Choosing The Right eMail or eCommerce Provider

Understanding your long term business strategy and knowing your overall business needs are important factors when deciding which provider to choose.  At the bare minimum, any service provider you choose should have the ability to create unlimited auto-responders, broadcast emails and be compliant with the latest industry standards and regulations regarding email delivery and marketing.

When I coach clients through the process of choosing their service provider, there are two questions I ask them to help determine which type of service provider might be right for them.

1. Do you currently or will you ever sell products and services on your website?
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2. Have you considered and is it likely that you will at some point implement an affiliate program in your business?

If the answer to either question is yes, then an eCommerce solution such as KickStartCart/1ShoppingCart or InfusionSoft are the right choice.  Both of these services provide unlimited auto-responder, broadcast and shopping cart capabilities and KickStartCart offers a fairly robust automated affiliate tracking system.  Personally I have not used InfusionSoft, but am hearing great things about the service.  Currently, I use KickStartCart and recommend checking it out.  

The strategy behind choosing an eCommerce solution such as KickStartCart is that all your former, current and future client information is stored in one central database which makes email marketing to various segments of your list a breeze.

Please note: If you currently use PayPal as your “shopping cart” solution, you are missing the opportunity to collect pertinent information on active and engaged clients who are buying from you. PayPal is a great payment solution, but is not a shopping cart or customer database solution.

With a true eCommerce provider like KickStart and Infusionsoft, customer information such as name, address, phone number as well as the products they’ve bought are stored in your central database.  This means if at any given time you want to send an email to everyone who bought a certain product or service, all you need to do is write the email and with the click of a few buttons, your email is sent to everyone that needs to get it.

If you don’t offer products for sale on your website and don’t ever intend to, then you more than likely won’t need the shopping cart/eCommerce capabilities.  In this case, an eMail service provider probably makes the most sense for you.  Here are a couple of industry leaders for you to include in your research, aWeber, or IContact.

As with any investment in your business, it is important to make an informed decision and to think strategically about the long-term benefits and payoffs vs. only looking at costs.  If you base your decision solely on cost in the short-term, it could end up costing you a lot more time, energy and money in the long-term.

(Full Disclosure:  KickStartCart links are my affiliate links and I will earn a commission if you purchase this service using this link, please click here to view my Affiliate Link and Compensation Policy)