Emails can serve a wide variety of purposes, the most important of which is professional email used in business and marketing to serve consumers. Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to boost sales and increase revenue, whilst also helping to maintain contact with customers. Creating a specialised, bespoke email campaign requires a considerable amount of time and effort, so it’s always useful to have a little help at hand. An email service provider, or ESP (Email Service Provider), can help you produce business emails, deliver them to a specific customer base, and, in doing so, contribute to profitable solutions.
Thanks to the ESP, we also receive detailed reports on the effectiveness of our email campaigns. These reports provide detailed information on delivery success rates, open rates and click-through rates, and even identify the users concerned for us. Good statistics are absolutely essential in this type of service, as they allow us to monitor the effectiveness of our email campaign.
Before choosing an email service provider (ESP), consider the following:
- Dedicated IP address: The IP address from which the email is sent indicates the email’s origin. If a provider uses a shared IP address to forward our emails, we will receive many spam reports that originally concern another customer . Due to the shared IP address, we may end up on a blacklist, thereby preventing our emails from being delivered. It is therefore very important to ensure that the chosen service provider provides us with our own IP address.
- Costs and budget: we need not only a provider that offers a wide range of features and applications and is also reliable, but, of course, one that fits within our budget as well. So, once we’ve gone through what the providers have to offer, let’s draw up a list of those that meet our requirements and also fit within our budget.
- A reputable, reliable provider: Every business needs a provider it can count on and rely on in the long term. Unreliable, dubious providers do not have links with internet giants such as Yahoo!, Google or Microsoft; therefore, we should only choose a provider that works with major providers, thus ensuring that our emails do not end up in the spam folder.
- Services: draw up a list of potential email service providers, then take a thorough look at the services they offer. Choose a provider that can serve your business not only now, but also in the future. There’s no need to draw up an overly long wish list, but there are a few essential services you’ll definitely need, such as social media integration, scheduling tools, convenience and ease of use, as well as tracking tools. Choose a provider that has not hesitated to invest in accreditation and authentication tools, thereby increasing the chances that the emails you send will reach their intended recipients.
- Customer service: As customer service is of paramount importance to every company, you should choose a provider with an excellent support team so that you know who to turn to should any questions or problems arise. A good service provider (ESP) offers both online and telephone customer service to its clients.
- Infrastructure: It is essential to check whether your chosen provider has at least two secure, high-speed internet connections from multiple sources, as this will guarantee reliability.