{"id":3649,"date":"2012-06-06T08:59:27","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T06:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/?p=3649"},"modified":"2012-06-06T08:59:27","modified_gmt":"2012-06-06T06:59:27","slug":"selecting-an-esp-partner-work-backwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/selecting-an-esp-partner-work-backwards\/","title":{"rendered":"What we learned selecting an ESP Partner: Work Backwards"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I wrote a post that talked about some of the areas you needed to consider when starting off on that journey of selection of \u00a0a new Email marketing vendor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Having gone through that process I thought it might be useful to share some of the issues that cropped up during the new Email marketing vendor selection process.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Do your ESP research to save time later<\/span><\/h2>\n

When you start to consider your new Email marketing Partner the choice is pretty wide<\/a>, so deciding up front what you need is very useful. In particular as this helps in deciding on how many ESPs you want to send an invitation to for a response to your requirements.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Your time is precious, so work backwards.<\/span><\/h2>\n

How many ESPs do you want?
\nOK this may seem like a strange question to ask but working for a marketing agency might well result in you actually working with multiple ESPs.. after all your client might be wedded to one that you have work with, alongside the one you choose for your other clients as your preferred ESP. But let\u2019s assume you are choosing one<\/p>\n

So how many Email service providers do you want to come in and actually present to you<\/a>,\u00a0 demo the email system to you, work with you to look more closely at costs and data integration \u2013 don\u2019t forget that you are pulling on your internal resources\u00a0 of operations, finance, IT, client services etc. I would suggest that you limit this to 3 if you are confident. If you are new to this you might actually want 5 vendors to come in and present to give you a better understanding of what\u2019s out there.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s assume that everyone wants your business ( and if you have done your research in deciding what your future ESP partner should look like, they all will), that probably means sending out the invitation to 5 or 7 possibles.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Focus while selecting an ESP Partner <\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

In 2 ways.<\/p>\n

1 \u2013 Use a matrix to evaluate the responses based on the requirements you pulled together during the research phase. This helps at all the stages when selecting for the next stage of the process and allows a fair assessment from all internal parties. Don\u2019t forget that elements of the criteria will be important than others to weight them accordingly<\/p>\n

2 \u2013 Have a timetable and stick to it. ESP submissions should be back at a certain time, presentations within a short space of time, marking to be completed immediately. It\u2019s easy to lose momentum especially when there are lots of people\u00a0 and departments involved.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Show me the money<\/span><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s not just about the money of course (well except for the CFO) but it an important factor. But rather than think about just the CPM<\/a>, think about Total Cost of Ownership<\/a> in years 1, 2,,3.<\/p>\n

There are lots of costs to be considered including CPM, Internal Resource Costs for any migration, set up costs, monthly fees, extra costs for product elements that come standard with one system but not with another, support fees..the list\u00a0 goes on.<\/p>\n

One way of making sure you are comparing apples with apples, is to at some stage to get the ESPs to submit costs in a standard way that matches your requirements, not theirs!<\/p>\n

<\/span>Learn Along the Way<\/span><\/h2>\n

Each time you speak to an ESP you will learn something new so don\u2019t be afraid to alter your requirements<\/a> along the way, and go back to the other ESPs for clarification.<\/p>\n

But also dig into what the ESP will give you ( free of charge of course) in terms of learning more about how to use the platform they are selling to actually meet your business objectives.<\/p>\n

<\/span>People Count<\/span><\/h2>\n

Are you just buying a tool ? Think again. The tool, platform is important but so are the people who will be working with you so make sure that you keep that front of mind as well as somewhere on your score matrix<\/p>\n

So ..Go Beyond the Salesman<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meet who will be supporting you technically and from the client services team. Will you get on with them even if you hate the sales guy?<\/p>\n

As I ended my last post I am not advocating that you stick with one ESP for life, but you might as well be prepared for it..just in case, and like the people you\u2019re with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I wrote a post that talked about some of the areas you needed to consider when starting off on that journey of selection of \u00a0a new Email marketing vendor. Having gone through that process I thought it might be useful to share some of the issues that cropped up during the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":3658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"dealstore":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3649"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3649"},{"taxonomy":"dealstore","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dealstore?post=3649"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}