2. Choosing the right cross-channel marketing product isn’t easy.
It’s an emerging space without a clear playbook.
Providers in the industry vary greatly in quality and scope of offering.
That’s why we created this sample RFP, consisting entirely
of actual questions from real RFPs submitted to Signal.
We hope it helps you in your search
for the right cross-channel marketing solution.
Products
Pricing, Implementation, Services and Support
Security, Systems and Data
Company Information
3. products
Text Message Marketing
Why This Matters
The SMS inbox is the only place where you’re guaranteed to get an open.
It’s important to complement an effective email marketing program
with targeted and timely text message content. Your customers are more mobile
than ever before and expect your marketing to be mobile-friendly.
By cultivating an opt-in list of SMS subscribers, you’ll be better equipped to delight customers
with important news, alerts and offers at the times and places they can act on that information.
Make sure your text message marketing provider can send SMS to all the cell carriers that your
customers use and that they are experts in the rules and best practices of SMS marketing.
What text messaging aggregator(s) do you work with? What is your experience with provisioning new short
Think of aggregators as your “middlemen” to the major codes? What support do you provide in handling this
cellular carriers. As with most things, not all aggregators provisioning? Can I use a temporary shared short
are created equal and vary in delivery reliability and code while my new code is being provisioned?
carrier coverage. A short code is the “phone number” for your text
message marketing campaigns. It is the number all your
Tier 1 aggregators typically have connections to most or
messages will come from and the number people will
all of the major carriers. Tier 2 or below may not have
text message keywords to (e.g., text WIN to 75309).
connectivity to one or more major carriers.
Like with your own phone number, you can request a
vanity number or get a randomly assigned one. Unlike
Are you aggregator agnostic?
getting a new phone number, short code provisioning
This simply means that the company has connections can be a long and complicated process.
to multiple aggregators, which significantly
streamlines the process of transferring short codes It typically takes 8 weeks or more to get a short code
from other vendors. ready for use. It’s important to have a provider that
is intimately familiar with the ins and outs of this
process and that has the relationships to make it as
painless as possible.
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4. If I choose not to provision my own short code or do Do you support Mobile Marketing Association and
not have an existing code to transfer, do you have carrier guidelines? Are you a member of the Mobile
shared short codes available for me to use? Marketing Association?
Shared short codes are used by text message The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) offers
marketing providers to give multiple customers use guidelines for text message marketing that all
of one short code. This reduces your costs, as you reputable providers follow. These guidelines generally,
don’t need to provision your own code, but there are but don’t always, align with policies followed by the
trade-offs to this approach. carriers themselves.
It’s critical the provider you work with has an intimate
Do you support the use of multiple short codes? understanding of these policies to ensure your
If you want to segment your text message marketing campaigns or short codes do not get interrupted or shut
campaigns between different brands, product lines or down by carriers.
campaign types, there can be value in having a short
code for each campaign. Does your product support the ability to provide
consumers information by sending a simple text
What carriers do you currently support? message in response to a call-to-action, such as
those I include in my marketing materials?
You want as many carriers to be supported as
possible to ensure as many of your customers Commonly called autoresponse or info responder
as possible are eligible to participate in your text campaigns, appending a text message call to action
message marketing campaigns. Tier 1 aggregators to packaging or print materials is an effective way for
offer the widest carrier coverage. consumers to receive information on-the-go (e.g., Text
“INFO” to 12345 for information).
Do you support international messaging?
Which countries? Does your product support timed or drip campaigns
that allow me to schedule messages to be sent in the
If you have customers outside of the U.S. and would
future or at certain milestones that I set?
like to allow them to participate in your text message
marketing efforts, you need to ensure your provider There are many times you want to schedule a message
can support this. to be sent at a time in the future that you specify. You
may also want to have certain messages set to send on
a person’s birthday, anniversary or other preset period
What message throughput do you support? after they have opted in.
How many messages/second can you send?
Make sure your provider can support these scenarios.
If you have large lists or simply need to deliver a
large quantity of messages, the speed with which
your provider can send these messages is critical.
Understanding your provider’s throughput gives you
an idea for how long it will take to send messages.
4
5. Does your product support the ability to collect Does your product offer SMS coupons? If yes, does
customer feedback via text message? Can I have this this feature allow me to offer unique coupon codes
feedback routed via email to my customer support to recipients? How can provide these coupon codes
team, with the response sent back to the customer to you—CSV and/or API call? Are reports for coupon
via text? distribution and coupon views available?
Offering print and in-store calls-to-action to collect SMS coupons typically use alphanumeric codes, often
feedback is an easy, effective way to address the generated from a point-of-sale system, that are included
concerns of on-the-go customers. in text messages and are unique for each recipient.
These are an effective way to close the redemption
Does your product support the ability collect loop and track direct marketing ROI.
customer data via text message?
Collecting information from customers via text message, Does your product create short URLs that can be
such as contact information like email, demographic embedded into SMS messages and tracked?
info or product preference, is an effective way to gather Can I create my own custom short URL?
insights from on-the-go consumers.
Though short URLs are ubiquitous, having a tool
to shorten URLs integrated by your text message
Does your product have the ability to display text marketing provider helps you efficiently trim URLs on
messages sent in by consumers to a screen/video the fly and track clicks on links used in your campaigns.
display at a live event (conference, sporting event. etc.)?
Often called “text to screen,” the ability to send text Does your product support sending an initial message
message comments or answers to questions you pose with an incentive for people to sign up to my list?
to a video screen can create an engaging attraction Can you prevent consumers from unsubscribing and
at live events. re-subscribing to exploit this one-time incentive?
Offering stronger initial sign-up incentives helps
Does your product support QR code creation? drive opt-in behavior, but it’s also important that your
What QR interaction reporting capabilities do you offer? provider has protections in place to prevent abuse of
QR codes can be an effective way to bridge off line these offers.
calls-to-action with an online experience.
Can I customize the content and sequence of the
messages sent when people opt in or out of my lists,
or when they text STOP or HELP?
Flexible SMS message options provide control to
produce the customer experience you desire and
ensure compliance with MMA and carrier guidelines.
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6. Can I personalize messages with your product? Does your product support the creation of alternative
Personalized messages, using people’s first/last name, or alias keywords for use when I want to track the
etc., are proven to increase relevancy, receptiveness source of a campaign entry or opt-in? Are there
and response over generic messages. reports that show text message activity by keyword?
To help you determine which of your marketing
This is typically achieved with tags you in insert in a
tactics is most effectively supporting your text
message that pulls in the personalized content when
message campaigns, it’s useful to be able to create
the message is delivered. Commonly called Merge
multiple keywords for a single campaign, where a
Tags, make sure your provider offers this feature.
unique keyword is used for each marketing action
you want to test.
Does your product have Spanish-language support?
Any provider will allow you to use Spanish in the Can I search the database of text messages sent by
messages you compose and send. Where this feature me or my customers in order to help my customer
becomes relevant is for “system” messages, like those support team troubleshoot any issues?
that are sent when a consumer texts STOP or HELP.
Sometimes customers have questions or concerns
Since you may not always be able to configure these about text messages they receive from you and contact
messages (some providers won’t let you configure your support team.
them). it’s important to make sure these can be offered
Having the ability to search your message database by
in Spanish.
phone number, short code or message content makes it
easy to diagnose customer concerns.
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7. products
email Marketing
Why This Matters
Email is the foundation of your digital marketing efforts.
While there are a number of providers that can help you manage the email marketing basics,
it’s important you seek out those companies that have a track record of high email deliverability
and give you the tools to create hyper-targeted and personalized messages. It’s critical to be able
to cut through the clutter of email inboxes with content that resonates.
Also, many email providers assume you have technical resources at the ready to manage email template
creation and other creative development needs. If you don’t have easy access to these resources, make
sure you find a provider that makes it easy for anyone to create and send great-looking emails.
Does your product require me to have an IT resource Can I personalize email messages with your product?
to create emails or email templates? Personalized email messages that use people’s first
Often, email marketing providers require you to know and last names are proven to increase relevancy,
code such as HTML or CSS to build the creative receptiveness and response over generic messages.
elements of your emails. If you don’t have this
This is typically achieved with merge tags you in insert
knowledge in-house, then your costs to do email
in a message that pulls in the personalized content
marketing will rise and your productivity will drop using
when the message is delivered. Make sure your
these providers.
provider offers this feature.
Are emails shared across campaigns in your product?
What type of email delivery tracking and optimization
In many cases, the emails you create will be useful tools do you provide?
in more than one campaign or for more than one list.
To ensure that your messages reach inboxes and that
Allowing your emails to be shared across campaigns
your reputation as a sender is maintained, your email
and lists saves time and fosters messaging
provider should have capabilities to track delivery stats
consistency across campaigns.
for your emails and have procedures in place to ensure
strong standing with the email service providers.
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8. Does your product have a library of email templates to Does your product support the ability to preview
choose from? If so, how many do you offer and what emails as they would look in different email client
are some of the types or styles of these templates? inboxes (e.g., Outlook, Gmail, etc.) before sending?
Storing and re-using email templates saves time and Do you support email previews on email clients from
fosters brand consistency. mobile devices, as well?
Seeing how your email will look in your customers’
inboxes, whether it be on their computer or mobile
Does your product offer support for customizing email
phone, will help you troubleshoot any issues with your
templates? If so, can I create my own HTML templates
email content or design.
and upload them or can I only edit the HTML in the
templates you provide?
The ability to customize email templates, either by Do you run spam filter tests for emails sent from
creating your own from scratch or by editing HTML in your product?
existing templates, provides complete design control Spam filter tests help ensure your emails are reaching
and flexibility. customers’ inboxes by scanning them using every major
spam filter before you send.
Do you provide repeatable content regions in an email
that I can use to create content features? Does your product support timed or drip campaigns
Repeatable regions make it easier to write multiple that allow me to schedule messages to be sent in the
features for your newsletter (e.g., linking to your last five future or at certain milestones that I set?
blog posts, featured menu items, etc.) There are many times when you will want to schedule a
message to be sent at a specified time in the future. You
may also want to have certain messages set to send on
Is it possible to upload and store images for use in my
a person’s birthday, anniversary at a certain time after
emails and email templates?
they have opted in.
Being able to easily upload images to an email or email
templates, and then have those images stored to a Make sure your provider can support these scenarios.
library for reuse in the future, makes it easy to enhance
your emails with your engaging visuals.
8
9. products
social media Marketing
Why This Matters
You already have a Facebook page or Twitter account. Make sure you also have the tools
to manage social with the precision of your email marketing.
Seek out providers that offer social publishing capabilities that allow you to schedule your social
posts at the right time and to centralize all of your social accounts in one place.
Relevancy and targeting aren’t just for email or SMS, either. Make sure your provider gives
you the analytics to mine the social graph for the insights you need to make
your social content resonate with your fans and followers.
Can I track which social media sources are most Does your product offer the ability to track brand
effective for me when running marketing campaigns mentions or other relevant keyword mentions on
with your product? social networks?
You need to understand the ROI of social media. People are talking about your brand, your competitors
Make sure your provider can determine, via tools like and other topics relevant to your business every
trackable URLs, engagement metrics (comments, likes, day. Make sure you have the ability to monitor these
shares, re-tweets, etc.) and search metrics, how your conversations to learn more about customer needs and
campaigns perform across the various social networks. respond directly to customer questions and concerns.
Does your product offer social sharing functionality Can I manage all of my social media accounts/pages
on landing pages and in emails? using your product?
It’s useful to allow your content to be sharable, both in It’s common for marketers to have a number of Twitter
emails and on landing pages. accounts Facebook pages to support various aspects of
their social marketing efforts. Make sure your provider
allows you to manage all of these accounts in one place
to help you be more efficient.
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10. Can I schedule my social posts for a future date or Does your product allow me to track sentiment in
time using your product? social media posts?
Timing of your Facebook updates and tweets can have Determining which social media conversations about
a big impact on reach and engagement. Make sure your your brand and competitors are favorable and which are
provider allows you to control when your social posts negative gives you the ability to identify key customer
are sent. pain points and trend customer satisfaction over time.
Does your product identify who my most active fans Does your product track my most popular social
or followers are? media posts and display them prominently so I can
Understanding which of your social media fans and better determine what’s working?
followers are most engaged in conversations with you You post a lot of content on Twitter and Facebook
can help identify your true influencers, allow you to and it can be hard to see which posts generate the
reward them with exclusive offers, and ask them to help most likes, comments and retweets. Make sure your
spread the word to others. provider can identify these and show you how to
duplicate your success.
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11. products
web pages
Why These Matter
Web page creation isn’t just for IT anymore.
Web content is critical to support all of your SMS, email and social marketing efforts.
Whether it’s a form to add new subscribers, information about your store locations or a valuable
how-to video, you need the flexibility to quickly create on-the-fly web pages.
Make sure your provider offers the ability to create web content without relying on your IT team,
and that those web pages always look great on mobile devices.
Does your landing page creator have a drag-and- Will web pages that include forms pre-populate those
drop interface, or do all pages need to fit into forms with existing subscriber data?
predefined templates? People are more likely to complete forms if they don’t
Ease-of-use contributes to greater efficiency and have to enter information they know you already have
increased productivity. Make sure your provider has a about them.
commitment to making complex tasks simple.
Does your product help ensure my web pages are
Does your landing page creator have support for optimized for mobile devices?
HTML import and editing? It’s critical that your web content renders elegantly
This provides greater flexibility around design and on mobile phones. Make sure your provider has the
creative efforts. necessary data about mobile phone types (from
resources like the WURFL database) to ensure your web
content can be optimized for specific devices.
Are web pages shared across campaigns in your product?
In many cases, the web pages you create will be
useful in more than one campaign or for more than
one list. Allowing your web pages to be shared across
campaigns and lists saves time and fosters messaging
consistency across campaigns.
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12. products
promotions
Why These Matter
Promotions are the fuel for your subscriber growth engine.
Most providers focus on helping you manage customer databases and subscriber lists.
Very few also offer the tools you need grow your database.
Promotions like coupons, sweepstakes, polls, trivia and surveys offer you ready-made solutions
to excite customers and offer them value for joining and staying subscribed to your lists.
Make sure your provider offers promotions you can run via SMS, web and social media for maximum
reach and impact. Also be sure all the data you collect from these promotions are stored to the same
database where all your customer and subscriber information is housed.
Coupons
Does your product have the ability to create web Does your product offer support for customizing web
coupons that can be sent via text message, email or coupon designs? If so, can I create my own HTML
social media post? design templates and upload them or can I only edit
Coupons are the most effective tool to encourage the HTML in the templates you provide?
people to become subscribers, fans or followers and The ability to customize web coupon design templates,
to stay engaged after they do. Make sure your provider either by creating your own from scratch or by editing
provides the ability to create them. HTML in existing templates, provides complete design
control and flexibility.
Does your web coupon creator have a simple
WYSIWYG interface?
Ease of use contributes to greater efficiency and
increased productivity. Make sure your provider has a
commitment to making complex tasks simple.
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13. Do you have options to prevent abuse in the Can I embed barcodes that work with my POS system
redemption of web coupons created in your product? in web coupons created in your product? If so, which
Setting limits around the redemption of your web barcode types do you support?
coupons, such as capping the number of time the If tracking coupon redemption at the POS is critical to
coupon can be viewed and personalizing coupons so your business, make sure your provider can support
they can’t be shared or used by others, are important barcode insertion in coupons and that it can support the
features to prevent abuse. Make sure your provider type of barcode specific to your POS system.
offers such restrictions.
Sweepstakes/Contests
Does your product offer Sweepstakes campaigns that Can I run a text message trivia campaign using
support entry via text message, web page, Facebook your product?
and Twitter? Trivia campaigns are an enjoyable way to engage your
Sweepstakes promotions can be an effective way current subscribers or drive new subscriptions. Trivia
to encourage people to join your email and SMS responses can also be used to build your database of
subscriber lists to collect valuable demographic and insights about subscribers.
preference information for future marketing. They are
most effective when you have the ability to collect
For promotions like polls and trivia, does your product
entries from multiple channels. Make sure your provider
support insertion of live campaign results into
has the ability to do this.
response text messages?
For people who vote in a poll, or answer trivia or
Does your product offer Polling campaigns that survey questions, it’s important to show them other’s
support entry via text message and web page? responses to keep them engaged. You can even ask
Polls can be a fun tool to engage subscribers, while you them to join your list before voting to see the results.
also use their poll responses to build your database of
insights about them. Allow customers to answer the poll
If I am running a promotion either sponsored by a
via SMS or web page to create greater participation.
cellular carrier or with rules or content specific to
certain carriers, do you support the customization of
Does your product offer text message surveys? text message campaign responses based on carrier?
Building an SMS survey to collect demographic If you run promotions that have any carrier-specific
information is an effective way to gather insights messaging needs, it’s critical that your provider
from on-the-go consumers. support the ability to deliver dynamic text message
content for each carrier.
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14. Does your product support the ability to clone Does your product support the ability to collect
promotions for reuse? customer data before or after participation in a
Sometimes you’ll want to run a promotion that has promotion (e.g., email address, preferences, etc.)?
the same options as one you ran previously. Cloning Having the option to collect customer data before or
or duplicating past promotions can save time and after promotion entry gives complete flexibility over
create efficiencies. campaign design.
Does your product support customizable entry form Does your product have the ability to ask entrants
design for promotions like sweepstakes and polling? to subscribe to your email and text message lists
Customizing web landing pages and forms gives upon entry?
complete flexibility in design. For most promotions, a key goal should be to turn entries
into subscribers in order to keep the conversation with
your customer going beyond the promotion.
Does your product support scheduling of promotion
start and end dates?
Scheduling of promotion start and end dates ensures Will information about which promotions my
consistency with published terms and rules for customers entered and the data about their entry
campaigns like sweepstakes. be stored in a database for me to use for future
campaign segmentation?
It’s important that the tools you use for running
Does your product support the ability to enforce age
promotions are tied directly to both a customer
restrictions before being allowed to enter a campaign
database and to the tools you use to manage ongoing
via text message or web form?
email, SMS and social campaigns. This allows you to
Age restrictions are critical for certain brands or have a complete picture of customer activity and leads
promotions that involve content only appropriate for to more relevant and targeted communications.
certain audiences (e.g., alcohol products).
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15. products
List and Data Management
Why This Matters
Data quality and segmentation done right separates your marketing from the pack.
It’s important that you have the tools available to maintain an accurate and rich database
of customer information. Without it, all of your efforts to segment and target
your marketing will be undermined.
Make sure your provider has a clear process for helping keep your database clean,
in addition to easy-to-use options for creating segments based on that data
to make your targeting efforts simple.
What options do you provide for eliminating duplicate Am I able to run batch data updates on any custom
contacts in your database? If I import subscribers attribute I create?
already in my database, will you de-duplicate them? If Batch updates help keep data up to date in an
someone already subscribed tries to subscribe again efficient way.
via web form or SMS, will you create a new contact or
subscription or deduplicate it?
Is there a limit to the number of contacts we can store
Having a clean and high-quality database is critical to
in your database?
your marketing efforts. Make sure your provider has
the appropriate checks in place to eliminate duplicate Storing large data sets in a manner optimized for
contacts or subscribers. segmentation and reporting is complex, and requires
a provider experienced in working with high volumes
of data.
Am I able to create custom attributes that can be
assigned to subscribers in your database?
Can I segment SMS and email messages sent
Supporting custom data attributes that are unique to
using your product by any combination of custom
your business is necessary to maintain a complete data
attributes I create?
set for reporting and segmentation.
Robust segmentation provides the basis for more
relevant and targeted marketing.
15
16. Does your product support list segmentation based Can my subscribers edit their subscription preferences
on participation in past campaigns? (preferred messaging channels, interests, etc.) via a
Targeting your marketing based on campaign events web page provided by your product?
like email opens and promotion entries allows you Show respect for your customers’ desire to be in control
to hone your marketing efforts toward your most of the information they receive from you by ensuring
receptive customers. your provider has an option for them to easily edit their
subscription preferences.
Does your product support the ability to create
customizable web signup forms to add email and SMS Is all the data about my subscribers (demographics,
subscribers to my lists? preferences, campaign activity, etc.), regardless of
Web forms are one of the core tools you’ll use to whether they are SMS or email subscribers, stored
ask customers to subscribe to your email and SMS in a single database?
lists. Make sure your provider gives you the option to Storing customer data including demographics,
customize the design and data fields you collect on preferences, and campaign activity across marketing
your form. channels in one place gives you a complete view of
your customers and allows you to leverage this data in
sending both email and SMS campaigns.
Can I easily upload subscribers and subscriber data
via Excel or CSV file? Can I export my contact and
subscriber data to an Excel or CSV file?
You should be able to get subscriber data into and out
of your database without hassle and in the formats you
prefer. Make sure your provider’s import and export
functionality includes values for the custom attributes
you create and the channels customers are subscribed to.
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17. products
Reporting and Analytics
Why This Matters
The more transparent the results of your marketing are,
the better your future marketing campaigns will be.
The only way you can improve is to get feedback on what is and isn’t working.
Make sure your provider offers the reports and analysis you need to determine
which campaigns are a success. This means your provider should be looking beyond the basics
of email open rates, SMS deliverability and social fan/follower counts
to offer you additional context, benchmark stats, to make continuous improvements.
What reports and analytics do you provide for my What reports and analytics do you provide for
contact database and subscriber lists? understanding my text message marketing activity?
Providers can offer a number of reporting options. Providers can offer a number of reporting options.
Make sure these are among them: Make sure these are among them:
• Trends over time showing your subscriber growth (opt- • Reports on SMS delivery and click rates on links you
ins and opt-outs) by subscription type (email or SMS) include in your text messages
• Reports that show the campaigns (both email and SMS) • Breakdowns of text messages you’ve sent by
sent to your lists cellular carrier
• Summary stats that highlight the composition of • Trends over time of your text messages sent and received
your database, such as demographics and attribute • Reports that allow you to search the history of text
ratios (e.g., 60% of your database are males, 25% messages sent by you and your customers
like pizza, etc.)
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18. What reports and analytics do you provide for Are your reports updated in real time?
understanding my email marketing activity? It’s important to have an up-to-the-minute snapshot of
Providers can offer a number of reporting options. your customers and marketing activity.
Make sure these are among them:
• Email delivery stats such as bounces and unsubscribes Can I export data from your product to an Excel or
related to your campaigns, shown by the hour or day CSV file?
after your campaign is sent
No matter how robust a provider’s reporting options are,
• Open and click rates on links you include in your emails, there is always a need to extract the data to analyze in
shown by hour or day after your campaign is sent ways custom to you. Make sure you can export the data
• Trends over time of your emails sent you need for your core analyses.
• Reports that allow you to search the history of email
messages sent by you and your customers Do you offer reports or notifications delivered to me
via email?
What reports and analytics do you provide for For the information most critical to you, make sure
understanding my social media marketing activity? your provider has options to automatically notify you
Providers can offer a number of reporting options. through email of key activity or data.
Make sure these are among them:
• Trends over time showing your Facebook and Twitter
fan/follower growth, new fans/followers and lost
fans/followers
• Engagement metrics, such as comments, likes,
retweets and @ mentions, trended over time
What reports and analytics do you provide for
understanding my marketing activity by location?
Providers can offer a number of reporting options.
Make sure these are among them:
• Summary reports that show subscriber growth
across locations
• Summary reports that show campaign activity
across locations
• Reports that show you the best- and worst-
performing locations in terms of subscriber growth
and campaign activity
• Drill-down reports into individual locations to help you
diagnose why they are top or poor performers
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19. products
multi-location marketing
Why This Matters
When local marketing is at the heart of your business, make sure your
digital marketing provider has it at the heart of theirs too.
Orchestrating marketing efforts at the corporate, regional and store levels is extraordinarily difficult.
Whether or not your local marketing is centralized at corporate or spread out among franchises,
the challenge of making your marketing feel targeted and local to all your customers is great.
Seek out providers who have tools to help you manage rights and roles, approval workflows
and location-based analytics that map directly to your business.
Does your product have the ability for me to create Can email or text messages created by certain users in
a hierarchy of users based on role (e.g., corporate the hierarchy be subject to approval by other users that
marketer, regional manager, franchisee, etc.)? have admin rights?
For many businesses with multiple locations, various When you have scenario where some users may not
layers of management are responsible for marketing have authority to create and send campaigns without
across these locations. If you have a franchise model approval, you need to have a workflow in your cross-
or similar hierarchy, make sure your provider allows to channel marketing product to require such approval
create user roles that map to how your business works. before those users can send messages.
Can I control access rights for users at each level of Is it possible to create preapproved messages,
the hierarchy? templates or designs that are locked for some users?
Sometimes you need to restrict the access certain users Cut down on your risks and the time it takes to approve
have to features of your cross-channel marketing product campaigns as they are created by providing users, such
to ensure your brand standards are met. Make sure your as single location owners, the ability to choose from
provide the ability to set such restrictions. content preapproved by you.
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20. Can users with admin rights “shadow” other users to Do you offer the option for me to add my brand logo
replicate their experience with product? and a custom URL to your product?
“Shadowing” users can be an invaluable tool when Custom branding gives you the option to provide users a
troubleshooting issues those users may be having in seamless experience.
creating and sending campaigns.
Do you provide a way for my customers to get
Can I group contacts or subscribers by location or information about my store locations via their mobile
groups of locations? phone? If so, how? Does your system allow on-the-
Whether it be a geographic region or shared attribute go consumers to find your nearest store locations by
(e.g., locations with an ATM attached), grouping your texting their zip code or offer code snippets to create a
locations by data relevant to you is important to make web version based on GPS?
sure your marketing efforts map to your business. Nearly all of your customers have a need, at some point,
to find a location nearest them while they are on the go
and away from a computer.
Can I segment my email and SMS campaigns by these
location segments (e.g., locations in the Northeast or Make sure your provider offers options to do this,
locations with an ATM attached)? including:
Segmentation based on locations with shared attributes • Allowing customers to text in their zip code to receive a
gives you added precision and relevancy in your list of locations sorted by distance
marketing messages. • Providing a mobile web page that uses a phone’s
GPS to determine the customer’s location and
display locations nearest to them
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21. products
integration
Why This Matters
Marketing can’t succeed when it’s trapped in silos.
Ensure that your databases and tools can talk to each other.
Whether you have a loyalty platform, CRM system or internal database that you need to sync
with your cross-channel marketing solution, make sure your provider has the experience
and product features (such as APIs) to make the integration process a seamless one.
What other products or providers do you or have you Can you create a bi-directional synchronization of data
integrated with? between your product and my internal databases or
It’s important to establish whether your cross-channel other CRM tools I use?
marketing provider has experience integrating with If you have internal customer databases for
other tools or databases you may use to support your information your cross-channel marketing platform
marketing efforts. can’t provide or CRM tools for other marketing
actions, it’s important you have data sync between
Examples include:
them to ensure you have consistent, up-to-date data
• Your internal customer database, which may and coordinated marketing activities.
contain information like purchase history or
loyalty program participation
• Your website or mobile apps
• CRM products you may use to manage customer
loyalty programs or offline marketing efforts
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22. Do you provide application programming interfaces Does your product have the ability to call web services
(APIs) that can be used to perform some of the major using HTTP/HTTPS?
functions of your product or be used to integrate with To successfully build the integrations you need, it’s likely
your product? that your provider will need to use APIs and other web
To effectively integrate with your other partners, it’s services that either you or your other providers offer.
almost necessary for your cross-channel marketing Make sure your provider can call these services using
provider to offer APIs that allow you and your partners to the protocols that you and your other providers support.
access key information and features.
You should make sure your provider offers APIs to: Do you provide the ability to post updates to
• Add subscribers (including custom attributes) customer and subscriber data to a URL (commonly
called a webhook)?
• Manage subscriber status
To keep multiple databases in sync, it’s important that
• Update customer data record (add/edit attribute
your cross-channel marketing provider can post changes
values, etc.)
to subscriber status or customer profiles to you or your
• Send SMS and email messages other providers.
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23. Pricing, Implementation,
Services and Support
Why These Matter
Though the rides at Disneyland are incredible, you really go for the Disney experience.
Similarly, a great product isn’t great without a terrific customer service experience to surround it.
Nothing is more frustrating than seeing a demo of an amazing product,
only to discover tons of hidden fees and suspect support when you get started.
Make sure your provider is transparent with its pricing and the specifics
for its implementation process. Also, make sure it has a clear structure
for supporting your needs after the initial training and implementation period.
You’ll be most successful when your provider has a deep commitment
to getting close to your business and becoming an extension of your marketing team.
Please provide details on how you price your product. If I need to integrate your product with other databases
Cross-channel marketing providers price their solutions or tools I use, what is the cost?
in a variety of ways (monthly subscription, annual It’s important to work with your cross-channel marketing
license, charge by message volume, charge by number provider up front to determine your integration needs
of subscribers/database records, etc.). Make sure you and any associated costs.
understand each provider’s pricing structure and how
they compare.
Do you provide a dedicated account manager and
training program to help us get started with the product?
What other costs are involved with your solution, A dedicated account manager can help cut down on
beyond costs for the product itself? For example, implementation time, meaning you can get up and
what are the costs of training/onboarding, account running quickly for fast results.
support, etc.?
Be clear on the services costs and other related
fees you may incur to manage your cross-channel
marketing campaigns.
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24. Do you have an online support and best practices Can you provide details of any available, optional
center? If so, how regularly is it updated? services that your company provides?
You don’t want to have to always rely on an account If offered, services like creative design and consulting
manager to answer your questions and help optimize your can improve the quality of your cross-channel
campaigns. A useful support center and knowledge base marketing efforts.
is essential to getting the most out of a product.
How frequently does your company have new
Please provide a typical timeline for implementation. product releases and how is training done on new
The faster you implement marketing automation, the features and functionality? Will there be a cost for
faster you can achieve ROI on your purchase. Make additional training?
sure it’s clear how long it will take for you to get up and Cross-channel marketing is an evolving technology.
running and what the steps are in the process. Your provider should be constantly improving its
product without passing on additional costs when new
enhancements arrive.
What is the process for uploading my existing data?
Uploading your existing data is a critical initial step when
on-boarding with a provider. Make sure the process is Is your solution offered as a hosted service or will we
clear to you and you’re comfortable with how your data need to install it on our servers?
will be handled. SaaS products are much easier to get up and running, so
seek out providers with hosted solutions.
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25. Security, Systems and Data
Why These Matter
Your data is your business.
Make sure your provider has the same commitment to security as you do.
Given some recent high-profile breaches of customer data stored with marketing platforms,
you need to ensure your provider has the appropriate checks and balances in place
to prevent you from being the next headline.
In addition, it’s important that you push your provider to offer the details of that technology
infrastructure, including information like its historical uptime, to feel confident
that your marketing efforts won’t be interrupted by an unstable platform.
What security practices do you employ to prevent How is data segregated or partitioned in your system?
unauthorized access to data? Your provider needs to have thought through how data
Your customers trust you with their data. Make sure is isolated between its customers. You don’t want your
your provider has a clear and defensible process in data to be accessed by your provider’s other customers.
place to ensure that there are no holes that would
allow others access to that data.
Describe your hosted infrastructure.
Look for providers that tap into both dedicated and cloud
Describe your software architecture. servers as they likely understand the power of dedicated
Your provider should use web frameworks that have a machines for data processing and cloud based instances
large install base and are frequently updated. to scale up with traffic/processing needs.
What data storage software and hardware do you use? How frequently is your software updated in production?
Not all data is created and stored equally. Companies Seek out providers that make frequent changes rather
that employ NoSQL data storage mechanisms to than releasing monthly or quarterly updates.
complement traditional relational database storage
have a strong understanding of how to roll up data for
reporting and analytics.
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26. What testing procedures do you employ to prevent What is your commitment to R&D as a percentage of
issues from happening in production? your total expenditure dedicated to improvements?
Look for providers that use a mix of automated and You want to work with providers who are committed
manual QA. Neither approach on its own will ensure to keeping up with the changing landscape of cross-
that a product is free of bugs. channel marketing. Ideally, your provider will look to
include you on beta tests and other RandD efforts to
help you stay on the cutting edge.
What is your SLA?
Target 99.9% uptime with the ability to quickly produce
historical reports. Please provide a high-level technical architecture
diagram of your solution and how it integrates with
our existing infrastructure and consumer touch points.
What web browsers does your system support?
Having a technical diagram makes it easier for you
Look for the broadest support possible so your users to consult with your internal technical teams or other
have the freedom to use their preferred browser when providers that will integrate with this product.
accessing the product.
How do you inform customers of outages, upgrades
and maintenance?
Make sure your provider has an established process for
downtime notifications that they can articulate in writing.
Also make sure that process gives you enough advance
notice to ensure your teams can plan appropriately.
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27. company information
Why This Matters
Know who you’re working with and make sure their company is a good fit for yours.
Choosing a cross-channel marketing provider is a big investment. You’ll likely be switching from
multiple providers to their solution and your goal is to establish a long-term relationship.
Make sure your provider has the history, staying power and financial stability to not only meet your
needs today but also to grow at a rapid pace to meet your needs tomorrow.
Please provide your company details, including registered Please provide information on any current industry
company name, address and registration number. standards or accreditations you have obtained and
This is important information to help research any industry awards won in the last two years.
potential providers. This is important information to help research
potential providers.
Please provide your primary contact details in
relation to this activity, including contact name, What is your employee retention rate and average
role, telephone number and email. lifespan at your company?
Be clear about who your point of contacts are so you Make sure you work with a provider that has a strong
don’t waste time in the process of evaluating providers. track record of retaining employees. This is a strong
leading indicator of the quality of product and service
you’ll receive.
Please provide a document that gives an overview
of your company and products.
This is important information to help research Please provide a list of customers.
potential providers. Make sure the provider you choose has experience
with companies like yours.
Please describe your organizational structure
including the names and titles of key team members. Please describe your largest customer.
This is important information to help research Understanding the top end of customer type a
potential providers. provider works with can help you evaluate its capacity
to support your needs.
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28. Please provide three references that are current customers.
Contact:
Company Name:
Title:
1
Email:
Phone:
Launch Date:
Contact:
Company Name:
Title:
2
Email:
Phone:
Launch Date:
Contact:
Company Name:
Title:
3
Email:
Phone:
Launch Date:
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