Email marketing software is available to help businesses prepare eye catching emails together for their advertising and marketing needs. Service providers offer full-service, on-demand products, or self service solutions. These products offer a variety of marketing services, such as surveys, email merging services, newsletter packages, and a range of other services.
Some of these products are web based, while others are installed directly on your PC. Some are stand alone solutions and others include other software applications designed to meet other marketing needs such as CRM tools, survey tools, etc.
Recent legislation in the CAN-SPAM act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) has established requirements for those sending commercial emails and includes penalties for those who violate the law. These email software programs should help businesses insure that they are in compliance with these laws.
Some features of bulk email marketing software include:
- Newsletter templates
- Email merge
- Address list hosting and serving
- Self service or full service
- Rich media (flash)
- Video and audio email
- Strategic consulting
- Campaign set-up
- Web based or installed software
- Event triggered emails
- Demographic records and filters
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) integration
- CAN-SPAM compliance features
- Customizable surveys and forms
- Reporting
Major Vendors in the e-mail marketing software area include:
- Aprimo
- eGain
- JangoMail
- Constant Contact
- Blue sky factory
- Email labs
Factors that should be considered when selecting software for your email marketing include:
- Cost
- Are you looking for web based or an installed solution
- How much response monitoring are you looking for
- Ease of use and training
- System resources: Not usually an issue, but sometimes small business environments are on over-taxed hardware already.