{"id":2940,"date":"2022-05-17T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-17T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.emailcritic.com\/?p=2940"},"modified":"2022-07-17T03:01:45","modified_gmt":"2022-07-17T07:01:45","slug":"ignoring-usability-when-selecting-an-email-service-provider-is-a-giant-waste-of-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.emailcritic.com\/ignoring-usability-when-selecting-an-email-service-provider-is-a-giant-waste-of-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Ignoring Usability When Selecting an Email Service Provider is a Giant Waste of Money"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In my years in the email marketing industry, I have seen and used a lot<\/em> of different ESP interfaces, and I’ve watched them evolve over time into ever more capable technologies as email marketing has grown more sophisticated, but that hasn’t necessarily meant that they’ve grown easier to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the opposite seems to be true, that the more advanced the features, the more challenging the interface should be\u2014or so people seem to think. They tend to think getting more advanced functionality means accepting poor usability, as a kind of trade-off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usability matters more than you think<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marketers want<\/em> ESPs to be usable. In one study, nearly 80% of respondents rated “an interface that requires very little training” as a “must have” in an ESP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet usability is often overlooked when choosing a new email service provider- – usually by those who want fancy features and authorize the purchase but don\u2019t actually use the product. However, usability is every bit as important as the price and features when evaluating an ESP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just what do we mean by usable? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are five characteristics<\/a> that are required in order for that ESP\u2019s platform to be usable:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Effective: Whether you\u2019re running a mom-and-pop operation or an enterprise-size one, you\u2019re making an investment in this email technology and you want it to work, by golly! And it only works when you or your employees can do what they set out to when using the platform.<\/li>
  2. Efficient: That said, you don\u2019t want it to take forever for you or an employee to accomplish a task, so you need the platform interface to be efficient too, enabling a quick template build, for example, or almost instant reporting.<\/li>
  3. Engaging: Yes, usability includes an aspect of “enjoyable,” shall we say? If given the choice between doing a task using a technology that\u2019s unpleasant vs. using a technology that\u2019s actually kind of fun to use, wouldn\u2019t you choose the latter? And that quality makes a platform more usable.<\/li>
  4. Error-tolerant: This is kind of a fancy way to say \u201cmake it hard to make mistakes,\u201d because if it\u2019s easy for you or an employee to err, you will.<\/li>
  5. Easy to learn: This characteristic could go to the top of the list because really, it all starts there, with learning the ESP interface and adapting to it quickly.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    You lose money when ESP usability is poor <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I sometimes think the bigger companies prefer the clunky, difficult-to-use ESP and marketing automation platforms because I see them making huge investments in these vendors without questioning the usability. Or is it because they\u2019ve bought into the idea that fancy features must equal a challenging interface?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It doesn’t have to be that way, and putting up with poor usability is like throwing money away. Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n\n\n\n