Getting Email Out: Why Your Server Is The Worst Option

So you want to get an email out. Why not just use a server-based tool like Outlook? Oh … where do we begin?

Some server-based products tout themselves as email solutions, and they could do what you want … and be very detrimental to your business. If you’re not sure if your email solution is using your own servers, here’s a good litmus test: Did you need to install it on your computer or download a file for it to work? If so, it’s probably using your servers. Most third-party email solutions are hosted or offered on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) basis.

Some programs are essentially email design and formatting tools that utilize the same server your corporate email uses. The risk here is that if your marketing email ever get flagged as spam, any of the third-party watchdog services that watch out for that kind of thing could classify your company’s IP address as a spam server. Hello, blacklist. Goodbye, corporate email.

Also, many server-based programs lack the tracking, metrics and analytics capabilities you need, such as offering email recipients an opt-out option, which is a requirement of the CAN-SPAM Act. Really, a third-party solution – either email transmission or marketing automation– is the best choice for sending marketing email.

Option 1: Email Transmission

If you are looking for something that is simple, cheap and quick, then email transmission may be the tool for you. Pricing varies depending on the brand, but most are comparable in price and are selected based on specific feature and benefit needs or user interfaces. Users are charged based on the number of emails they send, the number of people in their database or some combination of these variables.

• What’s the benefit? Email transmission enables you to send email to a list and then track how many of those emails are opened, clicked on, bounced, unsubscribed and marked as spam. This tracking helps with strategy for future emails and database maintenance. How else can it help?
  • Dealing with spam complaints. If you have a list that isn’t opt-in and you receive more than one spam complaint per 1,000 emails, your account can be shut down. This may seem a disadvantage, but it is less detrimental to have your account shut down than your whole server. Think of this as a circuit breaker for your server.
  • Making HTML easy. Even with little or no HTML knowledge, an HTML email can be created by email transmission tools by simply plugging in text and pictures. Most will offer a few other features, but rarely more than that.
  • What’s the cost? Expect this to run your company about $10 per 1,000 contacts or emails per month.

Option 2: Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is a more sophisticated tool for email marketing and therefore requires more learning, planning, time and money.

• What’s the benefit? Marketing automation is software that makes processes such as customer segmentation, customer data integration and campaign management forms, web analytics and lead nurturing much more efficient. How else can it help?
  • Facilitating customer relationship management: Automation further supports sales and marketing goals, views your leads, and measures your return on investment (ROI). This software helps you make more strategic decisions with reports following your leads from first click to when revenue is gained.
  • Providing robust reports: Unlike email transmission’s simplified reports, marketing automation usually contains everything, including lead management, lead generation, lead scoring and lead nurturing.
  • Developing databases: The database is also useful in that it contains multichannel campaign management, campaign automation, CRM integration and a marketing database.
• What’s the cost? Expect this to run about $2,500-$5,000 per month (depending on database size) and can have implementation costs as well.

How Do You Choose?

Deciding which tool to use depends on how much money you want to spend and how sophisticated your marketing efforts are. The extensive features of marketing automation outweigh those of email transmission, but the costs are substantial. The decision factor should be based on whether or not your marketing department can take advantage of the greater functionality and increased level of difficulty. If you need to integrate with sales force automation (SFA) or want to run rule-based lead nurturing or drip campaigns, you’ll need to invest in marketing automation.

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