What Is Managed Email Marketing?

Let’s face it.

Email marketing can be a hassle! You’re already running a business. How can you possibly find enough time to compose, maintain, and update countless email marketing campaigns!? How can you balance your marketing needs with your daily business goals? It’s a seemingly impossible conundrum.

And it’s within this niche that managed email marketing shines!

Today, I’ll be doing a deep dive into the topic. I’ll outline the specifics of managed marketing efforts, showing you how your business can benefit from their power.

Understanding the Basics

I’ll start with the definition.

Managed email marketing is another term for hands-off marketing efforts. It’s yet another way to refer to email marketing agencies and third-party providers. In most situations, these third-party marketing partners handle the full lifecycle of your email marketing efforts.

Obviously, this means they’ll handle the nitty-gritty specifics of composing and testing marketing campaigns. However, their utility often stretches far beyond that narrow scope of practice. An email marketing agency manager will also be able to manage your:

• Automated campaigns
• Email campaign performance
• Email deliverability
• Email marketing platform
• Landing pages
• Lead generation
• List hygiene
• List segmentation

Why Hire Help for Your Email Marketing Campaigns?

Now, I can hear some dissent in the audience!

“But,” you may be saying, “why would I need help making my email marketing campaigns? Can’t I use an internal marketing team? Can’t I handle my own email marketing strategy?”

And — in all honesty — you absolutely can manage your brand’s email marketing strategy with an in-house team. You can hire pros to cater to your target audience from within your business, eliminating outside communication and streamlining your process. However, whether you should do so is another question!

The best email marketing services come from a team of highly skilled experts. You’ll need a healthy mix of creative writers and artists to maintain effective, constant contact with your subscriber list. You’ll also need analytical masterminds to manage and monitor your targeted email marketing services. These employees must be aware of your other marketing tools and be proficient in your email marketing software.

A Third-Party Marketing Manager Is Cheaper

You can already see a problem here, right?

We already need five people to run a basic skeleton crew! Your marketing manager is one person. Now, add a writer and designer. And don’t forget to hire an analytically-minded campaign monitor! You’ll also need to open a position for an implementation specialist.

And — now that these individuals are on board, consider their compensation. You must now manage their pay and benefits. Assuming that each of your five marketing team employees works full-time and is paid $15 per hour, you’re looking at a yearly email marketing price tag of $156,000! By the way, that figure does not include the cost of email marketing services!

(You’ll probably need some doubles, too. After all, relying on one person for any critical task is akin to playing with fire.)

An email marketing agency is a vastly more affordable option. Most agencies charge monthly. They’ll manage and maintain your email marketing software, so cross that off your yearly expense report. Moreover, their employees are their own. Your monthly fee covers those digital marketers’ salaries.

Few email marketing agencies charge more than $10,000 monthly. (You can assume such a charge would be a special situation.) However, at $120,000, even that price tag is less than the cost of hiring a full in-house marketing team!

Access More Email Marketing Knowledge

And what about the world beyond your email marketing campaigns?

An agency does more than offer an affordable email marketing service. Clients also gain access to unprecedented expertise. A fully-fledged email marketing company — like The Email Marketers — has knowledgeable staff in every niche. You’ll find more than a lead generation expert. You’ll also be able to question email automation professionals, SMS marketing experts, and creative masterminds.

In other words, you’re getting more than a dedicated account manager.

You’re unlocking the potential of a team of industry experts. These professionals understand the complexities of digital marketing. Their experience empowers them, helping them shape campaigns to meet any business goals.

Save Time on Campaign Management

Those same skills are a real asset for small businesses.

Consider the alternative. Without a dedicated sales team, a business must hire and train its own employees. This is a monetary problem. There’s no denying the impact this training will have on your marketing budget. But you’ll also have practical challenges! Your freshly minted digital marketers may have the skills to write and design gorgeous email campaigns, but can they do so within your email marketing platform?

Email marketing software can claim it has an “easy user interface” all it wants! It can have drag-and-drop workflows and unparalleled campaign management tools. Unfortunately, none of that matters if your employees are unfamiliar with your platform.

What Do You Need for a Successful Email Marketing Campaign?

Here’s the hard truth: Even the most popular email marketing service won’t write your emails for you. Even the best AI can’t connect with your audience like a team of skilled digital marketers. Those promises of unlimited emails and boundless wealth are tantalizing, indeed, but they must be supported by skilled experts.

Even the most basic email marketing campaigns require hours of work. You can add even more time for advanced automation features and interactive content. There is no such thing as truly free email marketing!

1. The Planning Phase

Every entry into your email marketing strategy begins with a plan.

Your team — either in-house or outsourced — must carefully analyze your target audience. They’ll use every email marketing tool available to better understand your customers and choices. They’ll weigh this information against your business goals to form a basic outline of your content.

This is a tedious process, and it must be done for every email. Thus, if an automated workflow has multiple email marketing campaigns attached, you’ll repeat the process as many times as needed.

2. The Creation

From here, the creative team takes hold of the project.

Writers and designers work in tandem to create an email campaign. These efforts must be in perfect harmony. Both halves of this equation must understand their respective best practices. Otherwise, you’ll end up with an awkward, lopsided email.

Writers must consider their tone and cadence. For example, a B2B email writer won’t have the same fun and bubbly tone as a B2C professional. They must also craft engaging subject lines without triggering spam filters.

At the same time, designers must optimize content for both mobile and desktop devices. Email templates help, but they can’t do all the work! A designer must meld the brand’s visual identity with your email marketing campaign. They’ll manage your implementation and guarantee everyone gets an amazing experience.

3. The Approval

Of course, nothing is sent without approval!

Ideally, email marketing must be approved by both an internal team and the respective client.

While the client’s decision is often subjective, a campaign’s internal review is a rigorous process. Behind those curtains, a dedicated account manager scrutinizes every part of your prospective email marketing campaign. They’ll consider every facet of the campaign, including:

• Customer Satisfaction: High customer engagement comes from happy customers. An email professional uses past content and A/B test results to craft the most satisfying and effective email campaigns.
• Functionality: A defunct element can destroy the best campaigns. All emails must be tested to ensure their reliability. While the body of the email is important, marketers must also double-check landing pages and additional features.
• Potential Performance Issues: Aside from typos and visual issues, a campaign monitor can easily spot potential performance hits. They seek out problems that may result in spam complaints or sub-optimal customer engagement.

Now, I can’t say how other email marketing agencies work. However, at The Email Marketers, I take your concerns seriously. Even the smallest concerns are addressed. If something isn’t up to your standards, I’ll fix it.

Amplify Your Email Marketing Strategy

My commitment to your satisfaction is just one of the many reasons to choose The Email Marketers.

My team of professionals understands the ins and outs of the industry. We’ve mastered our email marketing tools and perfected the art of email marketing automation.

Schedule a free strategy session to see how your business can benefit from a professional marketing partner. Let us manage your email marketing services. All you have to gain is time to meet and exceed your business goals!