For any B2B company taking a serious look at email technology for the first time, what will become clear very quickly is that this business service sector has seen rapid growth and development. No matter what your marketing needs are, there is an email service provider (ESP) that can provide the service you are looking for.
The current email marketing landscape has clear demarcation lines that divide the online hosted services and the more traditional in-house installed systems, which are often a component of a larger CRM platform. Also, the developers of email technology will have a bearing on how they support and manage the service they offer.
Some ESPs are technology companies with little insight into the customer-facing components of their businesses. Their services are often characterised by the ‘batch-and-blast’ approach to email marketing. In contrast, ESPs that have been developed by specialised marketing agencies – or full-service agencies – tend to be more rounded products with their vendors able to understand and react to their service customers.
Keep it close
B2B enterprises have also begun to pay close attention to the security risks they face when using outside ESPs. To this end, a trend has developed towards more in-house email marketing campaigns with a focus on better list generation, personalisation of recipient messages and even greater segmentation.
Marketers are seeing the value of handling all their email marketing activity themselves. Vendors within full-service agencies will still have the lion’s share of email marketing activity, as integrated campaigns are now an industry standard. However, small enterprises with highly focused marketing activity may lead to more in-house email marketing in some sectors.
According to Denise Cox, newsletter specialist at Newsweaver, it is no longer enough for B2B companies to just ‘do’ email marketing.
“Marketers must see the investment of their time, as well as the monetary investment in the technology, as the key to success,” she says. “Marketers must take the time to build a strong database, test before sending, analyse metrics and then segment and target based on the findings.”
The third way
For all B2B enterprises, cost still plays a major role in choosing how to approach email marketing. The market for email services clearly divides between: fully managed services, in-house applications, and web-based platforms
The volumes of email sent and how segmented and focused these messages are will determine the overall price of each service. With fully-managed services, costs are usually calculated on a per-thousand emails sent basis, with a set-up fee charged for each campaign.
The market has also recently seen the development of pay-as-you-go services, which enable smaller enterprises to enter this marketing landscape for low start-up costs. Fully-managed services also usually have additional ‘bolt-on’ services that allow customisation of email campaigns, tracking and analysis, with some more comprehensive platforms also offering creative services – all at an additional cost, of course.
Off-the-shelf email marketing applications are still available and can give the ultimate in control over any campaign. They do, though, have an impact on the IT provision that is required to make these applications feasible to use. Many B2B companies in particular have moved away from these platforms in favour of web-based systems of outsourcing their requirements to full-service agencies.
The criteria that your business uses to choose the right email delivery platform will depend on the market sector your enterprise operates within, its email marketing budget, and the analytical resources already available.
Option 1. Web-based platforms
Hosted ESP systems have become very popular as they enable a business to effectively outsource their email marketing requirements. No software – or its accompanying maintenance – is required, and these services are infinitely scalable as your business’s needs grow.
Hosted systems, however, can suffer from shared IP address and servers. Look closely at the IT infrastructure of any hosted service you are thinking of using.
Other issues to be aware of include the fact that customer data will be held on a third-party server. There can also be data protection issues when using hosted services based outside the UK. It’s also a good idea to check that the services on your shortlist are not listed on the Spamcop, Spamassassin or Spamhaus websites.
Option 2. Fully-managed services
Many first-time email campaigns choose to use a full-service agency. Outsourcing email services can make commercial sense, as the agency is not only able to provide the physical campaign services, they can also offer help and advice.
The downside to fully-serviced campaigns is their cost. Using this method of mounting, an email campaign is the most expensive. Also, the business buying the services can lose a level of control over their campaign.
Timescales to design and launch a new marketing campaign can be long when compared to other methods. Background checks and research about past and current clients of an agency are pre-requisites before contracts are signed and exchanged.
Option 3. In-house applications
For the ultimate in control, mounting an email marketing campaign completely in-house is the best solution. A level of IT infrastructure will be required and the software application that will handle the marketing campaign will have a minimum systems requirement as laid down by its developer. A licence will also usually have to be purchased to use the platform. The high level of control these installed systems offer is their major attraction. Data security is high as this is held in-house, and spam and shared server issues are not usually a problem to be addressed.
However, linking to legacy systems, maintenance and support, plus the flexibility of in-house systems cannot usually match hosted platforms.
Focus on business objectives
Choosing which route to use for an email marketing solution must always focus on the ROI your business is looking for. Web-based systems may seem very attractive because of their low costs and fast set-up and implementation, but many businesses also require help with understanding their market and designing campaigns to reach what can be highly-focused leads – especially in the B2B.
Full-service agencies that have experience in your sector can be worth the extra investment as their insight is potentially invaluable. Clearly not all email marketing platforms are equal, and in this sector one size definitely doesn’t fit all. Service level agreements are a must and always link your ESP to your stated ROI for each campaign. This in turn should be supported with KPIs that track each campaign in detail.
Testing times
If you want to test email marketing for the first time, web-based hosted services give you a simple point-and-click interface that can have your first campaign up and running in a matter of minutes. Services like DotMailer, NewZapp, Icon Technologies and Lyris offer services that enable you to test the email marketing waters for the first time.
In the B2B market the value of the relationship is so high. You can’t afford to send irrelevant communications as eventually these will be either blocked by the organisation or simply not read by the recipient.
Edward Weatherall, MD of Concep, says he has found many businesses in the B2B sector want to do email marketing, but are not clear how this should be handled.
“What email should do is build a relationship with clients that ultimately leads to high conversion rates, which we can see with detailed tracking of every component of the campaign.”
For all B2B enterprises, the purchase of email marketing services should be approached with all the due diligence that would be used when procuring any mission-critical services.
With a market that now offers a platform for any size of business, communicating – even with niche markets – can be achieved effectively.
With the abundance of services available, email marketing has now truly come of age.
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