Email Marketing Software Email marketing software vendor information, blog and buyer's guide

How to Select Email Marketing Software

How to Select Email Marketing Software is intended to ensure you consider 6 key points when buying email marketing software.

1. Some email marketing software sales people lie.

2. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of in-house email marketing software vs hosted email solutions.

3. Deliverability rates.  If your email doesn't get delivered you've wasting time so ask for details on how hosted email providers ensure deliverability of email messages.  If you're going to deploy a solution inhouse ask yourself do you have the time to manage communications with ISP's and get whitelisted.

4. Contractual Flexibility.  Can you increase or decrease the volume of emails your sending without any nasty surprises.

5. Pricing is important but don't make it your key consideration.

6. Check out our email marketing software buyer's guide.

The quick post is only intended to highlight a few important points to consider when selecting email marketing software.

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Blue Sky Factory Email Marketing Software

Email marketing software provider Blue Sky Factory has added social media features and monitoring to it's solution. Email marketing is becoming a great channel for jump-starting social media campaigns. It pays to have an email marketing vendor with the capabilities show in the video below.

Blue Sky Factory's Email Marketing Software

Email Marketing Course

Email marketing courses can be valuable for getting email marketing newbies up to speed ASAP.  The two most popular UK email marketing courses are provided by E-consultancy and theIDM.

UK Email Marketing Course Dates:

1. The IDM - 12 May & 29 Nov 2010 - London - Cost £1,450
2. E-consultancy - 8 Jul 2010 - Manchester - Cost £495
3. The IDM - 15 Jul & 29 Nov 2010 - London - Cost £1,450
4. E-consultancy - 15 Jun 2010 - London - Cost £495
5. E-consultancy - 30 Sept 2010 - London - Cost £645 (Advanced)

Email Marketing Event in London

If you've not attended an E-consultancy's Email Marketing event before then you should give this one a try.

Twenty email marketers and email marketing software providers share best practices, ask advice and network.

I've attended two E-consultancy's Email Marketing round tables and found value and learnt more about email marketing and how email fits into the whole marketing plan at both events.

The email marketing software providers at these events tend to behave themselves but can't help showing off a little.

The next E-consultancy email marketing event is in London on 9th July 2010.

Email Marketing Software for Blogs

If you have a blog and aren't converting new visitors into email subscribers then you're making life harder than it needs to be.  Most bloggers are using RSS and Twitter but the majority still aren't utilising email to communicate with readers.

Why you should care?

1. The money is in the list. Email subscribers monetise better than other visitors.

2. Email builds trust.  Email makes people feel more connected than RSS.

3. Most people don't know or want to know what RSS is.

How to start?

1. For small time bloggers the easiest place to start is with Google's Feedburner service.

2. Corporates can use email marketing software vendors who offer brandable solutions.

Email Marketing Software – Internet World 2010

Internet World 2010 once again has too many email marketing software providers competing for attention.

I'm surprised that email marketing providers are throwing some much of their marketing budgets at events like Internet World and TFM.

Email Marketing Companies at Internet World 2010:
Alterian
dotMailer
eCircle
Emailcenter
Emailmovers
Emailvision
ExactTarget
Experian CheetahMail
GraphicMail
MailPerformance
Mailvivo
Pure360
Silverpop
smartFOCUS
Suite26

UK Email Marketing Software Buyers Guide – DRAFT

Update to Email Marketing Software Buyer's Guide - Sept 2010: The findings of this and other research on UK email marketing software vendors can now be found at the Email Marketing Buyer's Guide.

Note to email marketing vendors:  If you'd like to comment on the Email Marketing Buyer's Guide (why you should be included etc) please continue doing so at the bottom of this page.

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I'm building out a brief UK email marketing software buyers guide.

Can you help build out this list? Do you think the company list should be amended? If yes then please comment.

Aprimo
Customers: Aviva, Honda and Standard Life.
UK Staff: 25+
Partnerships: Omniture, ReturnPath and salesforce.com.
Platform: Email Marketing Software-as-a-Service and On-Premise email marketing software.

Adestra
Customers: BBC, Lloyds and TalkTalk.
UK Staff: 40
Partnerships: ReturnPath.
Platform: Email Marketing Software-as-a-Service.

CheetahMail
Customers: Barclays, Dixons and HMV.
UK Staff: Unkown
Partnerships: Coremetrics, Omniture, ReturnPath and WebTrends.
Platform: Email Marketing Software-as-a-Service.

Communicator
Customers: Ministry of Sound, phones4U and Travelex.
UK Staff: Unkown
Partnerships: None
Platform: Email Marketing Software-as-a-Service.

dotMailer
Customers: E.ON, Nationwide and DHL.
UK Staff: 80
Partnerships: salesforce.com
Platform: Email Marketing Software-as-a-Service.

e-Circle
Customers: Unkown
UK Staff: Unkown
Partnerships: Coremetrics and WebTrends.
Platform: Email Marketing Software-as-a-Service.

Emailvision
Customers: Sony, Rank and Opodo.
UK Staff: Unkown
Partnerships: Unkown
Platform: Email Marketing Software-as-a-Service.

Epsilon
Customers: Unkown
UK Staff: 50
Partnerships: Unkown
Platform: Email Marketing Software-as-a-Service.

ExactTarget
Customers: Unkown
UK Staff: Unkown
Partnerships: Microsoft Dynamics, Omniture, Pivotal Veracity and salesforce.com
Platform: Email Marketing Software-as-a-Service.

Pure360
Customers: Hackett, LA Fitness and Brighton Marathon.
UK Staff: 50
Partnerships: Lots of agencies are using Pure360's white label email platform.
Platform: Email Marketing Software-as-a-Service.

Silverpop
Customers: British Film Institute, LexisNexis and Ted Baker.
UK Staff: 30
Partnerships: Coremetrics, Omniture, salesforce.com, Webtrends and Unica.
Platform: Email Marketing Software-as-a-Service.

Yesmail
Customers: Coca Cola, Kodak and Hewlett Packard.
UK Staff: 10
Partnerships: Pivotal Veracity and ReturnPath
Platform: Email Marketing Software-as-a-Service.

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Top 3 UK B2B Email Marketing Solutions

Following on from the Top Ten UK Email Marketing Vendors I've put together a list of the Top three UK B2B Email Marketing Solutions.

Top Three UK B2B Email Marketing Solutions:

1. Aprimo
2. Eloqua
3. Silverpop

Only email marketing solutions with a UK office, lead management capabilities and a Salesforce.com integration have been included in the B2B Email Marketing Solutions list.