Email Service Providers: What You Need to Check Before Buying

Not all email service providers are created equal. It depends on what features are required as to which service provider is right for your needs. Due to the startup costs and time to switch providers later, it’s a good idea to consider what your requirements are ahead of time to aid in making the right decision.

Here are a few things to check before committing to an email service provider.

GDPR Compliance

While U.S. companies might still think that they don’t have to worry about GDPR because it’s only relevant for Europe, that’s not true. Effectively, the European law is relevant to companies around the world. This is because it’s not always known where the email subscriber lives – sometimes only an email address is given when subscribing. Therefore, the email could still reach Europe even if the company doesn’t usually sell goods or services there.

Not all email service providers are currently fully GDPR complaint. For instance, SendinBlue, which is based in Europe is compliant but at the time of this article, Mailchimp still is not. It’s worth checking the email providers you’re considering before going ahead. Bear in mind that while Mailchimp is popular, there are plenty of other alternatives to Mailchimp such as SendinBlue worth strong consideration too.

Phone Support

Many email service providers offer strictly online-only customer service. This isn’t always ideal when you’re busy and don’t want to hunt around their website trying to find the answer to your question. Sometimes, you need the answer quickly, so not being able to call them up is frustrating.

Check this before you sign up; don’t discover much to your chagrin later that there’s no way to reach them by phone.

SMS Marketing

Most email service providers are just that; they deal with email only. However, some providers understand that companies wish to promote over the phone using SMS marketing too. To facilitate that, some providers offer SMS marketing to their customers as well.

A few also provide transactional SMS services too. The latter makes it possible to complete purchases and confirm them directly over the phone. This is ideal for frequent smartphone users who virtually have the handset glued to their hand.

Unlimited Contacts

Having access to add unlimited contacts to an email service account is handy. Custom lists can be created to email all current clients/customers directly. This is relevant for news updates, product recalls and a host of other mass communication needs.

This isn’t a feature that’s all that common with email service providers currently. However, it’s a useful one to have, especially when the business has many thousands of customers.

Easy to Use Interface

As more features get added to an email service provider’s dashboard, the more confusing it can get for their customers.

It requires skillful user-interface designers to create a dashboard that’s easy to understand and quick to use. When regularly working with multiple email lists and setting up new emails to send out, this is a commonly overlooked benefit of diligent providers that go the extra mile with their website’s usability and design.

As long as you look out for the features covered above and any others that are important to you, then you should be all set.