Which Email Service Provider Can Really Provide?

Does your Email Service Provider (ESP) have supporting documentation for every feature of their email list program, or do they just offer a few notes on a website?

Dundee ListManager offers an extensive online user manual that covers numerous list subjects. From API guides to Web Forms creation (Profile Forms, Surveys, Referral Forms. . .) and everything in between.  Since ListManager’s inception, it allowed the user to do everything needed to create, send and track a complete email marketing campaign. In fact, our customers were using transactional emails (for example) before transactional emails, became a marketing buzzword.

ESP Service Features

As more ESP’s came in to being, our competition started to find more creative ways to use, report and send out an email.  As these “new” features became hot topics, most customers started to expect them.  ESPs that didn’t offer these said features, had to develop them or partner with a company that offered them. Features like Shopping Cart Abandonment and Purchase Tags to track buying habits soon became very popular. These features have been part of Dundee ListManager for years.

Some of our list competitors unable to program these features, partnered with companies that could. Now, with third-party integration, ESPs can offer everything under the marketing sun.  However, most integration performance relies on all parts working correctly.  If an ESP doesn’t have A/B testing built in their program, they hook up with a company that does. Sometimes these features come at an additional cost.

Dundee’s ListManager Features

In the case of Dundee ListManager, the A/B test feature has been part of the software for a number of years. Using the A/B wizard a user can perform as many tests as necessary to see the effect a changed variable has in each mailing.  And there is no additional cost to do so.

List Manager can integrate with other programs utilizing ListManager’s API.  In all cases, an integration with ListManager is not done to give the user additional features but done for the convenience of the user and the third party offering.  (ListManager to WordPress.)  In these instances, the users are only limited by their programmer.

And then there are the corporate “specialists” who write blogs and offer charts and surveys to help the email marketer decide which ESP they should be using.  Several of these bloggers created categories for Email Service Providers, mistakenly assuming the size of the company dictates the size of the customer (list) they can successfully handle.

For example, we are a small Corporation and comfortably handle single list sizes of 15 Million members or more.  (As many of our list owners can tell you.)  So size, company size, doesn’t matter with us.

All of our users can use:

• A/B testing, Aliases, Analytics, Archives, Autoresponders
• Bounce Handling Reports, Bounce Management, Branding, Built-in-Reports
• Interactive Calendar, Chart Builder, Clickthrough Heatmap, Conditional Content, Conversion Pipeline, Custom Demographics
• Editable Regions for Templates, Automatic Error Handing
• Forward Tracking, Setup FeedBack Loops
• Goodbye Messages
• Html to Text Mail Merge
• Map Reports, Match Phrases, Member Profile Forms, Membership Expiration Dates
• NNTP, No Mail Settings
• Open Rates, Opted In Sign Up, Opted Out Signature Parent/Child Mailings
• Preview Features, Profile Pages
• Refer a Friend, Referral Forms, Run Frequency
• Sales Cycle Map, Segmentation Management, Sequential Mailing Wizard, SOAP API, Split Test Mailings Wizard, Success % Chart, Success Tracking,  Suppression List, Surveys, Survey Form Builder
• Template Editor, Templates,  Thank You Pages, Tracking Summary, Transactional  Emails, Triggered Clauses, Triggered Mailings
• Segments and Events Unsubscribe
• Vanity Domain Name, Virtual (server) Lists Hosting
• Web Analytics Integration, Web Forms, Welcome Letter And so much more.

But all ESPs have one thing in common, and for those that don’t; what can I say? 🙁

We want customers to be successful with all aspects of email marketing.  Most of us publish some form or Email Best Practices and center Blogs around the popular concerns and topics for marketers in general, like Mobile Marketing.We tell you to use:

1. Relevant and sometimes compelling Subject Lines.  And to avoid those words with spammy connotations. Content that is clear, with a call-to-action and may just pertain to a certain group of people: segment your list when appropriate. A consistent sender address, so the recipient recognizes you.
2. A testing method to figure out the most effective message to send.
3. Welcome letters
4. An easy way to unsubscribe.

And so much more.  Most ESP probably will suite your needs, but not every ESP has the time to know you and what those needs are.  Talk to your ESP, talk to us, to find out if you’re missing a company that is small enough to know you personally but large enough to mail to the world.