SAM KNOXNOVEMBER 12 , 2014

Tech Talks 2014: Broadcast Email Providers

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BROADCAST EMAILLANDSCAPE OF PROVIDERSCOMMON FEATURESDYNAMICS OF CHOICEEXAMPLES OF VENDORSMOBILE & HTMLDEFINING YOUR REQUIREMENTSQ&A

Agenda

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Why Email?

Just about all nonprofits use mass email to communicate with their supporters

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Why Email?

Why is mass email important to your organization?

What kind of messages do you send?

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Why Email?

What makes a good email message?

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Why Email?

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Quick Poll

What brings you to the session today?

Here to just gather information?Unhappy with current provider?Are you evaluating a new one?Other?

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Permission Based Subscription Model

Email Service Provider – ESP

Elements of CAN-SPAM Act Unsubscribe mechanism Physical mailing address Permission is inferred or directly given Don’t use deceptive subject lines or From Addresses

Determine your own subscription rules

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Landscape of Providers

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Landscape of Providers

• Technology is constantly changing• Significant differences about every 2 years• Devices are changing• Email clients are changing too

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Technology: Paradox of choice

“The more options there are, the easier it is to regret.” - Barry Schwartz, Swarthmore College

Graphs from Sciam.com, Schwartz’s Paradox of Choice

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Technology: Paradox of choice

With too many choices, options are evaluated in terms of missed opportunities instead of the

opportunity's potential. 

Decision making process

Classify requirements into

Must-have and Nice-to-have

1. Identify products/ vendors that meet the requirements

2. Plot their offerings against the prioritized requirements

3. Evaluate Total Cost of Ownership

4. Test-drive and obtain feedback

5. Decide

Identify requirements &

Define rough budget

Identify:

1.The biggest pain points

2.The ‘low-hanging fruit’

What would have the biggest impact towards improved service delivery?

2. Discovery 1. Gap

Analysis3. Prioritization 4. Selection

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Essential Elements

• Template creation system, for creating layouts for your emails. Create custom or choose from a library

• Content editor, for creating the content of your email

• List management, for uploading new subscribers, changing their attributes, unsubscribing them, and other tasks

• List signup forms, for placing on your website to allow people to join your mailing lists

• Reporting tools, for keeping track of your results

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Important Questions

• How are unsubscribes handled? Global or by list?

• What is the template / content editor like?

• Integration potential

• Automation potential

• Cost – lots of variability in how services are priced

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Content Editors

Drag and Drop editors are easy to use and aimed at non-technical users.

But you don’t get as much control as you do with HTML

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Screenshots

Examples of visual editor / template editor / code . . .

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Screenshots

Examples of visual editor / template editor / code . . .

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Screenshots

Examples of visual editor / template editor / code . . .

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Screenshots

Examples of visual editor / template editor / code . . .

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Screenshots

Examples of visual editor / template editor / code . . .

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Screenshots

Examples of visual editor / template editor / code . . .

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Provider Examples

MailChimpVerticalResponseConstantContactiContactCampaign Monitor . . . And Enterprise Providers

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Provider Examples

These represent some of the “best of breed” providers out there.

501 Commons isn’t endorsing any in particular!

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MailChimp

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MailChimp

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MailChimp

• MailChimp Mobile - Add subscribers, edit content, and send campaigns from your phone

• Spam Filter Diagnostics - Gain more insight into why your email might be nabbed by spam filters

• RSS-to-Email - Queue up content for your emails based on an RSS feed

• Social Pro - An add-on service which lets you target emails based on social media data

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MailChimp

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MailChimp

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MailChimp

• Lots of great features

• Handles differential list unsubscribes well

• Strong candidate for many nonprofits

• Code your own templates or use their library

• MailChimp Template Markup!

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MailChimp

• List sizes of 2,000 or less are free

• List size of 2,500 is $25.50 per month with nonprofit discount

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VerticalResponse

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VerticalResponse

• Free for nonprofits!

• Can edit the HTML directly or use a template editor

• Can send out postcard campaigns

• Event Marketing & Surveys

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VerticalResponse

Unsubscribes are global

Great if you only have one list

Not so great if you want to manage several

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VerticalResponse

Free for nonprofits up to 10,000 emails per month

15% off monthly plans above that

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VerticalResponse

OR

Salesforce IntegrationEvent ManagementOnline SurveysPostcards

Basically the same tool with a different user interface

But – without the features available in Classic

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Constant Contact

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Constant Contact

• Large client base

• Well positioned for small businesses and non profits

• Template editing is aimed at non-technical users

• Basic set of features

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Constant Contact

Price for 2,500 subscribers: $24.50 / mo

- Nonprofit discount and 12-month prepay

No free option like many other competitors offer

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Honorable Mention - iContact

• Not many features outside of the standard ones

• Message Builder – drag and drop

• Message Coder – custom HTML markup

• But a good integration with CRM, especially Salesforce

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iContact

• Not many features outside of the standard ones

• Message Builder – drag and drop

• Message Coder – custom HTML markup

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iContact

They produce great research too!

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Honorable Mention - iContact

• Not many features outside of the standard ones

• Message Builder – drag and drop

• Message Coder – custom HTML markup

• But a good integration with CRM, especially Salesforce

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iContact

$24.50 per month for 2,500 subscribers

- Nonprofit discount and annual contract

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Honorable Mention - CampaignMonitor

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Enterprise Providers

• ExactTarget

• Pardot

• Marketo

• Eloqua

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Enterprise Providers

• What makes a provider Enterprise?• Marketing automation• Private IP address• Dedicated support• Multiple users• Internationalization• Dynamic content• Content syndication• Multi-channel marketing• Much more expensive!

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Mobile Email

Around 40% in the U.S. read email on a mobile device

The trend continues to shift more toward mobile and tablet devices

Subscribers are more likely to interact with your content if it’s been designed with mobile in mind

MailChimp Website – Email on Mobile Devices (2011)

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Mobile Email

Differences of opinion on layouts

One column or multi-column?

Mailchimp says multiple columns are better

Campaign Monitor says a single column is better

Part of the difference is due to how studies were conducted and habits of the users

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Mobile Email

In general, web design is moving toward very simple layouts

End users have more control than ever over your presentation

Many large-scale email senders rely on very basic designs with a minimum of images

Usually you need to adjust the stylesheet to get more precise rendering

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Mobile Email - Takeaways

Simple designs work best

Either one or two columns will probably work fine

Links and buttons should be large enough to tap on

Fine tune with CSS

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A Word About HTML

• Someone on your staff should know basic to intermediate HTML/CSS

• Almost all issues with formatting / layouts can be fixed through editing HTML

• It’s very hard to get the same level of control using a visual editor alone

• Designing responsive templates requires knowledge of HTML and CSS

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Content is King

A beautifully rendered design is no substitute for timely, relevant and engaging content!

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Define your Requirements

• One or Many Lists?

• Number of subscribers

• Frequency and size of sends

• Integration requirements

• Level of staff skill

• Automation

• Dynamic content

• Available budget

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Tastes Vary!

In working with nonprofits over the years, the subjective impression seems to matter at least as much as features or even cost.

People do tend to choose a platform they just connect with and find intuitive.

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Resources

MailChimp http://

mailchimp.com/resources/research/email-on-mobile-devices/html/ http://templates.mailchimp.com/development/html/

Campaign Monitor https://www.campaignmonitor.com/guides/mobile/ https://www.campaignmonitor.com/guides/coding/

iContact https://

www.icontact.com/resources/email-and-social-media-marketing-best-practices

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