Your Contact With The Customer - The Email Marketing Server

An email marketing service is an essential pre-requisite of your Internet based business. Just as a brick and mortar business cannot do without offices, warehouses and associated stuff, an Internet based business cannot hope to manage without an email marketing server.

Outsourcing Is An Option

When you start off initially, you may be better off hiring space and server management services on the server of an ISP. This is because with limited cash flow and a small staff (if at all) you do not want to divert precious resources into setting up servers, E1 lines and system administrators. However, you still are a user of an email marketing server albeit one that you share with a number of other users like you. You also have the option of setting up your own desktop email marketing server. However, this means that you or an associate will have to shoulder some of the server management tasks.

As your business develops and you find your traffic and revenues grow, there will come a time when you will find that a third party email marketing server may not suffice. At that stage you have the option of either procuring your own systems or outsourcing your email marketing server to a service provider who can dedicate a part of his facility and staff to your business.

Ensure A Minimum Service Level

At the very outset, you must ensure that your email marketing server provides you with at least a basic set of capabilities. It should be able to gather, analyze and display detailed records about how your mail is being handled, how much of it bounces, what percent of your leads give you a response and how the replies are being handled and in what timeframe. Without this kind of detailed statistical data, you will not be able to optimize your email marketing efforts.

The server should also be able to generate details on how many people choose to unsubscribe from your mailing lists. This will give you an idea about the effectiveness of the message you are sending and whether your prospective clients are finding any value in them or not. Besides this, check with the service provider about the anti spamming precautions they take. You should obviously not buy a service from a server farm that is itself listed on many ISPs as a source of spam.

Test Your Email Server Quality

Take care to find out more about the quality of service provided by the email marketing service provide. Often, you can get a good idea by simply calling up their helpline and posting a query. Talking to other clients will also help. Most service providers will provide you with a client list if you ask.

Finally, the quality of your email marketing service is one of the determinants of your success. Do not take this service lightly.

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