Pinpointe analyst-review-june-2011

Key Features:
B2B Email Marketing, Behavioral targeting, Advanced

Segmenting, Google Analytics integration, Sync with
Salesforce.com, Multi‐variant testing

Industry: Non Specific

Customers: Mid Size Businesses & Large Enterprise

Geography: US/Canada/Australia/Europe

Languages: English

Cost: Starts at 49$/month – Discount available for upfront
payments

Review methodology

This review constitutes an analysis based on a product demonstration and software review by qualified system software
experts at Eval‐Source. The demonstration Eval‐Source received from the vendor was based on its own custom vendor
script, designed to validate and/or disprove vendors’ claims. The script was specifically prepared to identify
functionalities and form an impartial analysis and software review for an e‐mail marketing system.

Business Problems Addressed
In today’s business world, technology has changed the way companies market their products and services and adapting
to new strategies has become a primary task for marketing teams. The popularity of social media, professional networks,
media channels and viral websites has provided companies with a new marketing outlet upon which to capitalize. A
company’s products and services usually dictate which marketing outlets to use, but there is one consistent type of
marketing tool that translates to practically any company selling products or services. This marketing tool is e‐mail
campaigns. Companies have been using this form of marketing for years to generate leads and ultimately drive revenue.
Large organizations find it quite easy to refer to their existing customer base for e‐mail campaigns intended to cross sell
or introduce a new product or service. For small to medium sized companies, e‐mail campaigning is a significant part of
their marketing strategy.  Whether your organization is small, medium or large, successful e‐mail campaigning can be a
challenging process to master.

With various routes to market, companies must now figure out how they can effectively reach their specific target
market, create demand, drive awareness and execute successful campaigns that generate sales revenue. This is not an
easy task. Simply sending e‐mails to a contact list does not automatically deliver the expected results. Companies must
be more creative with their content, and monitor the success of a campaign so it can be refined and essentially re‐

Pinpointe Email Marketing Product Review 06/10/2011
Produced by Eval‐Source http://www.eval-source.com and GetApp.com http://www.getapp.com

delivered. In terms of content, prospects demand information that addresses their needs, in the clearest and most
efficient way possible. With all the information the average prospect receives in one day, your company’s message
needs to stand out. Once the e‐mail campaign has been sent, measuring its success by turnover is not the only way to
analyze the campaign. Companies need more calls to action and a clear understanding of the analytics of the campaigns.
Marketing automation has become a major challenge for marketing teams.

Pinpointe is a cloud based email‐marketing software launched in 2008 that addresses the aforementioned business
challenges and more. Pinpointe provides business‐to‐business marketers with the tools to execute e‐mail campaigns
along with the analytics to improve success. In this profile we will examine Pinpointe software in the areas of business
problems addressed, target market, pricing model, functionality and technical attributes. We will take a deep dive into
how Pinpointe software can be beneficial for business‐to‐business marketers and marketing teams.

Target Market
For marketing teams and marketers within a company, the job of delivering qualified leads to the sales team is an
ongoing task.   Internet, social and viral marketing have made e‐mail campaigns more complicated and created new
dynamics within the role of the marketer.

Pinpointe software is a unique cloud tool that caters to a specific group of professionals within an organization, the
business‐to‐business marketer or the marketing team. Pinpointe software focuses on rich content creation and
marketing automation. The Pinpointe software is not industry or vertical specific, but can cater to any marketing team.
The top verticals that use this tool are technology (all), financial services and on‐line education

Pricing Model
Pinpointe offers three flexible payment options for organizations based on email sending needs: by number of emails
sent, number of contacts and pay‐as‐you‐go pricing.   A prepayment for six months includes a 10% monthly discount.
Pinpointe is a genuine business‐based tool in the sense that it does not permit the use of purchased lists or sell email
lists; its customer base is for permissions‐based email marketing only. If a quarterly commitment is made, a 15%
discount will apply to the monthly subscription fee.

The first two pricing options are subscription based according to either emails sent or number of contacts, while the
third pay‐as‐you‐go option allows organizations to buy credits and use them as required. The pay‐as‐you‐go option
allows credits to be rolled over and is ideal for organizations that have sporadic or inconsistent use of emails sent per
month.  The more credits purchased at one time results in lower costs per email.

All three plans include the following features:

• Immediate account verification and set‐up within 10 minutes. Applications are reviewed to protect privacy and
avoid spammers.

• Ability to collect an unlimited number of subscribers, organize your lists and create virtually unlimited drip‐
marketing (auto responder) campaigns.


• Support via email, live chat, unlimited access to the Pinpointe knowledgebase, on‐demand training videos and
blog.

• No contracts, hosting fees, setup costs or termination fees.

Three pricing options available for Pinpointe are shown below.  Figure 1 refers to the number of emails sent per month,
Figure 2 represents the number of contacts per month and Figure 3 represents the pay‐as‐you‐go pricing.

Figure 1.  Emails sent per month

Figure 2.  Number of contacts pricing

Figure 3. Pay‐as‐you‐go pricing


If sending more than 200 000 emails per month, an enterprise or an Agency option is available; this may be discussed
with an account representative.

For companies that require additional assistance in creation of email templates, custom design, uploading of lists,
formatting etc. Pinpointe offers additional premium services as outlined below.

Premium Services/Consulting options

Total Cost of Ownership
For SaaS based applications, total cost of ownership is calculated differently from on‐premise. In our analysis, we have
identified 11 items that should be included when calculating the total cost of ownership (TCO) for a Cloud‐based
solution. This provides the starting point for determining the TCO over the application lifecycle and provides the basis
for the calculation of ROI. In a SaaS based offering, these items are usually included and if not, organizations should
inquire as to how they are  priced in addition to the monthly subscription fee. Most of the components for a SaaS/Cloud
solution are included within the monthly subscription fee or pricing model. This list represents the most common
components that compose a SaaS or Cloud solution.

Are these components included the SaaS subscription?

1. Hardware          Yes
2. OS Licenses   Yes
3. Database Licenses   Yes
4. Middleware Licenses   Yes
5. Software Licenses   Yes
6. Software Support Yes
7. Hardware Maintenance   Yes
8. Software Maintenance   Yes
9. IT Operations   Yes
10. Upgrades Yes
11. Training   Yes

SaaS Checklist

In order to fully understand SaaS and Cloud‐based solutions, Eval‐Source has created a checklist that businesses should
apply when engaging a SaaS or Cloud vendor. The components of this checklist cover the Cloud delivery model and
provide details that may require further investigation.  This checklist serves as a starting point for SaaS/Cloud basics that
the organization should bear in mind before choosing a SaaS/Cloud solution.

1. Tenancy ‐ Multi or Single:   Multi ‐ tenant
2. Cloud Structure Public or Private:   Public  ‐ All Cloud  data hosted in Pinpointe data centers
3. Subscription Terms:      Monthly, emails sent, contacts sent, Pay‐as‐you‐go
4. Data Security Standards by Vertical:    N
5. Business Continuity/Data Recovery:    Y
6. Encryption Type:      N/A
7. Version release schedule: When new features are available. Patches and updates pushed live when
complete
8. Current Version Released:     N/A
9. Session Management:     Y
10. Application Level Security:      Y
11. User Limits:     Up to 250 concurrent users in the Enterprise Edition
12. Data Migration Services offered:    Y
13. Free trials/sandbox testing offered:   Yes, there is a fifteen‐day trial. Trial can be extended by request
14. Application Customizable by User:   Y. Pinpointe is “white labelled” so there is no software branding, just your
own company information
15. Application Customizable by Vendor: N/A
16. Set Up Fee (admin fee): N
17. Charge for Additional Space:     N

Solution Analysis
Functional Areas

Pinpointe is a business‐to‐business marketing tool, although several Pinpointe customers use the application for B2C
purposes.  Pinpointe offers two editions of their service: a Professional Edition and an Enterprise Edition. Its marketing
email platform enables organizations to improve target market focus through segmentation and nurture leads
generated through marketing campaigns, thereby increasing the quality of the leads provided to sales teams. An
organization’s entire email marketing initiative can be outsourced and supported using the Pinpointe platform.  A few
main uses for Pinpointe include lead generation tools, message amplification and automated email marketing
capabilities.

Its flexible platform allows email design, newsletter creation, analytic tools to maximize and further focus responses,
subscriber management, advanced tracking, reporting analytics and includes integration with Google Analytics, website
integration, email deliverability options, surveys, dynamic content, service and support.

The Enterprise Edition includes the functions listed above and adds dedicated email infrastructure, the ability to “white
label” messages, multiple user accounts, reputation management administration, dedicated phone support and
technical resources, subscriber management, increased scalability to manage up to 20 million contact with custom

fields, an integrated XML API and specific user profile settings. The Enterprise Edition offers support for up to 200
concurrent users logins and dedicated IPs/infrastructure.

In the new media workspace where consumers expect to have emails displayed as to their preference the Pinpointe
application automatically creates a “multi‐part” email upon sending.  This allows the user to select either an HTML email
or a text email that is more suitable for portable devices.   This option maximizes email campaign effectiveness by not
having to duplicate work for mobile and traditional campaigns.  Another feature that can make your campaigns viral is
being able to embed links for video within an email campaign.  Having an embedded link reduces the user fatigue and
navigation time thereby making campaigns more effective.

The advanced analytics that is a standard component of the Pinpointe platform enables organizations to analyze their
campaign results and adjust the settings for delivery until suitable response rates are achieved. Testing can easily be
incorporated as there are no restrictions as to how the emails can be changed.  This is especially effective for split A‐B
testing and behavioural targeting. The split A/B testing can be used to diagnose specific email flaws, troubleshoot
ineffective campaigns and determine visitor behaviour and priorities.  Having this resource available to understand user
behaviour will lead to better open rates, more click‐thrus, more website traffic and ultimately more conversions.

The market space of enterprise email‐marketing automation is very fragmented and by combining several useful
automation features and functions Pinpointe’s framework offers a complete set of tools for unifying marketing
automation tasks and simplifying email marketing.

The next two figures briefly outline the main features/functions in the Professional Edition and Enterprise Edition.

Figure. 4    Professional Edition – Main Feature/Function Outline


The Enterprise Edition of Pinpointe offers all the same features/functions as the Professional Edition with the addition of
the following features. The Enterprise Edition is best suited for organizations that send from 250 000 to 10 million +
emails a month.

Figure 5.   Enterprise Edition Feature/Function Outline

Pinpointe software offers its customers a highly customizable, automated email‐marketing platform that includes split‐
testing, drip‐marketing campaigns, dynamic content, spam checker, campaign management tools and advanced
segmentation analytics. The Enterprise Edition is scalable to support up to 250 concurrent users and offers a dedicated
IP virtualization infrastructure, which further secures the platform and your company data. The dedicated Account
Manager and additional phone support sustains the higher volume of transactional data created and additional account
users.

The WYSIWYG editor facilitates easy email template creation similar to that of the MS Office design interface. To
engage customers, Pinpointe offers best of breed pre‐created email templates as part of the SaaS subscription.  Within
short order, Pinpointe will also offer many more attractive email marketing templates so that organizations can easily
customize their message, look and save time in email template creation. This means organizations can reduce the time
to create customized templates, which translates into a shorter time span to launch their email‐marketing campaigns.
For global companies, international character sets may be used to customize the language of the emails for marketing
campaigns.

Pinpointe’s registration form tool enables you to add a subscription form on your website. Your site visitors can sign up
for your email list and their addresses are automatically imported in to your Pinpointe account. This facilitates building
your email list.

Figure 6.                           The following is a list of new features in Pinpointe Software and key differentiators

New Pinpointe Features Key Differentiators

 WYSIWYG Email Editor  Feature‐Rich – includes many advanced, marketing‐
automation features such as split‐testing, drip‐
 Spam Score Checker marketing campaigns, dynamic content, spam
checker, campaign previewer and advanced
 Email Inbox Previewer segmentation features

 Google Analytics
 Enterprise Edition = true cloud‐based email
marketing with support for up to 200 concurrent
 Drip Marketing Autoresponders
user logins and dedicated IPs / infrastructure

 Personalize Campaigns
 Ease of Use
 Email Deliverability
 Excellent multi‐channel technical support
 Define Email Marketing
 Scalable Pricing

New Pinpointe Features Key Differentiators

Technical Specifications
Quick Glance Specifications

Web browser optimization: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer
OS required: N/A due to SaaS model browser based delivery
DB required:   N/A due to SaaS model browser based delivery

API’s provided:          Yes
Security practices include:   Business continuity, Redundancy


As an enterprise email‐marketing platform, Pinpointe offers integration options that will simplify integration for
companies with an existing ERP or other software. Data can be downloaded/uploaded in Excel and/or CSV formats.
Email templates can be imported/exported in HTML directly. MS Outlook contacts can also be imported to Pinpointe via
CSV file downloads.

Pinpointe is easily integrated to Google Analytics and Google Calendar. This leverages the power of Google Analytics
and is added to the Pinpointe conversion reporting to provide real business intelligence with which to monitor your
email campaigns.  Changes can easily be made to adjust to non‐responsive drip‐campaigns or split‐testing initiatives by
utilizing the analytics provided by Google and Pinpointe.  A code addition synchronizes contacts from Salesforce.com.  By
synchronizing contacts from the SFDC CRM, a predetermined contact list can kick‐start your email‐marketing
automation endeavour.

Pinpointe can be synced to MS Outlook contacts as well as Salesforce.com contacts, thereby reducing list creation time
and enabling you to start  marketing faster.  You will be able to create beautiful html campaigns by simply pasting your
content into wizard driven templates. Co HTML and text email cater to mobile or browser specific requirements.  In the
near future, Pinpointe will add several hundred new, attractive, tried and tested email‐marketing templates for your
convenience and expediency.

As part of their technical support Pinpointe offers an extensive library for an FAQ knowledgebase and other email
marketing resources including whitepapers of best practices, research and educational webinars to further ensure
success so that you capitalize on the rich user friendly interface.


Conclusion
The need for e‐mail campaigns is a necessity for any companies marketing strategy.  It has proven to be the way to reach
target markets, create demand, and ultimately drive revenue into a company. With Pinpoint software the method of e‐
mail marketing is now streamlined into a process with rich content and the ability to measure a campaigns success. With
behavioural targeting, Pinpointe can acquire information from prospects which can be used to refine future campaigns.
Pinpointe has taken tasks big and small of the e‐mail marketing process and automated them through their tool making
this job easier for marketers and marketing teams.

Is it for you ?

With over 5000 organizations and a 95% retention rate, encompassing many different industries and company types
Pinpointe’s email‐marketing automation platform delivers the necessary tools for organizations to capitalize on a SaaS
delivered marketing solution. Pinpointe’s customers are Business‐to‐Business (“B2B”) Enterprises ranging from Fortune
1000 companies to venture‐backed start‐up companies such as software, technology, medical, financial services, media
government organizations and many more.

Because it is a cloud based software, it can be used as a standalone tool for marketing teams.

Depending on your email requirements Pinpointe has several different pricing options an enterprise Edition and a
Professional Edition. There are also further price categorizations depending on if you use a number of contacts or you
calculate your spending on the amount of emails you send out, both are available.

Why should you consider it ?

Pinpointe does not sell email lists but their service can facilitate building contacts through the use of the analytics, split‐
testing, newsletter features within their application.  Overall, Pinpointe is an enterprise level marketing tool that can
quickly automate manual functions and simplify the necessary work that these marketing functions create. A simple
platform through it WYSIWYG editor lowers administration time for companies, thereby reducing costs and increasing
ROI.


About GetApp.com
http://www.getapp.com

GetApp.com is a business software app store for buyers of enterprise applications. It offers a simple way for buyers to compare and evaluate
applications and a low cost channel for providers to be found online. Software buyers come to GetApp.com for the convenience of researching
enterprise applications in one place. Application providers come to GetApp.com to reach out to a worldwide audience of active buyers, receive
qualified traffic to their website and sales leads relevant to their target markets. GetApp.com also operates AppDoubler, a software partner
network dedicated to Cloud applications, where vendors offer affiliate opportunities to re‐selling partners. Please visit www.getapp.com
and www.appdoubler.com for more information.

About Eval‐Source
http://www.eval‐source.com

Eval‐Source is a consulting firm that provides enterprise software selection and strategic consulting services that help organizations to achieve
success in their IT initiatives. Our Tru‐Eval selection system allows organizations to avoid IT failure, receive more ROI in technology spend, reduce
project life‐cycle lengths and provide accurate results in order to make the best decision for their company.   Our strategic consulting practice
encompasses cloud computing services, cloud evaluation services and business process optimization.  Whether you have an existing system that
is not performing up to par or need advice on a cloud computing strategy and technology direction, Eval‐source can provide the necessary guidance
for your IT initiatives.  Our leading‐edge selection and business process optimization services and consulting services make your life easier when it
comes to acquiring enterprise software and achieving greater technological success, realizing ROI and lowering IT failure rates all from impartial
third party analysts.


Pinpointe analyst-review-june-2011

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