Groundwire provides consulting, email template design, training and in some cases hosting services for the following email broadcasting platforms:

• Vertical Response
• ExactTarget
• WhatCounts

Although we are the most experienced with these three platforms, we can offer consulting services for just about any email provider. Other providers that we are familiar with include: ConstantContact, Democracy in Action, Emma, Mail Chimp, and Campaign Monitor.

Vertical Response

Vertical Response is our primary tool for broadcast email.  It's simple, has decent integration with Salesforce.com, and best of all, it offers 10,000 emails per month free to nonprofits.  For a small to medium sized organization doing a monthly email newsletter or action alerts this might be the right choice for you.

The key limitation with Vertical Response is that all list unsusbscribes are global, and as a result, it's only appropriate for groups with a single email list. You can still run multiple lists, and allow subscribers to choose which one(s) they want to be on, but once they unsubscribe you cannot mail to them anymore. In addition, Vertical Response user accounts are tied to specific individuals, and as a result, it can become hard to manage in a organization where multiple people are working on email broadcasts.  (Steve Andersen offers a more in-depth rundown of these limitations.)

Larger organizations with more than one email list or multiple senders may want to consider more powerful options such as ExactTarget or WhatCounts.

ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a high-end email broadcasting solution that is targeted at organizations that need a powerful, flexible platform.  It has a best-of-breed integration with Salesforce.com, offers a wide range of advanced email broadcasting features, and solid usability. ExactTarget is offered in two different tiers (Core and Advanced) and you can buy add-on features for each tier. This means you can tailor ExactTarget to meet your specific needs. ExactTarget is our recommendation for groups that have outgrown the capabilities of Vertical Response or similar systems.

ExactTarget might be a good fit for you if you:

• want to run multiple lists, with the ability for a subscriber to opt-out of each list individually
• want to dynamically populate your email content based on subscriber data
• want to integrate both subscriber lists and user actions with Salesforce
• want to have multiple users running your email campaigns
• want to use advanced features such as drip campaigns, email-integrated surveys and SMS text messaging

Groundwire is an ExactTarget reseller, and as such, is able to offer their services at a rate substantially below their retail pricing.  It's still a relatively expensive solution, with a minimum cost of $200/month.  But we think it offers a compelling set of features that no other platform can match (yet).

WhatCounts

WhatCounts' features and price level both fall somewhere in between VerticalResponse and ExactTarget. WhatCounts' feature set is fairly advanced and its pricing is moderate, typically in the $50-100/month range.  Like ExactTarget, WhatCounts assumes a solid understanding of email broadcasting fundamentals. However, WhatCounts' user interface is a bit rough in spots; in particular, its graphical HTML editor is not as polished as its peers, which is important to many less-technical users.

WhatCounts' Salesforce integration is pretty basic. It is more challening to set up than either VerticalResponse's or ExactTarget's, doesn't include all of the capabilites of ExactTarget's, and has evolved little over the past two years since it was introduced.

We've found that the best fit for WhatCounts are technically proficient online magazines such as YES! Magazine, High Country News and Sightline Daily -- organizations that have several large lists, do frequent sends (more than once per week) and need fairly sophisticated broadcasting features yet don't need sophisticated CRM database integration.  For these groups, WhatCounts offers a great mix of powerful features and affordable cost.

Groundwire is a reseller of WhatCounts and can offer below-retail pricing to our clients.

Feature / Cost summary

Here is a high-level summary of our three core email broadcasting solutions. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all features of each tool. Please contact us if you are interested in learning more about any or all of these services.

How We Can help You

Whether you're an experienced email broadcaster, are just learning the ropes, or want to make a quantum leap to a new level of email marketing savvy, Groundwire can meet you where you're at.

For any of the email broadcasting platforms listed above, we offer:

• Email template design
• Training
• Subscriber import/export
• Migration from one service provider to another
• List de-duplication
• Email strategy consulting

A typical "entry level" email broadcasting project with Groundwire usually starts with template design and training, and costs typically range from $600 - $1200. More advanced projects that include more elements can be upward of $5000 or more depending on your needs. This is especially true if you need help with learning and setting up advanced features of ExactTarget or WhatCounts.

Interested in learning more about how we can help you?  Drop us a line.