We set up mail2sale because we realised that the existing solutions just dodn’t do what we needed at a price that made good business sense.

In developing the service, we asked ourselves - and our customers - exactly what they were looking for from their direct email marketing solution.

The responses were surprising - we’d expected a strong focus on design, but there was a real understanding that good email design, whilst critically important, is only the ‘icing on the cake’.

The top five features we realised we needed before we even got close to design were:

• Spam free delivery
  We realised that if the servers we used for our customers legitimate email marketing campaigns sent spam for others, none of their emails would get through. In fact, their domains could be blacklisted. So, we impose a very strict anti-spam policy, and we don’t allow bought in email lists as, frankly, they didn’t ask for your message and so they only harm your chances of success.
• Powerful analytics
  Our customers wanted to make sure their emails were being opened, read and responded to. They needed accurate, precise statistics. We responded by providing powerful real-time online stats on your email campaigns, and enabling integration of Google Analytics so you can track from email to sale.
• Top-notch management of sign-ups and unsubscribes
  We wanted to make it really easy for subscribers to sign up to your email newsletters, and we did just that by providing tools to add a sign-up box to your site by just copying and pasting some code. Our customers also told us they wanted to import existing lists,so you can import and clean your lists in a couple of clicks of the mouse.
• Spam filter and email client compatibility checks
  We all know there’s no point sending a message just to see it blocked, or to find it went unread because it didn’t display properly. In addition to tried-and-tested email templates, you can check your campaign against common spam filters and test it in all the major email clients (Outlook, Google Mail, Yahoo, etc.) in a couple of clicks before you send.
• No co-branding
  Finally, our clients had noticed that most direct email marketing solutions insert their own message and web ink into their emails. If people don’t want to receive spam, why should they receive ours? We never insert our brand into your message, and you can completely customise your sign-up and unsubscribe web pages as well. Your customers won’t see us - they’ll see you.

Of course, this was only a starting point - but as you consider which email marketing solution to go with, you might want to bear these in mind.