Anne, you speak great sense - and I agree wholeheartedly.

My response was somewhat off-the-cuff: but beneath it there's a deeper point. You should not consider email on the basis of a single 'event': each 'event' is part of a much broader conversation, between the marketer and the recipient.

The question to consider when thinking about whose emails you admire, is to think about the conversational context, not the instant you are looking at. So, if you find an organisation who are leading their email recipients through a well considered, relevant curriculum of communication... well, then, I'd suggest it's likely the ESP had something to do with it. A good ESP will provide technology, for sure. Will likely offer some help with execution. But where you'll really win with the right partnership is via some strategic insight and guidance.

That's something you don't measure by raw customer count.

MW

On 13:01:01 2 October 2008 Annepure360 wrote:
>Hi Mike,
>
>The window shop of an email campaign is going to be the
>copy and design of it. The information, call to action and
>landing pages, should nicely work together as well as it
>should pass accessibility tests and show all the mandatory
>stuff like unsubscribe link, copyright, credits aso.. But
>all this does not necessarily speaks for the ESP. Many
>clients of ESPs use their own designers and ask their ESP
>to just provide the right tools to manage lists and
>deliveries.
>
>However, some ESPs wil provide consultancy to their
>customers so that their campaigns effectively best serve
>their goals: where links and images would be better
>placed, amount of text VS amount of images. This is what
>we at Pure are doing, and I can say for free, as each
>account manager as a consultancy role which is part of
>their everyday commitment to our clients.
>
>But, we know that for a marketer the important thing is to
>first get into in the inbox and then to get the recipient
>to open their emails. For this PureResponse, Pure's email
>platform, has some really good features like Automatic
>subject line selectors (which will test which subject line
>works best and send the email using this one in
>particular); Intelligent Time Sending, which will work out
>when recipients are most likely to read their emails and
>do the send accordingly; and Spam checker which will
>validate the message against the latest spam filters rules
>to see what could be potentially get the email into the
>spam folder instead of the inbox.
>
>So, yes, actually you are entirely right, the numbers of
>clients will give you a quantitative measure of an ESP,
>but won't necessarily say much about the level of service
>and about the platform quality.
>
>Anne

You can click 'view profile' of people who post - Mike's is at http://www.e-consultancy.com/account/profile-44081/mikeweston.html

Ah... a competitor... ;)

Ashley

Hi Anne,

I'm MD for Silverpop in EMEA. I have an interest in this, obviously - but I'm trying (as I believe you are too!) to keep this at a helpful, non-partisan level.

On 15:04:15 2 October 2008 Annepure360 wrote:
>Hi MW,
>
>Yes! I believe that is what we at Pure are thriving to do,
>in particular with our Major Accounts clients who have
>more complex requirements. But, if this is not askting too
>much, which company are your working for?
>
>Anne

Thanks for restating my point, email eunuch!
On 15:20:16 2 October 2008 EmailEunuch wrote:
>This thread is beginning to look like the e-consultancy
>Email buyers guide 2008 - a chance for ESP's to go to get
>an un-criticised PR piece saying look how good my
>company/platform/market share is.
>
>If anyone cared to check, the reason Alan posted here is
>because his company has an email platform of it's own and
>he is asking the question so he can calculate what revenue
>he should/could budget for.
>
>Lets just agree every email platform out there is great in
>the same way as everyones child is beautiful and talk
>meaningfully about issues facing email marketers
>
>The Eunuch
>
>
>
>On 15:05:18 26 September 2008 AlanORourke wrote:
>>Hi Guys, its business plan time :)
>>
>>Painful as it is it must be done.
>>
>>Can anyone point me in the direction of a rough figure
>of
>>the market share of the leading Email Service
>Providers,
>>constant contact etc. Even a top 10 list would help.
>Ant
>>e-consultancy research cover this?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Alan

You'd be surprised how many 'clients' read these threads though. So you're not quite talking amongst yourselves ;)

And then there's Google... e.g. http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_en-GBGB291&q=esp+market+share&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK|countryGB