Author: BethesdaEmediaMarketing.com

When sending an email newsletter on a very regular – say 3-5 times a week basis, a major decision any business or association has to make is to decide between full service email newsletters, and self service email newsletters.  Often a decision is made based on cost. "It's cheaper to do the Enewsletter in-house."  This may not be the best business decision.

The in-house decision does not apply a real world value to the cost of in-house staff and equipment needed to prepare and tweak the Enewsletter.   For someone with minimal HTML and layout and design skills, and a salary of $20/hour, this adds up as unexpected issues add to the costs.

Full Service Email Newsletters vs. Self-Service Email Newsletters

Let's compare the two options:

• A full service email newsletter is completely handled by an Email marketing company.  They are responsible for your email campaign from taking your text and images and either creating a template or using a pre-existing template to prepare the campaign.  All the technical issues, testing and handling Email opt-out's and opt-ins are handled by your supplier. The Email will go out CAN-Spam compliant. Reports are normally delivered in about 48 hours.

The only issue for an organization using the full service Email newsletter option, is price.  Bethesda Emedia Marketing has been able to price their full service programs in the range of a 20% premium over Do-It-Yourself  (DIY) programs. Time and money are clearly saved using a full service email provider.

A second issue is the lack of complete control in-house.  Often decision-makers forget that people handling their email newsletters are complete professionals, and tend to know exactly what they’re doing when handling a campaign. As a trusted vendor, trade secrets are never revealed.

• Self-service email newsletters, although having more control by the business, is usually a bit less effective.  The layout and design tends to be less sophisticated and does not portray the organization in as professional manner as an expert would.

Also, experience has shown technical errors can become long, drawn-out telephone and help desk issues. Sometimes hours are wasted,  Despite the in-house team's best intentions projects sometimes last a few days when an experienced expert can handle the task in about 30 minutes.

Some organizations do have a legitimate reason for choosing self service email newsletters instead of full service email newsletters. But much of the decision is made without a careful evaluation of the true costs of each project.  Working with Email marketing experts helps you to use the latest and best marketing ideas to achieve better results.

When it comes to deciding if a full service email newsletter is beyond an association or businesses budget, there are a few key factors that come into play. Let’s look at some of these factors:

How important is email marketing to your business:

• If email marketing and newsletter sending via email isn’t particularly important to your business, choose self service over full service. It simply isn’t as important to a small business or a business that doesn’t rely much on email marketing if they have to put in a few extra hours to make sure that their emails look great.

Although by using a full service provider, organizations will usually have their emails looking much better. Often it simply isn’t a great choice financially, so self-service is the solution.

How often the business sends out emails:

• If a business has a truly legitimate email campaign via Enewsletter multiple times per week. The usual office events almost mandate outside help.  Doing this alone is quite difficult to maintain. Here, a full service Email newsletter provider makes sense.

• However, if a business only sends out a few short emails every month, and there isn’t much to do with their email newsletters, choose a Do-It-Yourself approach.

• If a business, publisher or association relies heavily on email marketing, and needs to improve it, choose a full service provider. The Email Newsletter sending company will handle everything, so the business can move onto more important issues to improve and expand the business.

How large the subscriber list is:

Size is everything.  Trying to handle a list of several hundred thousand records is not a simple task. There are a lot of details that require careful, knowledgeable attention. All too often the list is an after-thought until it stops working.

It is critical that you have dedicated professionals who understand the list and the various data points (such as last purchase, product purchased, member vs. non-member) found on the list. Selecting the wrong group can destroy an entire campaign and result in much higher permanent opt-out's.  These are people your organization worked hard to get on your Email lists. Each name has a lifetime value that can be too easily lost due to simple errors that are overlooked.

Building and maintaining an Email list data base requires a methodology that is often lacking in many part-time database administrators.

To send out the best emails, you’ll usually want a full service provider. Again, preventing errors and just plain mistakes, can make your campaigns more productive.

Conclusion

Spelling out the advantages of both types of Email list management should help you make a decision. The obvious budget issues should be looked at more closely in terms of human capital and the machines they need to do the project. The costs may be much higher than decision-makers imagine. An Email newsletter service can make a big difference for many who are in marketing. Finding the "sweet spot" for using a professional Enewsletter service is actually at a lot lower price point than you may believe.

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About the Author:   For the last 9 years, David James has been the President of Bethesda Emedia Marketing, a full service Enewsletter vendor. David is also the president and founder of Bethesda List Center, a business-to-business direct marketing firm. Further information about Bethesda Emedia Marketing can be found at http://bethesdaemediamarketing.com

Bethesda List Center, founded in 1992, specializes in associations, medical and life science, IT, publishers and other business offers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe and worldwide. Further information about the direct marketing experts of Bethesda List Center is available at

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Image courtesy of (Danilo Rizzuti) from freedigitalphotos