts to success, and making use of email lists from dubious sources can end up hurting you in the long run.

In simpler terms, either be prepared to part with some sweat or forget the whole thing. Always take the high road; your customers will thank you for it and your reputation will precede you.

Pinpointe offers feature-rich email marketing for the B2B sector. The focus of Pinpointe services is on “Business Class” email marketing that targets, delivers and measures results effectively. The cloud-based email marketing software employs segmentation, drip marketing, and strong support to guide you through best practices and superior results. Focused on the under-served mid-sized company, Pinpointe offers robust features like advanced automation, targeting and ease of use elements scalable to whatever desired size. Pinpointe is a privately held company headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley, California.

Ease of Use

The layout and navigation of Pinpointe is very logical, intuitive and easy to manage. All the essential information is right at your easy to click fingertips. An eight minute video tour, extensive list of features and scheduling a demo are all easy to access home page options below the informative and pleasing flash graphic.

Live chat, email and phone customer service options are prominently displayed throughout the site.

The resource library supporting the Pinpointe software is quite solid, including on demand webinars, whitepapers, a 200 page downloadable user manual, industry reports, industry surveys and their own blog.

Features Overview

Pinpointe offers a host of feature rich options for the B2B email marketing customer.

Pinpointe is web-based completely self contained software that doesn’t require any browser plug-ins.

The software has an intuitive user interface with advanced editor and large template library.

RSS archiving of all campaigns.

Multiple language options.

Unlimited image hosting.

Drag and drop surveys, behavioral targeting, split/multi-varian testing and segmentation all help you refine and personalize your campaigns.

Subscribers can be organized, refined, imported/exported easily.

The software is synchronized with Salesforce.com to utilize their contacts with your own while managing bounces and unsubscribed contacts.

Pinpointe offers unlimited emailing through their Auto-Pilot campaigns which send emails after a user signs up to the newsletter by using sophisticated auto-responders.

The Enterprise edition features even more features here.

Reliability

Pinpointe’s IP acceptance rates and inbox acceptance rate range between 95.5% and 98.4%. Pinpointe pursues improving deliverability seriously. Pinpointe goes beyound managing hard and soft bounces and unsubscribes by managing issues proactively. IT staff evaluates each email when alerted and can re-route outbound traffic to other IP addresses across multiple ISP networks to improve and ensure deliverability.

Responsive actions taken to keep spam complaint rates low across the Pinpointe network and relationships with ISP’s high. Dozens of IP address blocks are spread among multiple network providers are managed to handle different reputation levels and match your email marketing campaign with the right silver, gold or platinum levels of acceptance.

Customers who develop a proven track record of trusted email marketing and who can manage their own email reputation are eligible to move to a certified IP address. It is a select group that can qualify, but those that do, they get the benefit of a high reputation IP address without the cost of maintaining their own dedicated IP.

Analyzing Results

Pinpointe campaigns integrates with Google Analytics so you can track results effectively. A digital footprint is developed for each customer. Expansive campaign results detail bounce and SPAM activity, drill-down, as well as open and click through details. Easy print and export options are available. Pinpointe offers a Top Domain Performers feature which compares your results with the top 10 domains within your portfolio.

Extras

• Bi-weekly E-Marketing tips blog from the experienced staff.
• Twitter real time daily e-marketing tips available
• XML API Connector to integrate with your company database and management apps.

Pricing for the service

Pinpointe offers competitive pricing with no contracts or setup fees. If you plan on sending a minimum of 5,000 emails per month, Pinpointe will offer a free trial. They offer three methods of pricing; monthly plan based on contact list size, monthly plan based on number of emails sent, and a flexible pay-as-you-go plan. For 25% more than standard plans you can send up to six times a month to your contact list. Prepayment for six months will receive a 10% discount. Large volume accounts can be offered additional 15% discounts for quarterly commitments.

Every account includes a 30 day money-back guarantee.

For a breakdown of the pricing details of all three plans go here.

Conclusion

Pinpointe is a great choice for mid-sized companies looking to develop effective email marketing campaigns. The site is very easy to use and navigate. The pricing is competitive. The support and resource library are excellent. Pinpointe has developed a nice niche within the overall email marketing provider world and professionally offered their services for all level of customer in the process.

Listrak has been offering email marketing services to companies and individuals since 1999. They provide solutions, services and software to increase the value of email. They have an experienced team with a detailed site offering many valuable email marketing services for their customers. They have worked with numerous established brands, seeming to prefer larger to smaller business customers.

Ease of Use

Listrak has an attractive site with nice on target results oriented email marketing messages on their home page. The site has a high email marketing IQ, but suffers from going over the head of most individual or small business companies with their jargon and technical approach. The site seems to cater to those larger entities looking to work with an experienced live team, rather than a do it yourself attitude for the simple email marketer.

Listrak’s drop down navigation system is a touch on the overdone side. Their completeness of options is nice but hard to quickly navigate. The titling of some areas could be refined so as to put your finger on the essential information more quickly.

Their support resources are quite complete with whitepapers, webinars, podcasts and blogs. Every couple weeks or so, a new blog addressing marketing, email and social media is released.

Email and phone support is available during business hours.

Features Overview

Listrak specializes in transactional email that have a higher open, read and conversion rate.

With subscriber churn rate at 30% each year, list acquisition and management is a key priority at Listrak.

Strong focus on welcome message using behavioral analysis. Dynamic message assembly and workflow.

Optimization of messages through A/B and Multi-variate testing, vetting, spam score and inbox renderability.

Re-engagement campaigns.

Digital Vital Signs give you the tools to create optimal marketing campaigns while monitoring customer activity.

Attention to opt-ins.

BuyerTrak which involves predictive behavioral analysis to understand order history and customer engagement to identify resell opportunities. Allowing you to identify the optimal number and cadence of email messages.

Reliability

Listrak takes email deliverability seriously:

• Listrak offer deliverability audits to determine any issues with your email marketing.
• A focus is put on good sending procedures that properly manage authentication, accreditation, and certification.
• Dedicated IP is used with unique domain alias for each client.
• hrottled approach to manage overall messages and connections with ISPs to maintain a good relationship.
• Feedback loops are utilized.
• Listrak is CAN-Spam compliant.
• Listrak’s ongoing success plan progressively deals with regulatory changes, ISP updates and industry trends.

Analyzing Results

Listrak offers extensive campaign analysis to determine success and ROI. There is lifecycle management to monitor engagement, complaints, bounces, inactivity, and unsubscribes. Listrak software analyzes open, read, click, conversion and engagement metrics so you know how campaigns are performing. Data overlay helps you better understand customer profiles. Customer valuation evaluates purchase history, click stream date and level of engagement. Graphs and dynamic profiling help you further analyze your data and customer engagement. The information is integrated with Google Analytics.

Extras

• Shopping cart abandonment software to battle the 71% of those that abandon shopping cart options on your site.
• XML-API integration available to allow for remote campaign deployment or management of user profile data.
• SecondPass software increases conversions by optimizing campaigns through evaluating engagement, interaction and transaction. The re-engagement scheme typically generates 83% as many conversions as the first email.

Pricing for the service

Listrak indicates that you can request a free trial, but no details are offered. No pricing details were available on the site, requiring emailing the staff to inquire. Personally, I never understand why a company makes you work for such vital information as the pricing of their services. It is an obstacle that many customers never overcome if they can access that comparative information elsewhere more easily.

Conclusion

Listrak is a very competent site, but often makes complicated by title, organization and verbiage what could be simpler. My personal preference is simplicity of message versus complication, as it can win over those who are intimidated by someone who is trying to impress you with their knowledge. The site wants to impress the reader by its intelligence, but in so doing reduces the do-it-yourself aspect of so many other email marketing campaign sites. I find it counter-productive to require you to contact them to receive pricing information for their services unless it is geared to very high volume or specialized services. In the end, it appears that Listrak would like to funnel you to their human team, rather than empowering the customer to use their site to serve their various email marketing desires.

JangoMail has been bringing marketing and transaction emails together since 2001. The site promotes feature-packed email marketing software with strong email delivery, database connectivity and competitive pricing. One can test the service with a limited free trial.

Ease of Use

The site is thorough and well thought out. Although a bit more text heavy than some, it is intuitive and logical. Downloadable document guides and video tutorials are numerous and very complete. They offer 24 hour email support.

Features Overview

JangoMail has one of the broadest array of features to support their email marketing service.

JangoMail has a strong browser-based HTML editor that supports Cascading Style Sheets (CSS),a Microsoft Word document cleaner, real-time spell checking, and one-click buttons to insert CAN-SPAM compliant footers, forward-to-friend links, and unsubscribe links.

Customizations of your email process include; request return receipt, adjusting your priority of message from low, medium or high, wrapping line length, ISO character sets, content transfer encoding, up to 20 file attachments.

Foreign language capabilities for your email.

You can create and send emails in your favorite desktop email client, such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Thunderbird, or even web-based email like Yahoo! Mail or GMail.

Reliability

JangoMail distinguishes themselves by having a self-built distributed, rather than centralized network of email senders spread over eight data-centers across the world, each data-center on a different IP subnet. This set-up allows for complete fault-tolerance and redundancy across our SMTP email senders. JangoMail staff review SMTP log files daily to ensure optimal deliverability of our customers’ email messages. They maintain strong relationships with ISPs. while participating with numerous whitelisting programs like AOL, Juno, Yahoo!, and Bonded Sender.

You can connect in real time and directly to and read your email lists from Access, SQL Server, Excel, MySQL, Oracle, and Goldmine, without having to export and import data and without having to converting to CSV files. As a result, there is never an issue about synchronizing data between JangoMail and your external database. JangoMail can read from a database on your computer or network, and it can also interact with a database that drives your web site.

Create and send emails in your favorite desktop email client, such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Thunderbird, or even web-based email like Yahoo! Mail or GMail. Simply compose the message, send the email to your assigned @jangomail.com email address, put special instructions in the Subject line, and once JangoMail receives the email, it will begin propagating it to your designated email Group. So you can compose and send mass emails right from your desktop email software, without logging into www.jangomail.com.

Analyzing Results

JangoMail’s tracks and reports who has unsubscribed, bounced, replied, opened, forwarded, and clicked through to your web site on a per email campaign basis. By adding one line of code to your website, you can add that same click-tracking feature throughout your site to track their movements on each page in your site. You can then effectively capture conversions of prospective customers into buyers from the email marketing campaign through your entire site usage.

Extras

• JangoMail allows for a strong web service/API integration of JangoMail functionality with your own web applications, external databases and CRM systems.

Pricing for the service

JangoMail offers a 200 test emails for free once you establish a free JangoMail trial account which takes ten seconds to establish.

JangoMail’s pricing levels are based off how many emails you send a month, not off the size of your email list. All features are included. Non monthly email senders can call for a custom plan.

Up to 1,000 emails – $15/mo.
Up to 2,500 emails – $25/mo.
Up to 5,000 emails – $50/mo.
Up to 12,000 emails – $100/mo.
Up to 18,000 emails – $150/mo.
Up to 30,000 emails – $240/mo.
Up to 45,000 emails – $360/mo.
Up to 80,000 emails – $640/mo.
Up to 120,000 emails – $960/mo.
Up to 220,000 emails – $1,600/mo.
Up to 330,000 emails – $2,400/mo.
Up to 616,000 emails – $3,200/mo.

All plans are month to month and can be canceled at any time. Call for a price quote above 616,000. Monthly allowance based off of 100 KB max size email messages. Additional data transfer may be purchased at $1 per 10 MB of data transfer. Unused email volume and bandwidth do not carry over from month to month.

Conclusion

JangoMail is a very complete option in the email marketing sector. They have a range of both standard and customized options to assist you in any email campaign. Their per email pricing isn’t always the most economical for those sending multiple emails to your email list each month, but their range of services and support is a good solid option for email marketing.

Campaigner is a cloud-based business email marketing firm that has been around since 2005. They want to empower customer relationships through their email marketing services. Campaigner wants to grow your business, get results and save you money and time. Campaigner caters to the small email marketing individual or small business with under 5,000 contacts.

Ease of Use

The site is direct and simply laid out. Each page simply displays and explains their services with a minimum of detail. The organization and navigation is straight forward.

As you scroll their home page, a pop up window appears asking if you would like to chat with a Campaigner specialist.

Customer service is available 24/7 via phone or live chat. North American-based tutoring and customer support is available to assist your email marketing campaigns.

Live training sessions are available daily. Campaigner university offers eight thirty minute self-serve instructional courses. There are three certification courses to advance your knowledge of mastering email marketing.

A resource center offers training, FAQ’s, step-by-step instructions, video tutorials, and a glossary. There are articles, whitepapers, and online resources to complement the forum and even a staff blog.

Features Overview

Campaigner offers a variety a features that cater to the customer who has no experience with HTML or design. They are meant to be simple and intuitive.

Add images and text to any of their 1200 email variations. They offer more than 500 email templates. Layout, color scheme, font, and image resizing options available.

Select and customize from different formats catering to specific industries requiring no programming or design skills. Specific areas of focus are real estate, insurance, mortgage, internet retail, travel and healthcare.

Personalize or target your emails with extra features to individualize the conversation and increase buying interest based on customer preferences.

Centralize, consolidate, and store your lists along with managing your opt-in and out subscribers.

Campaigner does not sell lists.

Campaigner’s features definitely fall in the standard but not expansive category. They are spare but cover the basics necessary for a reasonable budget for trying out email marketing.

Reliability

Campaigner advertises a 97% deliverability. Their software and staff track every one email marketing campaign internally. Their “post master” staff ensures optimal delivery results with experience dating back to 1999 in the industry. No specific methodology is given to how they accomplish or improve the deliverability rating. They meet email regulations like CAN-SPAM to unsure more emails get to more inboxes.

Analyzing Results

Each campaign is tracked and measured showing statistics like open emails, bounces, clicks, opt-outs and more. Each email marketing campaign allows you to determine ROI on your marketing dollar. One can manage recurring campaigns easily. There are options to refine your lists for advanced segmentation to personalize and more effectively target responsive individuals or groups. The software is good about managing your email marketing workflows without overcomplicating the process.

Extras

• Staff blog that occasionally shares industry and email marketing specific issues and helpful advice.

Pricing for the service

Campaigner offers a free 30 day trial. The free trial includes live online training, 500 fill-in-th-blank email templates to access, with 24/7 phone and email support. They offer a 20% discount on all iStock photo purchases.

Beyond their free trial, Campaigner actively promotes that they offer everything you need for just $10 a month.

Three plans are offered each offering unlimited emails per month.

Up to 1,000 contacts – $10/mo.
1,001-2,500 contacts – $25/mo.
2,501-5,000 contacts – $40/mo.

Free start up service with no hidden costs or contracts. You can cancel at any time.

Conclusion

Campaigner seems focused on preparing affordable email marketing campaigns for smaller businesses with smaller email marketing lists. Their services are straight forward with few bells and whistles but covering the basics. Their resource center is solid with numerous options, if not cutting edge or inspirational. They offer North American customer support that is responsive and available 24/7. Overall, their email marketing services seem reliable but standard in features. In my experience, their service is a step down from the top notch email marketing sites, but definitely worth a try if you are on a limited budget and manage a smaller email list.