How Do I Pick the Best Email Marketing Software?
Email marketing is indeed old, but it doesn’t mean it’s ineffective. In fact, its maturity can be a strong indication that it’s here to stay, especially when you consider its excellent ROI of 44%. Look at the following pros:
Lifespan: Consider Friendster, MySpace or Google+. Social media platforms can come and go. An email address? People tend to hang on to the same one for an average of 10 years.
Data insights: Facebook and other social media tools are primarily advertising platforms. The data on their users is a goldmine they aren’t willing to share. With email marketing, you control everything you get to know about your users.
Flexibility: once you’ve got your address list, it’s easy to switch providers. All you need is to export/ import the list via CSV.
Ease of use: 10 years ago, email marketing platforms were complex beasts. Today, it takes 10 minutes to integrate a sign-up form, create a template and email everyone. It will certainly be faster to send your first newsletter than to create an ad campaign on Facebook or Twitter.
As you can see, email marketing is still a robust and reliable workhorse. And as we mentioned in the last point above, the platforms are increasingly easy to use for complete beginners. Best of all, many of them come with free plans, so you can test the waters before spending money on the solution.
Nowadays, most email marketing software is designed to perform a range of functions beyond simply sending emails and newsletters. Which features are an absolute must? Here’s our list of the key things you should be looking for:
- Drag and drop editor: An easy-to-use visual editor that will let you customize your email templates (without any coding) is your best bet for getting campaigns sent out quickly and efficiently
- Different campaign types: Your software should be able to support a range of email types, including regular newsletters, A/B tests, and autoresponders
- Marketing automation: Whether you need just simple autoresponders or more targeted automated campaigns, it’s important to make sure that your software can cater to your automation needs
- Sign-up forms: A good newsletter tool will allow you to create your own form to capture subscribers, which can either be embedded on your site or hosted on a separate landing page.
- Integrations: Your email software needs to be able to link up to your other key applications – e.g. your blog, online store, CRM, and analytics tool
- Deliverability: What good is a newsletter service if your emails don't get past the spam filters?
- Support: A thorough knowledge base, email support and live chat/phone support are all ideal. Not all tools provide all these channels, though
- Detailed reporting: It's important to monitor the performance of your campaigns. Some providers offer more data than others.
Some of the top 10 email marketing software that you can choose.
ActiveCampaign (Best CRM Application),
Offers email marketing must-haves like templates, segmentation, dynamic content, and robust reporting. They have also branched out into other important customer engagement touchpoints.
The service can act as a sales and CRM platform, with tools to automate the sales funnel, including integration with major email services. ActiveCampaign has also developed lead scoring and win probability to help sales teams prioritize more efficiently.
ActiveCampaign also provides SMS messaging and on-site messaging setup.
The full-funnel service helps you be more consistent with your customer messaging, and make sure no one falls through the cracks.
Constant Contact
A successful, well-established company that has been in business for over 20 years. It has a number of features that can help make email marketing much easier for you, including an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop editing tool and over 100 email templates which you can access with the free trial. It also integrates with Woocommerce.
Constant Contact’s solid automation features include welcome emails for new subscribers and the automatic re-sending of emails that did not get opened the first time they were delivered.
No contracts are required and Constant Contact requires no credit card for its 60-day free trial. Once you join, you have a 30-day money-back guarantee, with a discount of up to 15 percent. The most basic program is $20 per month for 0 to 500 subscribers.
One caveat: This plan does not include email automation or subject line A/B testing.
Get Response
Describes itself as “An All-In-One Online Marketing Platform To Grow Your Business”. It offers subscribers the ability to do email marketing, create landing pages, and hold webinars.
It gives users scalable automation features including the ability to build intuitive workflows. You can also use the GetResponse eCommerce tools to track cart abandonments, website visitors, and successful purchases. GetResponse also integrates with Woocommerce.
You have the choice of four different pricing plans, from basic/beginner to enterprise level. The most basic pricing plan offers a list size of 1,000 users for $15 per month. It gives users a free 1-month trial, no credit card needed.
Keep in mind that GetResponse’s most basic plan does not include eCommerce or CRM integration, or most of the platform’s automation features.
Mailchimp
Its automation features include welcome emails, abandoned messages, and product recommendations. Automation makes it an ideal choice to integrate with eCommerce programs, including Woocommerce, and here’s some great news: MailChimp’s integration with Woocommerce is free!
Plus, MailChimp’s robust segmentation, A/B testing, reporting, and personalization features make it easier for you to optimize your email marketing results.
Keep in mind that the free option, although it may be right for some customers, offers support (email only) for a 1-month period. There is no tech support option after that.
