The On-Premise Advantage for Marketing and Transactional Email

WHITE PAPER | JUNE 2008
Best Practices in Email Marketing
The On-Premise Advantage for
Marketing and Transactional Email
New perspectives on insourcing and outsourcing business-critical commercial email PUBLISHED BY
StrongMail Systems, Inc. 1300 Island Drive, Suite 200 Redwood City, CA 94065 P 650-421-4200 F 650-421-4201
Copyright © 2008 StrongMail Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
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www.strongmail.comTable of Contents
1. Introduction: The Evolving Email Marketing Landscape
2. Integration and Relevancy
4. Flexibility
5. Visibility and Control
6. Deliverability
6. Cost
8. Data Security and Privacy
8. Centralization
9. Reliability
9. Conclusion
10. About StrongMail SystemsTraditional arguments for insourcing or outsourcing marketing and transactional email have changed. The debate has evolved alongside rising consumer adoption of the medium, the introduction of new on-premise solutions and expanding requirements from email marketers for improved control, costs and data security.
While the pros and cons still exist, they're now being considered in the context of a company's overall customer communication strategy and its plans for leveraging email across the enterprise. The benefits of centralizing customer email, including tight integration with business data and processes, improved data security and consolidated technology platforms, make insourcing
Market conditions - an attractive option for companies looking to improve the quality
including e-mail list and effectiveness of their outbound email communications.
growth as well as the By examining the factors involved with insourcing and outsourcing ability to relatively your marketing and transactional email, this whitepaper will help better manage and you assess whether a commercial-grade on-premise solution is contain persistent right for your business.
e-mail deliverability challenges - are allowing Introduction: The Evolving Email Marketing Landscapeorganizations to reevaluate the potential According to JupiterResearch, mastering an email strategy is an email marketer's top 1concern , and that's not too surprising given that email marketing has emerged as benefits of deploying one of the most cost-effective and targeted ways to reach customers. on-premise e-mail Although most companies have adopted email marketing as an important part of marketing technology. their overall marketing program, there is a lack of consensus around the best way to JupiterResearch, manage promotional email. Many organizations allocate large budgets to outsource "Sending from the Inside," Sept. 2007 their email programs to agencies or email service providers (ESPs), while others have chosen to manage their email programs in-house by building custom solutions that combine pieces of technology from various vendors. A third choice, commercial-grade on-premise solutions, has now emerged that addresses the shortcomings of the outsourced and custom-built solution models.
Historically, analysts and other industry experts have recommended that both small businesses and Fortune 500 companies alike outsource their email marketing efforts unless they had a fully trained, dedicated staff of in-house experts who could successfully manage the scope of an email marketing campaign. Today, however, things have changed.
1 JupiterResearch/StrongMail, "The Maturation of E-mail," September 2007
1 The On-Premise Advantage for Marketing and Transactional Email Copyright © 2008 StrongMail Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. SM-AK10608On-premise solutions have come a long way in a short period of time, allowing companies to reap the benefits of insourcing with fewer resources. The benefits of an on-premise approach (outlined next) have ... [download for more]