Email marketing can be a great outlet for companies to broadcast promotions and sales to current and potential customers. When done correctly, an email marketing campaign can leave a lasting impression on customers and provide them with the ability act upon your promotion on their time.
Email marketing providers are worth the investment as they help ease the process of sending an email and make emails look more professional. Online systems allow subscribers to pick from a template, provide content and a mailing list, then send each email in a visually pleasing and timely manner.
Let’s take a look at some of the key features to look for in an email marketing provider and which providers offer them.
Templates
Different types of service promotions or sales might require messages to be formatted in different ways. Built-in templates will allow you to select from a variety of layouts and styles that best match the content you wish to include. A template’s drag-and-drop feature will help to align relevant images or a brand bar/icon your company uses for different communications.
Automation
Depending on the emails you are sending, your tracking results might show that the most engagement with your emails is happening at 9 p.m. Maybe your company is launching a new product and you want the announcement to go out at 12 midnight. Or, you wanted to send an email out at 10 a.m. but got pulled into a meeting last minute and missed your chance to hit send. Whatever the reason might be, automation is an important feature to look for in an email service provider. Automation takes the worry out of being at the computer at the specific time you want your email to be sent.
Personalization
If you have customer-specific emails to send, personalization is a feature to look for. This will allow you to customize fields in the email to each individual. This is a great tool if you are running an incentives program or looking to appeal to first time shoppers. You can customize each email to include a customer’s name or if you have an incentive-based program you can fill in multiple fields updating a customer on their progress.
Mobile friendly
When looking to send an email, it is important to realize that, depending on the target market, almost half of the audience will be checking their emails from their phones or tablet as opposed to a desktop. What looks good from a computer might not look good on a mobile device. That is why it is important to use an email provider that offers a mobile-friendly version of any email being sent. This will ensure that each message is being displayed properly for mobile devices and that there won’t be any customer frustration due to an email that won’t load.
List Management Tools
It is possible that your company has a series of emails to be sent and a specific contact list for each email. Many email service providers allow you to filter your contact lists and organize your lists for each email send. Uploading a spreadsheet of contacts for each email can save time instead of individually selecting recipients for each email. Using a provider that saves each contact list from previous sends will also be helpful as it can be added to when needed.
Tracking results
Like any other marketing campaign, results are key. One of the more important features of an email service provider is one that calculates results. The information provided will include things such as: how many recipients opened it – at what time did the email have the most engagement – how many people unsubscribed from the email send – and how many times someone went back and re-opened the email. Every email send should be tailored to best fit the audience engagement results gained in prior email messages.
Email marketing providers are worth the investment as they help ease the process of sending an email and make emails look more professional. Online systems allow subscribers to pick from a template, provide content and a mailing list, then send each email in a visually pleasing and timely manner.
Let’s take a look at some of the key features to look for in an email marketing provider and which providers offer them.
Templates
Different types of service promotions or sales might require messages to be formatted in different ways. Built-in templates will allow you to select from a variety of layouts and styles that best match the content you wish to include. A template’s drag-and-drop feature will help to align relevant images or a brand bar/icon your company uses for different communications.
Automation
Depending on the emails you are sending, your tracking results might show that the most engagement with your emails is happening at 9 p.m. Maybe your company is launching a new product and you want the announcement to go out at 12 midnight. Or, you wanted to send an email out at 10 a.m. but got pulled into a meeting last minute and missed your chance to hit send. Whatever the reason might be, automation is an important feature to look for in an email service provider. Automation takes the worry out of being at the computer at the specific time you want your email to be sent.
Personalization
If you have customer-specific emails to send, personalization is a feature to look for. This will allow you to customize fields in the email to each individual. This is a great tool if you are running an incentives program or looking to appeal to first time shoppers. You can customize each email to include a customer’s name or if you have an incentive-based program you can fill in multiple fields updating a customer on their progress.
Mobile friendly
When looking to send an email, it is important to realize that, depending on the target market, almost half of the audience will be checking their emails from their phones or tablet as opposed to a desktop. What looks good from a computer might not look good on a mobile device. That is why it is important to use an email provider that offers a mobile-friendly version of any email being sent. This will ensure that each message is being displayed properly for mobile devices and that there won’t be any customer frustration due to an email that won’t load.
List Management Tools
It is possible that your company has a series of emails to be sent and a specific contact list for each email. Many email service providers allow you to filter your contact lists and organize your lists for each email send. Uploading a spreadsheet of contacts for each email can save time instead of individually selecting recipients for each email. Using a provider that saves each contact list from previous sends will also be helpful as it can be added to when needed.
Tracking results
Like any other marketing campaign, results are key. One of the more important features of an email service provider is one that calculates results. The information provided will include things such as: how many recipients opened it – at what time did the email have the most engagement – how many people unsubscribed from the email send – and how many times someone went back and re-opened the email. Every email send should be tailored to best fit the audience engagement results gained in prior email messages.
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