As we all know, email marketing works so I won’t bore you with this information. Instead, let’s see what an email marketing consultant is and what they can do for you.
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.
The Email Marketing Chronicles 
In my openion you are right . WOM( word of mouth), viral campaign and blogs are much more effective then email marketing, for building brand name and image.The process is time consuming but results are always positive.
Thanks for your comments Nabiha. But I’m in no way advocating inbound marketing techniques over email marketing. In my opinion both are must-haves for most organizations.
Particularly, email is a cost-effective method of communicating with your customers/prospects in a relevant way…and (if done correctly) allows you to reach to new customers that might not be actively searching for your offerings. But I may be biased 🙂
I wholeheartedly agree.
I agree so much, that after 9+ years I left the large ESP I worked for to become an Email Marketing Consultant.
Since email is relatively inexpensive, the returns are always good, but this is a double-edged sword.
Marketers understand the value of email marketing, but some feel they are already doing well, so why hire an external resource?
This is my challenge, so I appreciate the article more than most.
Thanks!
George
Great observation…and also very true. Would love to talk shop sometime.
This is a greaat blog