I had many people inquire about email newsletter sending schemes for their businesses. While they do not have the budget to outsource it completely to larger agencies (I’ve heard of somebody being quoted as much as $1,500/mth, so they asked me where else they can go), they need some control over the content of the email, custom tracking, etc.

The greatest factors, in my opinion, for a suitable email marketing service for SMEs are these :

1. Reasonable Prices. Low costs matter, especially for smaller operations on a budget.
2. How easy is it to customize it? You want your web designer to be able to insert your template that matches the design of your website. You do not want to go with some generic template that some common website offers, unless you don’t give a rat’s ass about the branding image you are sending out.

3. How easy is it to handle un-subscribes? Legally you need to offer an easy option to un-subscribe from any email newsletters.
4. How easy is it to integrate the system with your existing website/database? - You probably already have a MySQL database, and even if you don’t, you want your own design and methods of sign-up forms.
5. How easy is it for my clients (who don’t know much about HTML) to customize the design I implement? - I need to be able to drop in customizable fields anywhere in the HTML without allowing my client to break the HTML tables and such.
6. Does it offer tracking of results? - You need to figure out how much you’re getting back. And based on those results, tweak your approach consistently. Over 50% of email marketing schemes in North America are not being tracked. That’s not good.
7. Can you pre-schedule the email newsletters to be sent out at a specific time, or at certain intervals? - If you have to go away to somewhere without a computer, or if you just like to get it all over with sooner than later, this helps.

That’s all I can think about for now, but there are more things of course.

www.fiz.ca

The past week I’ve been messing around with the platform on www.fiz.ca, to learn the system and figure out other functionalities, and I must say I am impressed with the system. This platform is provided to us from the same owner as www.monsterhosting.ca, and I have implemented the fiz.ca system for myself, and for my most recent client’s website.

The greatest strength I see about www.fiz.ca is that it is user-friendly to both parties - myself, and for the clients. Systems that are overly user-friendly mean that they are built for beginners or individuals with not much HTML skills, and are mostly stuck to pre-existing templates. But with the clients that I have, they all have their own customized look. I suppose they do have some budget, to say it precisely. So basically that means I design the HTML content by my own “professional” means, and then implement customizable fields for my clients to modify.

Here is the screen that shows the MySQL connection option, and selecting the rows/fields.

And another screen that shows the CMS management example. The things within the % are the customizable fields that your HTML-Illiterate clients can touch after you set this all up. You can insert as many of those per custom sheet as you like.

It is, as far as I’m concerned, a perfect blend for a business which does outsource its website/design services to 3rd party contractors like myself. It also offers advanced integration of email lists from your MySQL table from your own website, which means you don’t need to change the email subscription code you already have on your site, if you do have one. And if not, you can design it at your own means (I personally enjoy using AJAX to do email newsletter sign-ups now).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 17th, 2007 at 1:51 am and is filed under Marketing and Media, Web Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.