How to get the best email marketing

Getting the best out of any email marketing investment—whether you are going it alone (which could be more difficult and complicated than you ever thought) or hiring the best email marketing provider around—requires that you know what you should expect. In case you have decided to go for the more logical option, which is to get expert help from outside of your organization, you need to know the factors you should consider when judging your options.

Choosing the best autoresponder requires sorting out the usual considerations such as price, the services offered and expertise covered, client testimonials, style of communication, inclusions and working arrangements, and others. On top of these, there are also some special requirements that you need to look into that are unique to email marketing consultancy arrangements.

First, note that email, unlike other communication and marketing touchpoints, has its nuances that are not present in any other marketing collateral. HTML email design, for example, works differently from website design, such that design concepts that work in websites do not normally turn up into the best email marketing campaign.

Second, a simple mistake in email marketing can have a graver and more damaging effect not only to your sales, but even to your brand. In contrast, mistakes in your online advertising efforts, like a badly targeted Adwords campaign can only cause you to lose money, but will not lead to brand damage, or other more serious consequences like blacklisting.

As such, it is imperative that the agency you eventually choose does not only promise to generate and execute the best email marketing campaigns for you, but also has the proven expertise for this. One question that you can use to evaluate credentials is whether or not email marketing is a core business or merely an incidental service that they offer. Also try to find out how many email campaigns they have managed for clients or internally, as well as the results that they show for it. External evaluation tools such as Google, related sites or industry association websites can also prove useful. Or you can use services to help you (see GetResponse Review)

Many agencies who market themselves as the best email marketing consultancy firms pitch their services to unsuspecting individuals or companies via a tempting email invitation from an expert. Impressed, many of the recipients sign up, only to find out later that the person who will be assigned to their account is not the expert who supposedly sent the email, but an agency associate. It is thus important also to find out as early as possible who will be assigned to handle your campaigns, as well as how often and in what format will communication between the agency and you will take place. Also demand to know the frequency by which they will update you with results. You might also want to get a sample of their typical results to see if they give you a relevant analysis of your campaigns, relative to your goals, and not just a spreadsheet or graph of the number of clicks and page views.


The best email marketing consultant should also be able to see your email campaigns in light of your overall marketing and business directions. This is so because the best email marketing strategy is essentially one that is aligned with the company’s overall business goals, as well as other components of a comprehensive marketing communication agenda such as branding and social media marketing. There is nothing worse for a company’s marketing investment than executing unaligned campaigns across different media.

As such, your quest for the best email marketing strategy should be with an end to getting a partner, and not a mere vendor. You need to find an agency or a consultant that can be involved in your business and treat it like it is his very own. An agency or consultant that does nothing more than what a vendor delivers will not give you the best email marketing results.

Finally, successful email marketing campaigns need to be sustained and sustainable. Achieving this requires a third party that you can partner with for the longer term. In fact, be wary of providers who promise results overnight. Any professional email marketing expert knows that a successful campaign requires education of the brand and the business, exploring the possible solutions, and drafting a communications plan before implementing it.