uk-netmarketing Archive (2011-2015)

Tue Mar 6 10:35:21 GMT 2012

Thanks Nabil, more food for thought!! jd

John Duffy

Marketing Director

cid:3351500905_1077630

www.nemisys.uk.com

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From: uk-netmarketing-bounces at mm.chinwag.com
[mailto:uk-netmarketing-bounces at mm.chinwag.com] On Behalf Of Nabil
Sent: 03 March 2012 5:02 AM
To: uk-netmarketing at mm.chinwag.com
Subject: Re: [uk-netmarketing] Flexible Email Marketing Solution

Hi John,

The own SMTP can be anyone.  In fact you can use different domains and
different smtp servers for different lists or different customers.  We
actually use smtp.com for sending the emails. We've added SPF records for
them for our domain and deliverability has been very good and we can send
50,000 emails in about half an hour (that actually seems to be a cap
initiated by our cloud hosting partner, not smtp.com).

You can also do split campaign tests, autoresponders and use triggers.
We've synced it with our CRM system (including fields) and when someone gets
into our CRM system, depending on those fields, a series of autoresponders
kicks off.  Different autoresponders for different people.

While it's not perfect, what is, it is the best and most flexible (and
cheapest) I could find out there. The software isn't expensive and sending
emails is cheaper using someone like smtp.com or sendgrid than the all
inclusive services and of course no charge for the number of records or
lists you have or campaigns you send.

Nabil

On 01/03/2012 12:04, John Duffy wrote: 

Hi Nabil

The ‘send with own SMTP’ part of Interspire was the thing I was struggling
with – one of the reasons we’re also shifting from our own flavour is to get
better deliverability via a commercial ESP working their magic for the
sending IP address. 

Would be grateful for the list’s views?

jd

John Duffy

Marketing Director

cid:3351500905_1077630

www.nemisys.uk.com

john at nemisys.uk.com

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ompanyEmail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=signature&utm_content=jd&utm_campaign=
Gmail> 

linkedin <http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrduffy> 

slideshare <http://www.slideshare.net/johnrduffy/presentations> 

@johnrduffy <http://twitter.com/#%21/johnrduffy> 

@nemisys <http://twitter.com/#%21/nemisys> 

Support & switchboard: 0844 706 9665

Support email: support at nemisys.uk.com

Direct: +44 (0)118 9122226

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From: uk-netmarketing-bounces at mm.chinwag.com
[mailto:uk-netmarketing-bounces at mm.chinwag.com] On Behalf Of Nabil
Sent: 29 February 2012 4:33 PM
To: uk-netmarketing
Subject: Re: [uk-netmarketing] Flexible Email Marketing Solution

If you need help on Interspire let me know.  We run the multiple user own
branded one and have done some other stuff with it like populate it from our
CRM system (we use vtiger).  regarding the smtp side of things, costs wise
it's not bad as you can use any smtp service you want which means you can
hunt for the best prices.

On 28/02/2012 13:00, John Braithwaite wrote: 

Thanks for all the replies so far... I think it seems to be: 

1. Hosted/Cloud - Campaign Monitor, Mailchimp, Dotmailer recommended
(depending on functionality / cost)

2. Licensed (Self-Hosted) - Interspire (though has mixed reviews from what I
read - although you can't always trust web reviews, sadly)

3. Build - DIY approach

For us, I think I can discount '3' right away.... because it's just too much
work for not enough reward to do it properly. I need some of the more
advanced functionality so it's not just a merge, but much more than that...
per client. Also, the hidden 'cost' in this kind of solution isn't just the
development cost, but also if it under-performs for clients, the ongoing
maintenance and the additional time taken to produce emailshots. Time in
email is probably greater than the cost of sending... 

For 1. I am definitely not going to scale up from here, because those
charging £500 a month or so, they're aiming at the 'big boys' and for them
to pretend that buying emails at virtually 1p a send COST is good value,
then they also fail to understand the mechanics of the lower end of the
scale. So it'll have to be one of the more budget players with a robust API
(which is why Campaign Monitor may be a good option).

For 2. It seems that the only one (Interspire) mentioned has flaws and,
though self-hosted has other costs (from SMTP services to customisation),
though it probably offers the most scalable solution for a smaller agency.
It's worth a dig around, though.

Will let you know if we uncover anything...  thank you for all the responses
- again much appreciated!

John

On 28 Feb 2012, at 10:16, Alasdair Orr wrote:

Second that - have used Campaign Monitor for years and rate it, simple, good
value, good reporting and list managent - though am interested if others
think otherwise compared to what else is out there. I suppose it's horses
for courses...

Cheers,

Al

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Business Development Director

SugarShaker - Digital Marketing & Web Development

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On 27 Feb 2012, at 19:33, Danny Bluestone <Danny at cyber-duck.co.uk> wrote:

All

We have moved from Dotmailer to Campaign Monitor 6 months ago and have been
impressed with Campaign Monitor as a mailing platform. Campaign Monitor
offer a great user experience, cheaper costs and high levels of customer
service – they really do care about every email that is inputted into their
system! Moving to Campaign Monitor was a very good decision for us an
agency.

Best regards

Danny Bluestone

Managing Director

Cyber-Duck <http://www.cyber-duck.co.uk/> 

From: uk-netmarketing-bounces at mm.chinwag.com
[mailto:uk-netmarketing-bounces at mm.chinwag.com] On Behalf Of Sue Fidler
Sent: 27 February 2012 12:09
To: uk-netmarketing
Subject: Re: [uk-netmarketing] Flexible Email Marketing Solution

Hi again

dotMailer haven’t raised the prices for 8 years and have actually lowered
them.. plus they do have a commitment to me personally that they will
continue to support the system and maintain the services, costs and support
as is.

Re the reselling – I have several agencies who already do that and we
haven’t had any problem, they get direct support and it all seems to work
fine. 

Best Regards

Sue

 <mailto:sue at suefidler.com> sue at suefidler.com

07889 350285

Website, Social Media, Email and EFundraising

Copywriting and Site Building, Database Development

Mentoring, Development, Strategy and Delivery

We are

                       <image001.gif>

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www.charityemail.co.uk <http://www.charityemail.co.uk/> 

Sue Fidler Associates is a trading name of Sue Fidler Ltd Co. Reg. No.
05921302 Registered in England and Wales
Registered Office: 38/9 Bucklersbury, Hitchin, SG5 1BG VAT No. 888323679

From: uk-netmarketing-bounces at mm.chinwag.com
[mailto:uk-netmarketing-bounces at mm.chinwag.com] On Behalf Of John
Braithwaite
Sent: 25 February 2012 12:22
To: uk-netmarketing
Subject: Re: [uk-netmarketing] Flexible Email Marketing Solution

Thanks Sam, Sue, Mark

Very interesting... all thoughts I've had... Sam, I'd name and shame
privately, but not on the list, but the system I currently use, for example,
charges me about £2,000 a year before I sneeze, then a decent amount per
email, and then on top of that various costs for testing, accounts,
reporting, access and so on. 

The two issues I have is:

1. It just isn't very good - for example I just sent 50,000 emails that took
A DAY (yes, 24 hours) to send - I didn't set any throttling etc. That's just
how long it took. And the UI is really mediocre and clunky. And if I want
the full API I'd need to spend even more... 

2. I just can't grow my email business. Every other area of the business is
growing and offering value to clients - PPC, MVT, Build, Mobile and so on -
but the clumsy email supplier is difficult to sell - a monthly fee is fine,
but then you get everything else on top. I just can't scale my business and
would have to sell 'at cost' to pick up some clients. So why bother? So,
that's why I'm looking around. 

Specifically on the responses:

- Sue, interesting, although I am always concerned with resellers that they
may end up in the unfortunate position of raising prices because DotMailer
chooses to do so. Not only that, but because I also sometimes resell - then
I'd be white labelling a white label of another service... I think at least
two tiers too many ;-)

- Mark, I am seriously considering that, main issue is resource and cost to
setup in the first place to get everything in place to serve clients:
automations, customisation, subject line testing, re-sends to non opens,
unsubscription management, form plugin / immediate access, wrappers and so
on... sure if it was just 'here's the email (from, say, Dreamweaver
templates), here's the list (uploaded), send' then that would be a
relatively simple one, but actually for what I do it's a pain.

Thanks

John

On 25 Feb 2012, at 10:19, Sam Michel wrote:

Hiya John,

Oooo, good question. I've wrestled with this a fair bit over the last few
years. Last time I had a good look around, we plumped for the ease of
interface over back-end functionality. It's not quite the same as we don't
have clients using the system.

We've ended up using Mailchimp and then extending a fair bit (triggered
emails, user integration, scheduled emails, auto-generated templates) using
their API, which so far (touches server gently) has proved very robust. 

The UI has proved simple enough that when we staffed up for Social Media
Week recently, all of our contract team were able to get the hang of it,
very quickly, and able to generate newsletters/email shots, which for me,
proved its worth. I have a hunch that if I did a cost comparison of a more
sophisticated system and increased return vs. cost of staff
training/production resource, this solution would win. For us.

We also looked at the more SMTP-focused solutions like Sendgrid, which I
think would work well for more fixed solutions.

I'm particularly keen to see how the likes of dotMailer, Constant Contact,
Lyris evolve and build in access, management and CRM of social channels with
email. Any pointers/observations v. welcome.

Toodle Pip

Sam

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On 24 February 2012 17:50, John Braithwaite <john at ergodigital.com> wrote:

Hi All

I've seen a good number of email systems in my time and, generally speaking,
they seem to fit into the 'light and plug and play' (i.e. Mailchimp) and the
'all inclusive' (i.e. DotMailer). 

I really just want one email system which can do both... the light ones
often don't have API access, are a little too basic, can't do automations
etc. (but actually, generally have better editors / UI then that bigger
systems).... the heavy ones have loads of bells and whistles but at a large
price... 

So, I'll be open with you, I get stuck. Smaller clients I essentially have
to deal with 'wot they got' and have no chance of converting them (with
small budgets and list sizes) to a larger system... so I end up dealing with
a multitude of suppliers and all their little foibles (and, don't they have
a few ;-)

I suppose I perhaps want the impossible - a more fully featured and flexible
system where I can get smaller clients on as well as servicing the larger
ones.

Anyone got any suggestions? Please, just thoughts to the list and no direct
sales pitches.

John Braithwaite
Ergo Digital Ltd - Giving You Many Happy Returns!

01962 605 000 (new number!)
07977 272752 

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