Brands are upgrading their marketing tools in an effort to increase customer lifetime values, find new ways to leverage data, and enrich their customers’ journeys. An experience-driven consumer market demands more from brands—all while C-Suite executives closely watch their bottom lines. Needless to say, the pressure for marketers to perform has never been higher!
A recent survey of executives found that 85% of decision-makers from major brands felt they have a two-year window to undergo a successful digital transformation before taking a substantial financial hit. Atop that long list transformation to-dos? Upgrading their email service provider.
Email remains a key driver of the customer experience, but too many brands are settling for less with platforms with limited functionality. Why, you ask? That’s because an ESP evaluation can be a huge undertaking.
Upping the Email Ante
The capabilities of modern ESPs have advanced far beyond their predecessors and our ESP evaluation guide is intended to help marketers who are seeking new solutions.
Recently we released a foundational guide for selecting a modern ESP, in which we explored key areas where modern ESPs vastly surpassed entry-level and legacy providers.
Now, we’re following that guide up with an advanced ESP evaluation resource to ensure you’re able to confidently choose a modern ESP that’s right for your organization. We’ve essentially reverse-engineered the request-for-proposal (RFP) process by giving you the exact questions to ask vendors so your team can turn email marketing dreams into realities.
How to Determine ESP Function From Fiction presents a simple framework for helping marketers through an ESP evaluation. Make sure you’re considering these three key factors to better understand how ESP features can actually improve your day-to-day work and significantly increase marketing ROI.
This ESP evaluation guide breaks down each of the following three factors, explaining why they matter to long-term performance and how you can gauge a solution’s effectiveness when demoing.
1. Flexibility
Flexibility encompasses an ESP’s ability to operate successfully inside your existing technology environment. ESP flexibility goes beyond integration alone and characterizes how readily the platform ingests, activates, and feeds back data throughout your broader MarTech stack.
2. Usability
Usability speaks to an ESP’s campaign management capabilities and the degrees to which your team can efficiently create and launch compelling email campaigns.
3. Productivity
Productivity represents the “true value” each ESP has to offer. It’s easy to evaluate an ESP on cost alone—think past this and assess how each solution impacts your time and dependencies on both marketing and technical resources.
ESP Evaluation: Upgrade Your Experience
Exceeding the evolving demands of today’s consumers calls for insightful, behaviorally-responsive marketing experiences that ebb and flow with an individual’s changing preferences. And it starts with email.
If you’ve been considering how impactful moving onto a new ESP could be, it’s time to stop wondering—the time for action is now! We’ve got the resources you need to determine whether it’s time to upgrade, evaluate your options, and migrate onto your next ESP.
Download the ESP evaluation guide today to determine function from fiction and start controlling your email marketing destiny.
