One of the first things email marketing services can do for you is take the guesswork out of CAN-SPAM compliance. Most services will automatically manage your opt-in/opt-out lists, and as required by the law, they will ensure that the proper identification and postal information is included in your messages. It's their job to know the ins and outs of email marketing laws, so if anything changes, your campaigns will remain safe in their care (and your recipients' rights protected).

An outside email marketing service will also allow your organization to send large amounts of email at one time. You can typically send up to 1,000 emails at a time, which is obviously more efficient than sending 25 messages 40 times. Most outside services have "white listed" ISPs, which means that servers recognize their email addresses and domains as trustworthy and choose to always allow their mail through. Effectively maintaining the white listed status requires identity validation, constant maintenance and a reputation of taking responsibility for spam. An email marketing service will take care of these details, allowing you to focus on what's really important: the marketing message.

From a relationship perspective, email marketing services enable you to connect with your customers as individuals even though you're sending to thousands of prospects at a time. Some systems allow each person within your company to use the program under a single account while still maintaining their own sending identities.

For example, Susan and Joe could both login as "Email Marketer 1," to access messages within a single campaign, but could manage accounts from susan@yourcompany.com and joe@yourcompany.com. This allows each person to send to their own customers and prospects for true one-to-one marketing.

Research shows this personal touch will help maximize open rates and increase campaign success. A study by DoubleClick revealed that the "from" line is the most compelling reason that consumers open a permission-based email. And this recognition component will only become more important as consumers face ever-rising volumes of email.

Another nice feature of some email marketing services is the automatic list integration and management. Some solutions will sync to your customer information in databases like ACT! or SalesLogix or Outlook. Other systems allow you to upload your data into their online system. That gets you started, but the list management is the real luxury. If you've ever tried to do this manually, you know what a headache it can be. Large spreadsheets of data are daunting when you're regularly adding, deleting and rearranging names. It's not long before you're not sure what's new, old, right or wrong. Three Tylenol later, you load your names and send the email, crossing your fingers that the data was accurate.

With automatic opt-out management, opt-out recipients are added to a filter. This keeps them from receiving any future mailings, even if you accidentally re-load their contact information. And, according to CAN-SPAM rules, if a recipient opts out, it is not only the individual sender that must stop email to that person, but also the sender's entire domain. This can get tricky when your company is communicating from different departments or with multiple newsletters and promotions. Many email marketing services will link your company accounts, so a single filter can be set to automatically manage your entire company's opt-outs. This keeps you in compliance by preventing any account from emailing those people again.