Kim is the Director of Marketing at VerticalResponse, a Direct Marketing Firm.
Bryan: So to get started, maybe you can explain what VerticalResponse does.
Kim: VerticalResponse is an online solution that enables any small business regardless of technical expertise to get up and running quickly and affordably with email marketing, surveys and direct mail postcards. We are the only provider to offer all three of these solutions. In addition, we have integrations with Google Analytics, social networks, and offer free list management tools like opt-in forms so you can grow your list of subscribers. For about $10 a month you get a lot of marketing bang for your buck! And, we have an amazing in-house, U.S. based support team that works 7-days a week because we know entrepreneurs don’t just work M-F!
Bryan: What sort things need to be considered when evaluating an email marketing firm?
Kim: I often see people on Twitter asking which ESP (Email Service Provider) to use and I tell them to consider 3 basic things:
- Features: The first thing to consider is how you plan to use email marketing for your business and what features you will need. Think about things like list segmentation, email templates, analytics, the ability to push emails to social networks and other integrations.
- Cost: Most ESPs charge a monthly or yearly rate for your service. Price can vary according to how large your list is or how many messages you send each month. Others charge for more features and functionality. VerticalResponse offers a great pay-as-you-go plan so you only pay for what you use.
- Delivery: Find out if the ESP offers advanced deliverability tools, such as accreditation and authentication tools, spam score, abuse processing, global suppression, and by-ISP delivery reporting. Also ask if the ESP has partnered with any third party deliverability experts, like Return Path or Pivotal Veracity, as these additional services will ensure that even more of your emails reach your recipients’ inboxes. Your number one goal should be ensuring your messages reach your recipients’ inboxes, and an ESP should provide up-to-date tools to help you overcome any deliverability issues.
When you’re starting out, it’s a good option to pay as you go or sign up with an ESP that charges less based on a smaller number of subscribers. As your list size grows you can switch to a pay-per month plan and it’s a win-win.
Bryan: Can you explain deliverability? What can a user do, to increase the number of messages that will reach their subscribers?
Kim: Deliverability is the process of getting your email messages delivered specifically to the inboxes of your recipients. Successful deliverability is consistently delivering to the inbox and requires a combination of things you can do, including authentication and reputation.
The deliverability landscape is always changing as spammers adopt new technologies and learn to work around safety measures put in place by ISPs. ISPs are constantly adjusting their filtering rules and how they judge a sender's reputation since inevitably the 'bad guys' catch on to the new rules. Right now the metric of the deliverability world is “engagement.” ISPs and filtering companies are watching how people interact with mail, do they open and click? Do they save the email in a special folder? Do they have special filters set up? Do they complain if an email is delivered to the spam folder that is was misrouted?
In order to increase the number of messages that will reach subscribers a sender needs to work with a reputable email sender if they plan on sending out regular communications to their audience. Even if their email list is small, reputable ESPs will have a strong infrastructure in place that will ensure protocols are in followed to ensure that the mail will pass any checks that happen before an email is delivered to the inbox. Essentially these checks include ensuring the sender is who they say they are. An ESP will be able to manage bounces, that occur when an email is undeliverable, complaints and unsubscribe requests. If you continued to mail to addresses that no longer exists or to recipients who complain, deliverability rates will decline over time.
At VerticalResponse we’ve been sending emails for customers for nearly a decade and during this time we’ve established strong relationships with major ISPs such as AOL, Yahoo!, Gmail and Hotmail. The result: emails sent by VerticalResponse customers are rarely mistaken for spam and we’ve got some of the highest email delivery rates (97-98%) in the industry.
The number one thing a sender can control in order to achieve the best deliverability are their mailing lists. The mail needs to be relevant to and expected by the recipient. When a recipient opts into an email lists and their expectations are set from the beginning about frequency and content of the email, be this at the subscription page or in a Welcome email, a recipient is more likely to open and engage an email campaign. If messages are sent to recipients who have not opted in, or who opted in so long ago they don't remember signing up, they are likely to unsubscribe or even complain that the mail is spam. When enough complaints are generated the mail can be directed to the bulk box or outright blocked.
