The Constant Contact Guide to Email Marketing

Ten Reasons to Use an Email Marketing Service Provider

Many small businesses use Microsoft Outlook or a similar email program when they start doing email marketing. The problem is that these applications were designed for one-to-one communications. They can work fine for sending email to a few dozen people. But using Outlook to help you send hundreds or thousands of emails to your customers is like using a speaker phone to deliver a speech in an auditorium. Email marketing can have a powerful impact on your business, and you need tools that are designed for the task. If you are serious enough about email marketing to pick up this book, you should consider using an email service like Constant Contact. (We’re the largest by far, and the best [we believe!], but there are other ones out there.) Email services help you perfect your strategy, manage your data, design your emails, and track your results.

1. Look professional. Unless you’re an HTML programmer who knows how every email program used by your customers will render your code differently, you should consider using an Email Service Provider (ESP) to help you with elements such as colors, fonts, images, and page designs.

2. Easily conform to CAN-SPAM regulations. All reputable email service providers build legal requirements into their platforms so you don’t have to worry about compliance.

3. Learn best practices. Email service companies send a lot of emails. The best ones listen to their customers, study their customers’ ...