Do Business Well

Unlike a traditional, direct marketing campaign, an Internet direct marketing program is a tightly integrated combination of marketing service, technology, and 24-7 operational support. Separating these three components by, for instance, engaging a marketing services group, building an in-house operations team, and purchasing offthe-shelf products is a definite possibility, but the lack of tight integration may limit the level of sophistication the program can achieve.

This focuses on evaluating the service and technology vendors you’ll partner with to develop your programs. Having a framework for categorizing different vendors and service providers will help you select the best solution for your organization. The framework I propose breaks email marketing solutions into three separate dimensions: level of technical sophistication, level of marketing service, and operating model. The email marketing solutions grid was developed to evaluate service providers and vendors along two of the three dimensions: marketing services and technology sophistication. Given the rapid pace of change in the marketplace, there’s no sense applying this framework to a limited number of specific companies that are offering email marketing solutions today. Instead, use this framework to help evaluate any company you’re considering having a business relationship with.

Level of Technical Sophistication

At the most basic level of technical sophistication are email broadcasters who send messages with little or no personalized content. This is essentially the online version of the direct mail model: buy a list and send the same piece of mail to everyone on it. There are some technical challenges associated with broadcasting very large volumes of email (50 to 100 million messages per day), but the solutions are generally fairly simple. If you need to deliver high volume (tens of millions at a time), such as “bulk” emails consisting of mostly text with little or no personalization, this may be the way to go.

On the other end of the technical continuum are the companies that send and track individual emails that are targeted, personalized, timed, and delivered to the right person at the right time. The focus is on data-driven communication with individual recipients. Say, for instance, that you purchase flowers from FTD.com. Three days later you get an (automatic) email with a tip for how to extend the life of the arrangement you just bought. To deliver the right message to the right person, the marketing system must keep track of a variety of data, including the shipping address of the flowers as well as the type of flowers delivered. These more advanced marketing technology solutions normally have Web-based application front ends that enable you to plan and execute programs, schedule new campaigns, target and personalize messages, perform testing and quality assurance, and access real-time reports. Applications such as these can also be customized to meet your marketing program’s specific needs and can handle two-way, real-time, or batch data feeds. When mortgage rates fluctuate, iOwn has implemented real-time data feeds to their email marketing service provider so that emails can be delivered immediately to members who participate in the RateWatch program.

It’s critically important to evaluate the technology solutions you’re going to base your programs on. One very large online retailer who had worked with a number of different email marketing service providers recently switched to a new one who promised terrific technical features and functionality. It wasn’t until after the retailer had already transferred its data and begun sending messages that it discovered some of the shortcomings of the new provider’s technical platform. The platform couldn’t, for example, maintain a complete history of customer interactions, which made it very complicated to target messages based on past response activity. Even worse, the retailer discovered that it couldn’t import data from its retail stores and communicate with customers according to whether they shopped on the Web or in a store. This retailer is now considering a replacement provider and you can bet it’s being far more diligent in its search.

Here a brief recap of some of the technology features you’ll want to look for when choosing a technology platform.

• Full function application user interface
• Ability to implement customized marketing programs
• Support for individualized (one-to-one) communication
• Support for automated (triggered) communication
• Flexibility of underlying data models
• Data import and export capabilities
• Reporting and analysis capabilities
• Support for program testing and quality assurance
• Support for inbound email
• Integration with live profile pages

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