You are currently viewing Email for Start-ups: Choosing an ESP (Email Service Provider)

Email for Start-ups: Choosing an ESP (Email Service Provider)

Email marketing is one of the smartest ways to communicate with your clients and the perfect way to showcase your products and service. Not only is it efficient but an affordable and direct way. Its flexible and wide outreach makes all the campaigns effective, result-driven with optimum high-performance yields.

For providing aid during the initial days of starting a brand, email communication appears to be in the war footing zone. Since your start-up brand has already deployed its mission and strategies–all you need now is an efficient and effective way Email Service provider to take your mission forward.
The question now is how do you turn the tide?

Despite being besieged by various disruptions and challenges, Startups are in a noble race and they are all tracking their performances. One key factor that they largely depend on is email.

We have brought some of the smart tips that have been brainstormed to accelerate an email marketing campaign for the Start-ups.

If you are planning to develop an email program on your own, it can be an extremely difficult exercise. Planning, strategizing, and sending our first email or conducting a continuous email campaign can be an uphill task since at the initial stage; Startups need to first decide whether to consider emailing as an in-house activity or outsource the services of an Email Service provider. Well, we provide you with the benefits and ways to identify ways to select the right option.

The Start-up world has been witnessing various means to stay ahead and from the Marketing point of view, it is imperative to build an authentic mailing list at the initial stages. Why is it important?

The answer to this is you must know who is your potential customer and if they are indeed interested in your business. Once the answer to the above question is obtained–you are ready with a valid mailing list for your business.

NOTE: Do not add on every name and email id, filter them and bucket them into potential and most potential categories. NEVER pile up unnecessary email IDs in the list do not stuff your mailing list. Only secure it with genuine contacts that are keen to know and stay updated about your start-up and are responsive.

Is Hiring an Email Service Provider a valid decision?

If you analyze the procedure of setting up an email campaign on your own (using your in-house resource and talent) you will have to invest time, spend money, and keep patience since the possibility is the result might not be as expected. You will keep wondering IF the emails have hot the right inbox. Are they been blocked /clack listed and the most important factor is–Who will track the analytics. Do you have the right tool to audit your work? Will you be able to check the Sender’s score? Will your email Deliverability do not reflect your reputation?

All these questions and more will always haunt you like many times, you will not have an answer to most of these.

If you opt for outsourcing the ESP service, you will experience:

Avoid being blacklisted : 

87% of the times you email from your email box–chances are your email will be tagged as “SPAM” and if you are slightly lucky, it will hit the recipient’s SMAP/JUNK folder. Using the services of ESP will keep these at bay–they are experts in sending mass emails and have a great sender score and reputation.

NOTE: Keep blacklisting a SPAMMING at bay

Segmentation:

Whilst you are expanding your network and reach, your email listing also grows, you must segment them into categories else, everyone, with varied interests, will keep getting similar mails for every campaign- which can be irritating.

ESP provides you with a super segmentation offer that helps you send emails to segments rather than all mail all inboxes.

NOTE: The option referred above is Segmentation

Analytics and Track:

Layering an added portion of your email campaign helps you measure your activities better. What happens if you continue thriving hard on your email campaign and you end up without an analytic and trend monitor? In-house email management cannot monitor the analytics and often this becomes the foremost reason for your email campaign failure.

NOTE: Outsourced service of an Email Service provider take this working to the next level. A responsible Email Service Provider will provide you weekly/monthly statistics and data that will help you understand how well is your campaign.

What is it that we must keep in mind while selecting an

Email Service Provider?

As far as Email Service providers are concerned, we have several options available online as well as in our local service community. It is important to weigh in the technological and operational perspectives before you opt for the perfect provider for your organization. Some ESP might be very expensive and some might just not be available or too busy to attend to your request. What factors should we keep in mind while choosing the perfect ESP;

⦁ Dependable–Your Email Service provider must be dependable, it means you must be able to bank on them for their services, research, and support.
⦁ Your ESP must be able to integrate API with your App or the website seamlessly. This is to ensure your clients and other viewers can access your product and services without any interruption.
⦁ Choose an Email Service provider who offers a user-friendly platform. It will help your internal resource to access and perform better.

Measurability: Does it mean something?

Well established brands gain grip since they are believed to build relations on strong communication ground. It is extremely important to keep an eye on the email alongside the other business they must scale the business emails to understand the productivity and scalability. This is only possible when you have a professional Email Service provider. If we are thinking of setting up an in house email solution, it would mean installing servers, recruiting new resources and support to handle the load. All these can be well managed by outsourcing the services of Email Service providers, they will manage the contact lists and also allow you to continue adding email lists, recipients and also maintain records of upgrade prefers and plans in discussion with you.

The paradigm shift of Email marketing

With the ever-growing business and the demand for more emails to be sent to potential clients, strategic and well-planned email campaigns prove to be more effective than unplanned email services.

An Email Service provider will plan the email campaign with the best combination of informative, transactional, and marketing emails. If you think your start-up business is not ready for the marketing level yet–remember selecting an ESP is very crucial at this stage. They will help you send launch emails, promotional and introductory emails which will yield results.

Key elements one must keep in mind while opting for an Email Service Provider are:

Creativity element–As you plan to promote your brand and send launch and promotional emails–remember to keep your brand standards in mind and ensure the right customization is done to stand ahead of the crowd. It should impact the recipient’s mailbox.

Listing–You must have thousands of email addresses but they all do not share the same interest. Ensure you create bucket lists where you store applicable email addresses and contacts. This will benefit you largely to send emails to the right target and not land on unwanted zones.

Testing–When we have the best tool to conduct a dry run of our campaign- why not use it? A/B Testing graduates email campaigns and shows clearly the subject line performance, Are the links clicked or not, and whether they are followed are all analyzed using the A/B Testing tools by ESP.

What we conclude

IT might sound simple but setting up your email system is an uphill task and can be very tedious. 86% of the businesses prefer outsourcing the Email Service provider’s services for the emailing solution. You may research and evaluate ESP based on your requirement, yet ensure you do not compromise on quality. Very few brands believe cost-cutting is the key to success and thus makes a wrong choice just to save a few thousand dollars–Our aim is to help you understand the importance and since the subject in discussion id Start-ups–they have to be tactical and business smart to firm their position and maximize presence using various email strategies and marketing tactics.

IS your Start-up looking for an Email Service provider and do not know how to select the right one. Check out support programs specially designed to help start-ups have a firm grip on their business.