Which ESPs cater solutions for small email marketing agencies?

Nick Taylor
USA

25 June 2008 19:21pm

I'm interested in starting an email marketing agency (full service) for small/medium sized clients with subscriber lists ranging from 20k-50k. I have a strong background in marketing and strategy.
I have started to research ESP solutions such as Exact Target, Yesmail, Listrak, etc. So far I like Exact Target but wanted to get feedback on others I should be looking into. I'll be starting off with one client and hope to have about 4 or 5 by the end of the year. Price is an important aspect as I'm starting out small however I still need advanced features such as list segmentation etc. I'm hoping to find something in the $5,000 to $10,000 range.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
~Nick
Denis Kondopoulos
Technical Project Manager (MBA, MBCS, CITP, CEng) at Naxtech.com

25 June 2008 19:38pm

Try the Naxtech one then. You might find it interesting. Here's a link to its knowledgebase: http://emarketingkb.naxtech.com/
It can do all sorts of stuff:
- action tracking down to email/person level
- realtime stats
- scheduled sending
- triggered sending
- integration with google analytics
- segmentation
Russell Flawn
Acc Manager at Pure

26 June 2008 09:22am

Nick,
You may like to check out Pure360. A range of agency-related services are available, and they supply systems to about 200 agencies, many of which are small-medium sized.
They also have a specific agency team and system capabiltities, so you may be able to pick out the bits only you need and so get good value.
Pure360 - +44 (0) 1273647896
Hope it helps
Russell
Stephen Foxworthy
Group Account Director at DTDigital

26 June 2008 14:51pm

Hi Nick,
For one of our clients we choose a hosted ESP solution: www.iContact.com
The system was the best bang for (very few) bucks we could find.
It provides very good templating, list management, segmentation and reporting features and is very easy to use.
There's the possibility to agency whitelabel their system also, so it may well be the entry level email system you're after.
Hope that's helpful,
Stephen Foxworthy
www.bplmarketing.com
Dan Hawtrey Silver
Managing Director at Content Formula

26 June 2008 17:45pm

One which I've used which is good value for money and well suited to agencies is Campaign Monitor. They have a neat feature which allows you to give clients access to the stats reporting features without giving them full access to everything else. It allows you to set up different clients on the one account too.
Dan
www.contentformula.com
Simon McCarthy
Marketing Executive at BSI Management Systems

27 June 2008 12:19pm

Exact Target have a decent tool and one which I currently use. However Strongmail are very similar to Exact and they seem to be very customer friendly and will help you out in every way possible. Another couple of agencies are email vision, or cheetah mail, or you could possible use Red Eye.

www.firstsitesubmission.com
Nick Taylor
USA

27 June 2008 13:20pm

Hi Simon,
Thanks for your suggestions. I have been looking into strong mail as well however I called them up yesterday and it sounds like they start at around $50,000. Have you been able to find a lower priced offering from them?
Thanks,
Nick
Alex Timlin
Internal Sales Manager at The Communicator Corporation

28 June 2008 20:46pm

Hi Nick,

My company provides an ASP email and mobile solution, if you'd like a little advice on our partner channel feel free to get in touch.

A lot of smaller agencies get looked over or simply given the technology but our partner channel is designed to help you get the support and training you need to really position yourself as an expert and some of our features like easy segmentation, automation and previewing HTML messages by browser have been really helpful when just starting out or pushing your digital marketing forward.

Best of luck,

Alex
Paul Crabtree
Director at Velo//

03 July 2008 18:02pm

Hi Nick

I'd recommend you download eConsultancy's Email Marketing Platform Buyers' Guide which outlines many of the major companies operating within the UK.

The report includes details of which clients the main ESPs already work with, the functionality that is available (including tools designed for agencies) and perhaps most importantly what level of support they make available to their clients.

As someone starting an agency, your ESP choice is probably one of your most important decisions. Choosing someone who will work closley with you will be important.

I'd suggest you investigate whether they'll be willing to support you in pitches and what SLAs are in place to allow you to provide high quality service to your clients. I'd suggest that this is a priority over getting the cheapest deal.

Just a suggestion, and I hope it helps

Paul Crabtree

Adestra- your first choice email marketing partner

www.adestra.co.uk

On 19:21:06 25 June 2008 ntaylor wrote:

I'm interested in starting an email marketing agency (full service) for small/medium sized clients with subscriber lists ranging from 20k-50k. I have a strong background in marketing and strategy.
I have started to research ESP solutions such as Exact Target, Yesmail, Listrak, etc. So far I like Exact Target but wanted to get feedback on others I should be looking into. I'll be starting off with one client and hope to have about 4 or 5 by the end of the year. Price is an important aspect as I'm starting out small however I still need advanced features such as list segmentation etc. I'm hoping to find something in the $5,000 to $10,000 range.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
~Nick