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Managed email marketing can take many forms, such as the crafting and management of recurring email communications.

It could also involve content development, cross-channel distribution, list growth, as well as untold technical integrations and reporting mechanisms. The list is long.

In any case, when our clients come to us requesting managed email services it’s largely because they’re frustrated and frugal.

Frustrated Marketers

They’re fed up. They can’t find qualified in-house talent or siphon additional production (or ability) from their existing staff, yet they know they could and should be doing so much more.

That’s common. In many ways email marketing is a unique discipline. Email is hard. But in other ways it simply requires talent and tenacity. It’s difficult to find both of those requirements in a single source or an overworked and under-trained team.

Outsourcing works because it allows marketers to tap into the diverse, yet specialized, skillsets of their partner…be they an email marketing agency or an ESP.

Besides creativity, technical skills, and powers of persuasion (all of which are required if you’re going to win the email game), an email marketing partner also brings with them the experiences of working with a varied client base. This is a limitless source for fresh ideas which ensures that the effort does not become a victim of “group think” and that every dollar spent is maximized.

Frugal Marketers

When deciding to outsource their email marketing or keep it in-house, many of our clients first looked at the dollars to see if it makes sense. They’re frugal not stupid.

Let’s face it, email marketing services takes time. So, in one form or another, time is the source of the marketer’s expense.

That’s one of the reasons why outsourcing makes sense; it takes less time.

Because of the experience that your email services partner brings to the table, there is little to no learning curve, as it pertains to their capabilities. They also feel the need to prove their value, every month.

I can’t speak for all agencies but we’ve spent months with our faces buried in almost every ESP’s interface and API. We know their strengths, weaknesses, and limitations.  We have crafted thousands of campaigns and provided consulting services to many many B2C and B2B marketers. This creates an efficiency that is only gained through experience. Efficiency means less time, which means less cost.

Besides efficiency, continuing education becomes the expense of the service provider. Payroll expenses, medical, vacation time? Fugetaboutit.

The cost is usually less than that of a full-time staffer, or depending on the requirements, even greater cost savings can be found. Again, it all backs out to time.

If they outsource, what kind of ROI can the marketer expect? There is  only one way to find out: initiate a conversion and choose wisely. It may pay huge dividends to find a partner that can work in concert with them or their in-house teams, or maybe they’d like to outsource the entire email marketing effort, soup to nuts.

They are one of the few email services providers that understand that a great product doesn’t have to cost you a fortune. For example, they offer features such as dynamic content and robust, yet easy to use, template language; features that are not even available at more formal and certainly more pricey ESPs.

MailChimp Expert Exchange Program – Get Paid To Outsource

Beyond pricing and features we love MailChimp’s recently launched Expert Exchange Program, in which we participate.

What’s This: Need consulting, custom MailChimp templates, API work, or someone to manage your email marketing? Hire us and MailChimp will reimburse you 50% of what you spend with us.

Do You Qualify: If you’ve got paid MailChimp Monthly Plan, you qualify!

How it Works: Once your project with Indiemark is complete,  send your paid invoice to MailChimp. Then MailChimp will take 50% off your monthly bill for six months or until they have reimbursed you for half of the cost of your project. Pretty sweet huh?!?!

Already Have a MailChimp Account?

Review our MailChimp Services or tell us about your needs.

Need a MailChimp Account?

Go to MailChimp, click the “Sign Up Free”, and activate your account via the confirmation email. You’re all set!

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Email marketing consultants generally take three forms, an Email Marketing Agency, a Freelancer, or an in-house staffer at an Email Service Provider (ESP) or Traditional Agency; all of which have skills and experience that are specific to developing effective email marketing strategies. However, their core competencies and service offerings vary greatly.

So do you need an email marketing consultant? If so, what type? Ask yourself the following questions.

Is my mailing solution right for me?
Does my ESP or in-house solutions provide all the features I need? Am I using the features that I’m paying for? It is easy for ME to use? Is my throughput in-line with my cost?

What am I mailing?
Have I mapped out what should I send? Such as Welcome emails, Newsletters, Abandoned Orders, Promotions, and Reactivation emails? What am I missing? Where does the email communication chain breakdown?

When should I be mailing?

Should I use information based on my recipient’s actions to send emails, such as white paper downloads or cart abandonment? What about date-driven emails, such as holiday-only buyers or anniversaries. What’s my editorial calendar for my newsletters? Am I keeping track of ad-hoc promotional emails?

What are my business rules?
Have I decided what causes a message to be sent? What data is needed to support the message? Should the data import process be manual or automatic? What content is sent when those conditions are met? What’s my plan for From names and Subject lines? Should I mix it up? What and when should I test?

What are my goals?
Have I established goals, such as number of downloads, sales, registrations? What do I plan to do to grow my list? What can I do to reduce attrition?

What are my reporting needs?
Do I need to see more than just clicks and opens to improve my results and prove my case?  Do I need my tap into outside data such as CRM and website analytics tools to establish and track my success metrics?

Email marketing is a valuable endeavor for most marketers, but the process can be challenging and time consuming. An email marketing consultant or agency can help you meet your goals while allowing you to use your time to operate other aspects of your business.

Need more than just insight? An email-focused agency can also provide with the supporting services, as well as direction, that are required to launch and support a strong email marketing program; read how-to hire an email marketing agency to learn more.

Until now, I’ve started (but never finished) dozens of classic business plans. You know…the 25 page text-rich variety. I suppose it’s because I’m too right-brained or too impatient or both. So I usually just wing it with a “business outline”, but secretly wish I had taken the time to map out my long and short term strategies in greater detail.

So this time I’ve drafted a visual business plan.

Below you’ll find the paired-down version. It also comes with a companion Tactical Guide, which is not found here. It’s too juicy.

Please…tell me what you think!

This  leaves smart marketers with a decision to make. Hire outside email marketing experts (shameless plug), in-house talent, or a combination thereof? The answer of course depends on their unique needs.

If you’re one of those marketers (who knows they could be doing so much with your email marketing), this guide will help you to assess your current efforts, and most importantly, plot a course for Resultsburg.

Step 1: Define the Scope

A successful email marketing program requires a lot of planning and thoughtful consideration, including:

• Best Practices and Frequency Strategy
• Editorial & Promotional Content Planning
• List Growth & Win-back Strategy
• Up Sale, Cross Sale, and Referral Strategy
• List Segmentation (via customer profiles and behavior)
• Flexible Design (on-brand, actionable, and in the inbox)
• Trigger-based Emails (using customer behaviors or events)
• Customer Engagement Measurement (One of the biggest factors in deliverability)
• Social Integration (It’s a two-way street)
• Testing & Optimization (Need I say more)
• Email Service Provider (ESP) or Mailing Solution Evaluations

Does the list above encompasses more than you’re doing? You may be under-utilizing this lucrative channel and missing out of profits. Perhaps it’s time for a fresh marketing partner or maybe you need to reallocate budgets or provide your in-house team with more training? Now move on to steps 2 and 3, but be honest with yourself and go with your gut.

Step 2: Look in Your Own Backyard

If you prefer to utilize in-house talent, consider this:

1. You (meaning you or your team) know your business; are you also well-versed in email marketing?
2. If yes, do you have time and energy to be effective?
3. Is your program founded on data and subscriber behavior?
4. How frequently do you test and then optimize your efforts?
5. Does your email marketing drive sales AND reduce marketing costs?
6. What’s your attrition rate?
7. Could your in-house team use some guidance, recommendations or training?
8. Is your email ROI above $40 for every $1 spent?

Step 3: Working With Experts

If you already have a marketing agency or other outside help, ask yourself:

1. Do they understand our target market and business processes?
2. Do they specialize in email?
3. Do they generate an ROI that’s in-line with the findings above?
4. Do they think about your email marketing without being prodded?
5. Have they monetized all the options?
6. Is their work for fresh and reflective of best practices?

If you’ve determined that you need help, check out How to Hire Email Marketing Experts. It will help you evaluate qualified talent that fits your most needs, including a tight budget.

- Scott Hardigree | Indiemark

Know the Difference

Unfortunately legitimate email list rental opportunities have been tarnished by the practices of less-than-stellar providers…be they list multi-sourced compilers, email addresses sellers, or bald-faced liars. None of which are likely to help a marketer’s ROI. Why should it? The email recipients have no relationship with the organization that possesses their email address, and sends the offer.

In my 12 years in email marketing I found that the best opportunities often lie in renting true subscriber lists. That is, opt-in email lists that are derived from a single source such as publications, services, and products — that the recipient knows, and values.

Key Considerations

• The list owner will send the marketer’s offer.
• The marketer pays a fee for this service, usually on a cost-per-thousand (CPM) basis.
• Unlike direct mail or telemarketing, the marketer never sees the list.
• Unlike inbound marketing, it’s all about producing a valuable offer, not content.
• List selection is often the most important factor, followed by the offer and the creative.

For Marketers

For many marketers email list rental is a consistent means of growing their own subscriber lists, packing their pipelines and of course, making sales directly.  Here are a few benefits.

• Value of Association (with the list owner)
• Low Cost of Acquisition (compare to other direct channels)
• It’s Quick (test results and make adjustments in days, not weeks)
• Better Deliverability (Compared to compiled and purchase lists)

For List Owners

List owners come in many flavors such as retailers, event producers, associations, traditional publishers, and bloggers. All of which can find considerable value in email list rental too, albeit of a different sort.

• Revenue ($1-2 per subscriber, per year is a good rule of thumb)
• Control  (what, when, who)
• Easy (no sales, marketing, billing – if you work with a professional list management company).
• Hygiene (weed out hard bounces more frequently)

Case in Point

Going beyond selecting the right lists, wise marketers are no longer taking the “BUY MY STUFF” approach. Instead list rental campaigns are getting more creative, take a look at this campaign from Surfline and Rip Curl. It’s a great example of how publishers can provide their subscribers with direct access complimentary products, services, or offers, and win their hearts in the process.

The Future of Email List Rental

Email deliverability will continue to be a challenge for marketers who use multi-sourced compiled or purchased email lists. In fact, “challenge” is probably too light of a description. And that’s a good thing because it frees up inboxs for more relevant email communications. Besides improved deliverability, legitimate email list rental provides marketers with the opportunity to earn new customers at a fair price, all while respecting the mindshare of the subscribers. But be wary, the list rental universe is often a dodgy one. Marketers and list owners alike should look first to companies that specialize in email lists that originate (and are mailed) from respectable and identifiable sources.

- Scott Hardigree | Indiemark | @indiescott

A bad email program is much like an ineffective sales person. Instead of having to read the disinterest on the faces of your customers, feel the negative impact on sales, or in my case, hear the harshness of their words; email marketing can tell you almost everything you need to know about your customers and help you to sell more.

Going Beyond “Hi FNAME”

The insight required to make your email program more profitable is already at your finger tips and it’s inexpensive. It comes to you in the form of data. I don’t mean open and click data, although that will tell you a lot, I’m talking about data that will allow you to personalize the experience for each of your customers.

Sure, personalized greetings are often well-received but as I mentioned in a recent Chief Marketer article, this year’s standout Valentine’s Day campaigns were those that used deeper data, such as purchase history and customer profiles, to make their offers more personal and therefore more relevant. In the article, I was speaking largely about retailers but service companies too have a slew of easily accessible data to track (or even predict) the purchase intent of their customers as well as identify cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

What Do You Have to Work With?

The sources of actionable data are seemingly endless, but here are few categories and specific examples:

Profile: Imagine you run a travel agency and I’m your 65 y/o prospect, do you think I’d respond better to an offer that reflected the most popular senior destinations? Now imagine that the images in the offer were those of the silver-haired persuasion. Or perhaps I’m on west coast time and your webinar is schedule for 1pm eastern, would I be more likely to reserve my seat if the email read 11am pacific?

Purchase History: If I bought gifts in or around today’s date, two years in a row, might I want to buy another again this year? What if the new gift recommendations were in line with my previous purchases of those of other gift buyers? Conversely, what if I’ve already purchased your primary product, do you think that I want to hear about how much money I could have saved, if only I’d waited? Instead, wouldn’t I rather know about your secondary offerings?

Activity: Maybe I’ve downloaded three sequential white papers in 30 days, but I’ve yet to make a purchase, would it be a good idea to invite me into a discussion about my specific needs? Or maybe I haven’t responded to your offers in some time, am I perfect for a reactivation offer or satisfaction survey?

Preferences: Imagine that you have 10 different products but I’m a reseller that’s only interested on products 1-5. Shouldn’t I be put into a segment with other resellers? What if I’m a direct user but I only want to receive educational information, as opposed to promotional, I’m more likely to remain an enthusiast and share your information if I only get what I really want?

It’s Easy and Inexpensive To Execute

I’m always surprised when SMB marketers say that using data at this level is only for the big boys. That may have been true in the years past, but today any ESP that’s worth their salt integrates easily with your CRM or E-commerce solutions and web analytics. All you have to do is integrate it and most importantly test it.

- Scott Hardigree | Indiemark

When: February 8th, 2010, 7am to 6:30pm

Who: Social Fresh Tampa will have 30-35 speakers split between two rooms of content, stand alone featured speakers and panels.

How: Purchase Ticket ($315)

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Things You Shouldn’t Do

1. Don’t limit your search geographically. Yes, the most expedient way to build trust is in face-to-face relationships, but that doesn’t mean trust can’t also be built on separate coasts or continents for that matter. Keep in mind that what you’re looking for is the correct fit. Restricting your search from the outset to a defined geographic area is unnecessarily limiting. With your marketing budget and ROI at risk, the stakes are just as high. In this day of the email and WebEx, communication is easy and instantaneous. In fact, when we do meet in person with our clients (whether they required ad hoc or fully managed services), meetings are usually focused and efficient because we’ve planned them in advance and time is limited.

2. Don’t screen out professionals based on size. If you’re a small company, you shouldn’t rule out working with a gun-for-hire simply because they offer more services and have more experience than you need; sure, you may not be a huge profit center for them but perhaps they have the precise expertise you need.

Similarly, larger clients shouldn’t exclude small agencies or independent professionals from their consideration. Talented people at the helm of small shops may have more experience than a localized email marketing professional or the mid-level staffers that would be assigned to you at a big full-service agency. It’s the attention, expertise, and ideas that matter.

3. Don’t make industry experience a must-have. Marketing pros with a lot of category experience might be subject to industry group-think. No one group or individual will ever know as much as you do about your industry, so you should hire them for what they do know: the art and science of email marketing.

One of the things I love about being in email marketing is the cross-pollination of ideas gained from working across a variety of industries. Every industry is unique, but they all share common characteristics. Often what we learn serving a client in one industry triggers a fresh idea for a client in another.

4. Don’t ask for (or entertain) speculative work. Speculative campaigns or tests are the bane of the agency business, the same holds true for email-centric ones. Spec campaigns are like steroids, they often over-inflate the presenters’ capabilities. But the biggest reason not to ask for spec work is that the best prospects–the ones you really want–won’t do it. They don’t have to. The more they are willing to jump through speculative hoops for you, the more you should be suspicious. If they’re ready to give away their work there must not be a very good market for it.

5. Don’t avoid questions about your budget.  Don’t let anyone tell you that money (or budget) doesn’t talk. Each agency or outsourcer has certain client budget minimums, arrived at through experience and predicated in part by the economy and their current client load. That’s why it’s important, for the sake of conducting an informed review, that you have some idea of what your budget is or should be. Maybe you’ve had an unpleasant experience by declaring your budget early on or what you thought was too openly (remember the first website you had developed?) It happens. But as a general rule, when you speak with the interested prospects, engage in open dialogue when it comes to your budget. In the end it will save you time, energy, and money.

So how should you select an email marketing partner?

1. Do determine what you need. The worst thing you can do is hire for a job and then not let them do it. Do you need someone to lead or someone to follow? A firm that can develop strategy or an expert at execution? A consultant that likes to have fun or one that’s all business? An employee to take orders or someone who will challenge your thinking?

2. Do initiate a conversation. Send the prospects an e-mail, or give them a call. Spend a few minutes on the phone together and you’ll get an immediate sense of chemistry and interest. Ask them about their history, who their current clients are, what their core capabilities are.

3. Do invite them to review a handful of case studies. Keep in mind that you’re not looking to see if they have good outcomes to report (all of them will) but to understand the thinking behind how they arrived at their solutions. You’ll learn about their process, what it is, how it works, and how it might fit your company and culture. Is it methodical? Inspiration-based? Data-driven?

When you find a good fit, discuss with them the best way to ensure a long and successful relationship. Come to clear agreement on your expectations for compensation and services. Then fire the starter’s gun and let them work.