Transcript E-mail marketing - Info

Vendor Landscape Plus:
E-mail Marketing Services
Give marketing the help it needs without getting dragged into the IT weeds.
Info-Tech Research Group
‹#›
Introduction
Most enterprises need an e-mail marketing service or bureau (EMB). It’s not
if, it’s when. IT leaders must ensure that marketing gets the tool it needs
while minimizing disruption to core IT functions.
This Research Is Designed For:
This Research Will Help You:
 Mid- management IT and marketing staff seeking an
 Understand what’s new in the e-mail marketing
e-mail marketing solution
 Their e-mail marketing use case may include:
• Nurturing leads
• Acquiring new customers
• Building mind-share
• Engaging consumers
• Complementing existing marketing initiatives
Info-Tech Research Group
market.
 Evaluate e-mail marketing vendors and products for
your enterprise needs.
 Determine which products are most appropriate for
particular use cases and scenarios.
‹#›
Executive Summary
Understand E-mail Marketing Trends and Considerations
E-mail marketing technologies have evolved from point solutions into comprehensive systems that allow organizations to
optimize any or all of the following functions:
◦
◦
◦
◦
Integrate data from social media marketing campaigns into e-mail marketing campaigns.
Track consumer behavior throughout the customer life-cycle.
Nurture leads by offering them information customized to their preferences and behavioral patterns.
Engage consumers through tailored interactions with consumer segments.
• Understand your needs, potential costs, and your readiness to undertake an e-mail marketing initiative before taking the
leap.
Evaluate E-mail Marketing Vendors
• Distinguish the difference between vendor offerings, as well as their explicit and implicit advantages.
• Map your immediate and future requirements for e-mail marketing against vendor and product capabilities.
• Leverage the tools and templates included in this solution set to accelerate selection of an e-mail marketing vendor.
Develop Your E-mail Marketing Implementation Strategy
• Distinguish the different strategic objectives of e-mail marketing initiatives.
• Lay out a deployment architecture and capture additional implementation and operational costs and benefits.
• Realize short and long term benefits with a phased implementation plan.
Info-Tech Research Group
‹#›
Silverpop leads the market; other e-mail marketing vendors
offer compelling alternatives to meet specific requirements
Info-Tech evaluated eight EMBs, including the
following notable performers:
Info-Tech Insight
1) Focus on business requirements
Champions:
• Silverpop
• ExactTarget
Identify the functionality that your organization
requires to meet business needs or to justify
an investment in e-mail marketing.
2) Consider future requirements
Value Award:
• MailChimp
• Constant Contact
• iContact
Innovation Award:
• Lyris
• Experian CheetahMail
• Yesmail
Info-Tech Research Group
Keep in mind all potential benefits of an
e-mail marketing initiative, whether you are
focused primarily on nurturing leads,
acquiring new customers, or increasing mindshare.
3) Find the right fit for you
Align current and future requirements with the
capabilities and solution feature-sets of
vendors. While Silverpop is the leader, its
focus on marketing automation and social
media integration might not be best suited to
your organization’s strategic objectives.
‹#›
Understand E-mail Marketing Trends and
Considerations
What’s in this Section:
• What is e-mail marketing – and what is it not?
• The role of e-mail marketing within overall marketing
initiatives.
• Key decision factors for e-mail marketing.
• Assessing the appropriateness of e-mail marketing.
Sections:
Understand E-mail Marketing
Trends and Considerations
Evaluate E-mail Marketing
Vendors
Develop Your E-mail Marketing
Initiative
Appendices
Info-Tech Research Group
‹#›
Understand what e-mail marketing does, and what it
doesn’t do
E-mail marketing: an economical tool to increase consumer engagement,
nurture leads, and convert prospective customers.
What is e-mail marketing?
E-mail marketing allows organizations to directly communicate with clients and leads via e-mail. E-mail marketing is the
cheapest form of marketing relative to number of audience reached. Advances in consumer tracking, segmentation, and
marketing automation have elevated success rates to a very high level. Only 4% of users report that no benefits are
attained.
What does e-mail marketing do?
•
•
•
•
Targets marketing efforts onto a contact
database built on certain desirable criteria.
Augments brand mind-share nationally or
globally at low costs relative to alternatives.
Customizes marketing campaigns in
accordance with contact’s preferences and
behavior.
Deploys marketing campaigns quickly and
frequently.
Info-Tech Research Group
•
•
•
•
Segments contact database into granular
level of interest to the organization.
Allows for continuous interaction with a
client or lead on a scheduled basis.
Complements overall marketing initiative by
offering a two-way channel of contact.
Informs clients and leads of new products and
services.
‹#›
IT Leader Joe: “But it’s marketing’s problem, not mine!”
Meet Joe, an experienced IT professional who was recently promoted to a middle
management position within his company’s IT department. In his first month on the
job, Marketing Dan approached Joe about an e-mail marketing initiative, requesting
his feedback on which vendor the firm should go with.
“When I was in IT, it was difficult to see things from the marketing department’s
perspective and I never had to. Now as a manager, I realize the importance of
coordinating with other departments.”
IT Joe’s role:
• Belongs to a medium-sized company with roughly 11,000
North American consumers.
• Uses Salesforce CRM software to maintain their client
database.
• Operates other platforms almost entirely in a Microsoft
ecosystem.
• Interacts solely with staff from other departments.
• Controls all of the firm’s e-mail channels.
• Tackles several ongoing projects requested by internal
customers.
An e-mail marketing initiative has to be
a collaborative effort by IT people,
marketing people, people who manage
your CRM and whoever else that
maintains your data!
- Stephanie Miller, VP,
Digital Messaging Solutions, Aprimo
• Lacks sufficient staff to take on any new ongoing projects.
Keep an eye out throughout this storyboard for updates on how Joe is doing.
Info-Tech Research Group
‹#›
Marketing Dan has a simple vision to send e-mail to contacts
Clients and Prospects
The clients and prospects have signed
up for communication but don’t want to
be spammed.
Marketing
•
•
Marketing Dan wants to send messages
to clients and prospects. His vision is to
use his e-mail editor to compose the
message and send it to everyone on his
mailing list.
He would like some additional features:
o Templates for standard e-mails.
o Some indication of campaign
effectiveness.
Marketing often treats e-mail like a corporate drinking
fountain, where they go when they are thirsty for cash.
- John Caldwell, Consultant, Red Pill Email
Info-Tech Research Group
‹#›
IT Joe has four immediate concerns with marketing’s vision
1. Spam laws and black lists
STOP
4. Impact on IT
The e-mail marketing initiative
depends on other components of
the IT infrastructure. The client
list, for example, should come from
the CRM system and the actual
sending of e-mail should have no
impact on internal e-mail service.
3. Integration with other
strategies
E-mail is only one marketing
channel. Marketing departments
must coordinate with other
initiatives such as search
optimization and social networking
strategies.
Info-Tech Research Group
There are a number of factors that limit
this vision:
1. Spam laws preventing the sending
of unsolicited e-mail.
2. Inability to monitor and manage
completes and bounces.
3. Lack of integration with other
marketing strategies.
4. Impact on existing IT
infrastructure.
Different countries and regions
have adopted different legislation to
manage the spread of unsolicited
bulk e-mail. The USA, Canada,
Europe, and Australia all have
different but similar legislation.
Failure to comply with this
legislation can result in fines or
litigation. A greater concern for
marketers, however, is that their
domain will be “black listed” by
popular spam filters.
See Appendix for a discussion of
the history of spam and different
spam laws.
2. Completes and bounces
Messages sometimes don’t arrive.
Full mailboxes, and other temporary
factors can cause soft bounces.
Erroneous domain names and other
permanent factors can cause hard
bounces.
‹#›
Marketing and IT agree: Get an e-mail marketing bureau!
Benefits for IT
Marketing Dan can access the
e-mail marketing bureau (EMB)
directly through his Web browser.
•
Internal IT Infrastructure
•
CRM
Benefits for Marketing
•
•
•
•
•
Ability to manage multiple
e-marketing campaigns.
List scrubbing.
Tracking based on geography or
other segmentation.
Standard e-mail templates.
Creation of Web landing pages
for response tracking.
Info-Tech Research Group
•
IT systems are insulated from
the impact of sending a large
volume of e-mail.
Message creation and the timing
of sending can be completely
determined by marketing.
Protection from having the
corporate domain blacklisted.
E-mail Marketing Bureau
The EMB synchronizes with the
CRM system to maintain
contact master data. It can also
aid in campaign management
by tracking social networking
reactions and by integrating
with Web analytics systems.
Info-Tech Insight
VERP (Variable Envelope
Return Paths) is the key
enabling technology.
See slide 21.
‹#›
EMBs resolve three challenges faced by all enterprises
Challenge #1: Acquiring Customers
•
•
•
•
•
•
Maintain a list of leads and keep current based on activity levels.
Track trends in prospects’ interests in order to better appeal to prospects.
Remind prospects of services and product offerings corresponding to foreseen demand spikes.
Tailor marketing to appeal to the interests of targeted leads.
Reach a huge number of leads relatively easily and quickly.
Build effective lists with the integration of e-mail and social media marketing.
Challenge #2: Engaging Customers
•
•
•
•
•
•
Follow up with customers quickly and on an ongoing basis.
Provide interactive features in the e-mail with the help of social media integration.
Promote content sharing by allowing customers to fill out surveys and view responses.
Provide links to profile creation, discussion, and registration pages.
Offer promotions and contests for client participations.
Keep customers up to date about advancements and new features of products and services.
Challenge #3: Complying with Legal Frameworks
•
•
•
•
•
Info-Tech Research Group
Ensure that permission levels of contact databases are up to date.
Enforce all spam compliance laws such as privacy policy links and unsubscribe links.
Take advantage of third party security certifications in order to ensure e-mail delivery.
Regulate the frequency of e-mail deployment to avoid flagging.
Stay on top of new spam compliance laws across different countries, and their requirements.
‹#›
Info-Tech Research Group Helps IT Professionals To:



Quickly get up to speed
with new technologies

Manage business expectations

Justify IT spending and
prove the value of IT

Train IT staff and effectively
manage an IT department
Make the right technology
purchasing decisions – fast
Deliver critical IT
projects, on time and
within budget
Sign up for free trial membership to get practical
solutions for your IT challenges
“Info-Tech helps me to be proactive instead of reactive –
a cardinal rule in a stable and leading edge IT environment.
•
- ARCS Commercial Mortgage Co., LP
Toll Free: 1-888-670-8889
Info-Tech Research Group
www.infotech.com
‹#›