In a recent poll* of some of the top marketers in the country (client side, vendor side, agency side, thought leaders, former clients and colleagues), the following question was posed:

What Are the Top Five Challenges You or Your Clients Face Today?

Below are the top five answers along with ten extras we just couldn't leave out.

This year, email and digital marketing seminars and conferences abound: EEC, Sherpa, MAAWG, EIS, DMA and dozens of others.

Each of these conference committees works hard to try and bring relevant content to attendees.  A lot of of these events are expensive, and these are hard economic times.  The committees try to secure speakers, panelists, keynotes and content, in addition to paid attendees and new membership.  Whast do the attendees want?  What are they looking to learn?  What can thought leaders provide?

As a marketer, new technology and marketing channels are critical.  As a vendor, exposure to new prospects, technology and social integrations are key for lead generation and PR.  As a business, you have an opportunity to learn about solving your own challenges and explore companies who might have solutions, and to learn about new channels and technology everyone says is critical, but you don’t exactly know how to put them all together, or just don’t know much about a specific channel…and you are charged with learning it now.

From the poll* of ~300 people – marketers, vendors, clients, former clients and agencies, the aggregate top five challenges for 2012 are (drum roll please):

1. Internal bandwidth and budget on marketing, vendor and IT sides – clients and vendors are looking to “up their game” with limited resources.
2. Marketing integration and optimization with new technologies into their existing platforms (and lack of knowledge base in new channels) – Mobile and Social lead the pack right now -and integrating email marketing with other traditional, and new channels.
3. List/Customer Acquisition and eAppend via any channel (the latter has truly become a 4-letter word these days.  It has 7 letters, actually).  How can I grow my list in accordance with the law and not lose a good portion of my list if I port vendors?  How can I utilize different channels to grow?  How do I acquire solid new customers?
4. Managing multiple “partner/vendor” contracts (sometimes 5 or 6 at a time) and those vendors’ unique abilities, and the failed efforts in wasted bandwidth to try and integrate them  with IT, their CRM databases and marketing into one email or other platform, including call centers.
5. Privacy: Interpreting Privacy Policies from social groups and global rules (EU, APAC, etc., Google, FB, Twitter – they have all been in the news, as has SOPA, ACTA, PIPA), yet internal bandwidth issues remain.  Clients do not have time to filter through 40 articles, nor read the laws.  And how do they have to change their web privacy policies to conform?
   
   This wouldn’t be complete without the next ten:
    
6. RFP help.  Or RFI help.  Email Service Provider Comparisons. This happens, quite often, in three areas of involvement on the client level: procurement, IT and/or marketing (or a combination).  They often work against each other with different goals, or have problems coming to fruition with marrying their multiple goals, cost-efficiently.
7. Mobile: Everyone has seen slides and knows the potential positive impact.  Some have seen case studies, but they don’t know how to go about it.  They look for aggregators, efficiency and ease of use.  QR codes and how to utilize them is included.
8. Loss of experienced professionals due to economy, and replacement with lower-paid/less expensive and less experienced staff who has to learn the “game” all over again – back to marketing 101 educations, diversification and separation of “duties” (e.g., a Social Media Manager, an Acquisition team, etc.).  Often working toward common goals, but at cross-purposes in the leadership/budget chain.
9. Combating declining channel effectiveness, and how to measure and test for increased adoption and engagement.
10. Utilizing analytics to full advantage.  All analytics, and how they can be integrated (from each channel) easily for a “one view.”  What do they all mean and how can I make sense of them and how do I marry them?
11. How to build effective messaging in a highly competitive marketplace.  How to leverage the ability to profile data for more relevant dialogues across all channels.
12. Utilizing analytics to full advantage.  We have web analytics, integration analytics, email analytics, social analytics, mobile analytics – basically this was a “HELP!”
13. Video.  How can I integrate video into my channels?
14. Increased use of triggered/automated email or other channel messaging – mostly with implementing automation, updating systems to handle, or creating the right rules and programs.
15. Testing.  Putting together a cross-channel testing methodology, including frequency/cadence.

And outsourcing is an issue as well.  To outsource or not to outsource?  A good question.

Email marketing is quickly overtaking a larger slice of the overall marketing budget as a cost efficient and effective channel.  Immediate visibility into data is key.  With companies becoming more competitive, each looks to grab as much of the "pie" as possible, increasing their capabilities and partnerships to alleviate some of the pain marketers feel, and be more "channel-ready."

While many of the above challenges seem iterative, these are the many of the topics that were the most pressing.  Everyone agrees email as an effective channel is not going away.  However, the commonality is that marketers feel the pressure to have all channels at their ready in a complex marketing stream and clients want help with streamlining this process and utilizing every resource they have to optimize every channel.  Together.

*This was an internal study conducted by information era marketing + consulting, llc (EIMC) in 2012, and represents a compendium of marketers’ and thought leaders’ top challenge opinions in a limited study.  Of ~300+ surveyed, response rates were ~48%.  This was a private study, and is proprietary to IEMC, llc.  Dori Thompson is a results-driven executive consultant with 19 years of experience in direct and online marketing, ecommerce, sales, strategy, and research.  She is also the co-chair of the eec Speakers Bureau Advisory Committee.

Choosing a top tier email service provider (ESP) can be tough. With so many ESPs to choose from, each with their strengths, it can be challenging to make head-to-head comparisons.

That's why last year we published a seminal whitepaper on how to rate ESPs, to help email marketers make an ESP choice based on the factors most important to their own organization and their unique requirements…not on any one ESP's selling points. The whitepaper was immediately popular. Apparently marketers were hungry for that kind of objective information.

This year we updated the whitepaper and turned it into an annual guide, to stay current with the ever-changing world of email and ESPs. This new free, vendor-neutral guide to ESPs offers an unbiased yet exhaustive list of criteria complete with explanations about the significance of each factor.

It's so impartial, it doesn't even mention a single ESP by name. Rather than focus on telling you what this or that ESP can or can't do, we've focused on your needs. We have 19 different things to consider when choosing an ESP based on what you need, not on what a particular ESP offers. It's unlike any other ESP selection guide you've seen and its based on our 10 years of reselling and implementing the industry's top-tier solutions.

To revise the whitepaper and make it new and improved as an annual guide, we:

• Re-evaluated all 20 factors in light of email marketing in 2010. Based on that assessment, we significantly beefed up the integration information throughout
• Removed four factors and added three:

1. Data management tools
2. Integration with add-on services
3. Social media integration

• Reorganized the factors alphabetically for better usability and objectivity

The guide now covers 19 of the most important considerations involved with ESP selection. For each of the factors, we've included details about why it matters and what to look for. The significance of each will vary from organization to organization. That's why we've also kept the scoring sheet that was included with the original whitepaper. It will help you compare ESPs based on what's important to your organization and your goals.

Publishing an updated ESP guide annually—rather than one whitepaper once—will enable us to keep the guide up-to-date with shifting trends and technologies, so no matter the year, you'll have a vendor-neutral guide to, well, guide you.

Your ESP choice is critical to your success. Choose wisely. Choose well. And choose to start your selection process with this guide in hand.

Download the 2010 guide to choosing a top tier ESP.


- Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

With over 150 email service providers (ESPs) to choose from, how can you possibly pick the best one? Or be confident that your current ESP is the best fit for your business and email marketing initiatives? There's no single right answer. ESPs differ from each other in many ways, meaning you can't make an apples-to-apples comparison.

Despite the overwhelming number of choices and the complexity in making a choice, there is an email service provider that's right for you and your company's email marketing program. Determining which one means knowing what matters most when shopping around or evaluating your current ESP.

Every email service provider has its strengths and weaknesses. You can't change that. But you can be aware of which strengths are absolutely critical to your business and which weaknesses you are not willing to accept. That means you have to start your ESP search internally, by really delving into what drives your email marketing program now and in the future. You also must take a hard look at your company's capabilities, including that of your staff and any existing technologies you'll want to integrate with. (For advice on evaluating your needs, see the ESP RFP tips from a recent presentation by eec member, Kara Trivunovic, and reiterated in the ClickMail Marketing blog.

For help in evaluating what matters most to your program and knowing how to score ESPs on those factors, download "Choosing the Right Email Service Provider: The top 20 factors to consider when shopping for a top tier ESP."

This whitepaper is a compilation of a decade's worth of knowledge and insight, gleaned while helping clients choose ESPs that fit the email service provider to the client's needs. This comprehensive whitepaper covers 20 factors for you to consider when choosing an ESP, including why each factor matters and what to look for. It also includes a scoring sheet you can use to evaluate ESPs against these 20 factors. This resource will help you take a thoughtful, informed approach to your ESP selection, so you can compare apples to oranges and still make a wise choice, Whether you're in the market for a new ESP now or want to see how your current one stacks up.

When every marketing dollar matters now more than ever, every little improvement you make to your email marketing program matters too. Choosing the right ESP, or being sure the one you're with now is the best fit, is one critical component in making sure you're maximizing your program's effectiveness…and ROI. Don't overlook the importance of this partnership. Use every resource you can to ensure an informed decision.

- Marco Marini, CEO, ClickMail Marketing