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You’ve heard about how effective email marketing can be for your business. For example, according to Litmus, email marketing boasts of an ROI of $36 on every dollar spent.
Unsurprisingly, this is probably the highest of any marketing channel. Now, when you hear statistics like this, it revives your hopes of having more customers than you can handle.
You start thinking of all your leads asking about your product and forcing their money on you. Well, email marketing is not magic, and it requires work like any other marketing channel.
The beginning of that work is choosing a robust email marketing software. In this guide, you’ll find the best email marketing software for your business among the excellent options.
But before we go into that; I will break down my top three favorite email marketing software.
- Integrated Analytics
- A/B Testing Tool
- Template Creator
- Easy to Learn and Use
- High Deliverability Rates
- Integrated CRM
- Expensive for Small Businesses
- Limited Reporting
- Additional Charge for Support
- Automated Sequences
- Audience Segmentation
- Integrated Analytics
- Fast Delivery
- Affordability
- Good Customer Support
- Limited Templates
- Poor Design Flexibility
- Poor User Interface
- Templates
- List Building Tools
- Third Party Integrations
- Easy to Use
- 97% Deliverability Rate
- 1000+ Integrations
- Limited A/B testing features
- Limited automation features
- Poor Registration Forms
What is the best email marketing software?
If you’re like most people, this is where you want us to mention a single email marketing software and declare it the best. But it’s more complicated than that.
Frankly, there’s no single email marketing service that’s best for every business at every time. So what are we trying to say here?
The best email software for your business will depend on your needs at this time. In fact, the best for your business today may be different in 10 years.
In light of that, here are my top picks for the best email marketing software packages you’ll find in the market today:
1. HubSpot
Best Overall Email Marketing Software
Summary:
While HubSpot provides a suite of sales and marketing tools, email marketing is one of its most popular features. With contact data from HubSpot CRM, you can easily personalize your emails according to your contact’s preferences.
Beyond that, HubSpot has an intuitive email builder that even a non-technical user will be able to use efficiently. In the editor, there are content and design tools to add many elements to your emails.
If you want to avoid the long design process, you’ll find templates for different purposes. Once you select a template, it’s easy to customize it according to your needs. Furthermore, subscribers on mobile devices will love your emails as email designs are mobile responsive.
Before sending, you can create A/B tests for different elements of your emails, such as subject lines and email copy. Then, when you send emails, you can rest assured that your subscribers will receive them due to HubSpot’s high deliverability rates.
Finally, the analytics feature helps to track your email performance. So, you can see the open rates, click-through rates, percentage of people who read, percentage of those who skimmed, and those who glanced.
HubSpot’s email marketing is suitable for businesses that already use its CRM and marketing hub.
Key Features:
- Template Creator: Beyond that, there are templates to create different types of emails. After creating your emails, you can preview how they will look in inboxes across different devices. This helps you to optimize your subject line and emails properly.
- Integrated Analytics: With the HubSpot CRM, you have access to more details about a specific contact and your past interactions. There’s a robust analytics feature on HubSpot, not only can you track opens and clicks, but you can also see the time spent viewing emails, whether subscribers read, skimmed, or glanced at emails, and more.
- Advanced Contact Segmentation: Moreso, it’s easy to segment your contacts according to their preferences and other factors. Furthermore, you can create automated email campaigns and set up your preferred triggers. Thus, it’s easy to personalize your emails.
- High Deliverability Rate: When you send your emails, you can be reasonably confident that they will be delivered due to the service’s 99% average deliverability rate. The smart send feature is also available to deliver emails at the right time for maximum engagement.
- A/B Testing Tool: To optimize your email campaign’s performance, HubSpot provides A/B testing tools. Beyond that, there are list-building features such as landing pages, forms, and more.
Pros:
- It provides more features beyond email marketing.
- Its CRM can help improve email personalization.
- The email editor is easy to use.
- It has high email deliverability rates.
Cons:
- Since it has so many features, accomplishing some tasks can be difficult.
- The top-tier plans may be too expensive for small businesses.
Who is it for?
- Medium to large businesses
- Marketing agencies
- Computer software companies
- Information technology companies
- Financial services companies
Pricing Plans:
- Starter: costs $50/month
- Professional: costs $890/month
- Enterprise: costs $3,200/month
- Refund Policy: 30-days
How to Save:
- By paying for your annual plan at once you will save 10%.
- See if your start-up is eligible for a massive discount.
2. Moosend
Best for Custom Integrations
Summary:
If you run a small business with a small marketing budget, Moosend is one of the best options available. Better still, you can go through a 30-day free trial before committing.
To create your emails, you have access to a drag-and-drop editor that’s easy to use. Fortunately, there are templates for different categories and purposes. Likewise, you can preview how your email will look on various devices during the design stage.
One of the strong points of Moosend is its automation. For instance, you can create automation workflows that are triggered by the actions of your subscribers. Then, there are automation workflow templates such as user onboarding, abandoned cart, and lead scoring.
If you run an eCommerce business, Moosend’s AI engine can recommend products to your subscribers based on their purchase history or buying trends. This will help you send relevant emails and products to them.
Since no single tool can meet all your marketing needs, you need to integrate it with other marketing tools. As a result, Moosend allows you to integrate with tools such as WordPress, WooCommerce, Salesforce, and more.
Furthermore, the analytics section provides metrics such as opens, clicks, social shares, and unsubscribes.
Key Features:
- Automated Email Sequences: You can create many different types of automated email sequences.
- Templates: Moosend has automation templates for different purposes such as welcome emails, cart abandonment, upsells and cross-sells, and more.
- Audience Segmentation: Another similar feature is the ability to segment your list. Since your subscribers have different interests, you can segment them into various lists. Here, there are options to segment them according to contact activity, contact information, time, and other factors.
- Integrated Analytics: While running your email campaigns, Moosend provides analytics tools for your emails. For example, you can see how subscribers interact with emails and track performance.
Pros:
- It has robust automation features and templates.
- It is affordable.
- All plans come with unlimited emails.
- When you have issues, you can rest assured of their responsive customer support.
Cons:
- Importing CSV files is difficult.
- It has limited templates compared to competitors.
- There are design limitations in areas like their sign-up forms.
Who is it for?
- Coaches
- Solopreneurs
- Marketers
- Small businesses
Pricing Plans:
- Free Trial: 30-days
- Pro: starts at $9/month if you required less than 500 subscribers. It goes up as high as 25,000-50,000 subscribers starting at $315/month
- Enterprise: Requires a quote. (For 50,000+ subscribers)
How to Save:
- Select annual billing for a 20% discount.
3. Constant Contact
Summary:
As one of the oldest players in email marketing, Constant Contact has some features that make it attractive to small businesses. For instance, you can easily create your emails by selecting one of the over 300 email templates available on the software.
Then, the email editor has tools to customize these templates according to your needs. Furthermore, there’s a robust segmentation feature that lets you group your subscribers according to their interests and other criteria.
During your email marketing campaigns, you can send targeted automated emails based on how subscribers engage with your emails. This way, you’ll send emails they’re likely to relate with.
Apart from sending emails, Constant Contact also has lead generation features to capture emails. These include sign-up forms and landing pages. With the available templates, you can create landing pages that will acquire more leads into your sales funnel.
In addition, you can manage your social media accounts and create ads for your social media campaigns. More so, there are engagement tools such as surveys and polls to improve the relationship with your subscribers.
While running email campaigns, you’ll obtain information about performance such as open rate, click-through rate, shares, etc. Then, to increase functionality, you can integrate with other marketing tools.
Key Features:
- List Building Tools: Such as landing pages, forms, and social media.
- Templates: Here, you’ll find over 200 templates for various uses. Then, the editor makes customization easy.
- Integrated Analytics: After sending your emails, there are analytic tools to measure metrics such as opens, click-throughs, forwards, social shares, and more. The forward and share buttons also help to promote your emails.
- Third Party Integrations: Constant Contact also has a huge library of integrations which makes it easy to connect with other marketing tools.
- Bonus Tools: Furthermore, Constant Contact has other tools such as online surveys, events, social campaigns, and more that work well with email marketing.
Pros:
- Easy to use.
- Has a high number of beautiful templates.
- Has a high number of integrations.
- It has great deliverability.
Cons:
- It has limited automation features.
- It has limited A/B testing features.
Who is it for?
- Marketing agencies
- Non-profit organizations
- Real estate companies
- Education companies
Pricing Plans:
- Core: starts at $9.99 /month
- Plus: starts at $45/month
How to Save:
- You can save up to 15% when you select annual billing.
- BONUS: If you are a nonprofit, if you select annual billing you can save up to 30%
4. GetResponse
Summary:
Over the years, GetResponse transcended email marketing into marketing automation and other tools. However, their biggest selling point is still the email marketing feature.
With their drag-and-drop email editor, you can create emails within minutes. But if you find creating emails from scratch stressful, you can select any of their professional templates and edit them to your taste.
Apart from your design, GetResponse provides images and GIFs that you can add to your emails. After designing your emails, GetResponse will display a preview of how your email will look on different devices. You’ll also get a spam score to help improve the chances of getting your emails delivered.
Since subscribers have different interests, GetResponse makes it easy to segment your subscribers accordingly. Likewise, you can create automated sequences that are triggered by specified conditions.
If you run an eCommerce store, this email marketing software will allow you to create shoppable emails. Then, you can recommend products to subscribers based on their purchase history and actions on your website.
To capture more leads, GetResponse has landing page and form creation tools to promote your offers and get visitors into your sales funnel. You also have access to advanced reporting that provides insight into your email performance. With support for up to 27 languages, you’ll be able to serve an international audience effectively.
Key Features:
Automated Email Sequence: For email marketing, GetResponse has improved its automation capabilities. You can create complex automated email sequences to improve personalization. Furthermore, you can segment your lists based on different criteria.
List Building Tools: Another unique feature in GetResponse is the auto funnel feature. Here, you have landing pages, email templates, and sequences to generate sales. Moreso, if you own an ecommerce store, you’ll find integration with major ecommerce tools and other features that will help improve sales.
Improved Deliverability: Before sending your emails, you can see how your email will look across different email clients and also check the spam score. The spam score shows the probability of email clients seeing your email as spam.
Pros:
- The auto funnel feature allows you to execute many marketing tasks in your sales funnel.
- It has advanced automation features.
- It has advanced reporting features.
- It supports up to 27 languages that are suitable for an international audience.
Cons:
- You need to subscribe to higher plans to have access to automation.
- The split testing functionality is limited.
Who is it for?
- Marketers
- Information Technology companies
- Health and wellness brands
- Real estate companies
Pricing Plans:
- Free: $0/month
- Email Marketing: starts at $19/month.
- Marketing Automation: starts at $59/month
- Ecommerce Marketing: starts at $119/month
- Refund Policy: 30-days
How to Save:
- You can start with a 30-day free trial
- Choose a free plan (up to 500 contacts),
- Select Email Marketing 24-month plan, which turns out $13.30/month, at 30% off.
5. Pabbly
Summary:
As an email marketing software, Pabbly has a drag-and-drop email builder that allows you to build emails according to your subscribers’ needs. You also have access to templates for different purposes.
In addition, a robust marketing automation feature makes building workflows easy. You can specify conditions to trigger the workflows and consequent email actions.
A unique feature of Pabbly is the in-built SMTP and the ability to integrate with over 50 SMTPs to deliver your emails. In addition, Pabbly also handles bounce and spam complaints for popular SMTPs.
More so, you have the option to clean your email list to remove bad emails. As a result of these steps, you can troubleshoot and improve your email deliverability.
To improve lead acquisition, you can create subscription forms for different pages on your website. Furthermore, Pabbly allows you to sell subscriptions and have affiliates through the affiliate marketing feature.
Since you need other tools in your marketing campaigns, you’ll find integrations with most marketing tools you may need.
Key Features:
- SMTP server: Pabbly has an in-built SMTP and also integrates with over 50 SMTPs. This will help improve your email deliverability.
- Email verification: having invalid email addresses in your subscribers’ list can increase your bounce rates. Pabbly sends ping requests to your email addresses to ensure you send emails to valid addresses.
- Form builder: with Pabbly, you can build forms for events, payments, lead acquisition, and more. You have access to a simple editor and can integrate your forms into most websites.
- Integrations: Pabbly provides a large number of integrations with marketing tools. Through this, you can extend Pabbly’s functionality.
Pros:
- It has high email deliverability rates.
- It supports over 800 integrations.
Cons:
- The built-in SMTP server is complicated to use.
- There’s no mobile app.
Who is it for?
- Publishing company
- Marketers
- Solopreneurs
Pricing Plans:
- Rookie: costs $24/month
- Pro: costs $41/month
- Advanced: costs $83/month
6. Gist
Summary:
Gist is a tool that offers email marketing, live chat, help center, and other marketing features. For email marketing, you have access to templates for various purposes. Likewise, you can use the simple email editor to customize the templates.
If you want to create emails for the future, you have the option to schedule emails for events, holidays, birthdays, and more. In addition, your emails are mobile-responsive, so subscribers on mobile devices will have a good experience.
Once you finish designing your email, you can preview it for different devices. Another feature you’ll love is the automation workflows. You can create automated email sequences that are triggered according to set conditions.
You also have the option to track the goals of your workflows. With the event tracker feature, you can track how subscribers behave on your website.
To capture more leads, you can create forms and popups. On your web pages, the chatbots allow you to qualify leads by asking essential questions.
While interacting with your leads, the team inbox allows you to do so in one place. So, tracking your conversations and progress with a lead is easy.
If you serve a multilingual audience, Gist will meet your needs as it supports over 44 languages. Finally, you have access to insights about your email marketing performance.
Key Features:
- Event tracker: you can use this to track visitor behavior on your website and understand their preferences.
- Automated workflows: to nurture leads, you can use automated email sequences to reach your subscribers at different stages of the sales funnel. You can also track the goals of your workflows.
- Team inbox: this feature helps you to have conversations with leads in one place.
- Chatbots: you can ask questions from your leads while they’re browsing your website. This will help you qualify leads to follow up in the future.
- Multi-language support: if you serve people across various countries who speak diverse languages, Gist will meet your needs. With support for over 44 languages, you’ll be able to serve most people.
Pros:
- Chatbots help to qualify leads.
- It has a comprehensive knowledge base.
- Its event tracker helps to understand visitors’ behavior on your website.
Cons:
- It has a limited number of integrations.
Who is it for?
- Marketing agencies
- Software brands
- Small businesses
Pricing Plans:
Its plans are free, professional which costs $19 monthly, and premium which costs $29 monthly.
7. ConvertKit
Summary:
ConvertKit had a single mission from inception: to build email marketing software creators will love. Over the years, this software has provided relevant tools to help creators market their services and products.
First, there’s a simple email builder that’s more focused on having a minimalist email rather than complicated designs. This is to ensure high deliverability to your subscribers.
To sell your services or digital products, you’ll find tools to create a sales funnel with the automation builder. Here, you can create workflows with triggers such as time, subscriber activity, etc. In addition, there’s a robust segmentation feature that makes it easy to group subscribers based on various criteria.
You can also sell your digital products directly to subscribers in their email inboxes. If you use eCommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce, you can easily integrate them with ConvertKit to sell more.
Since acquiring leads is vital to your email marketing campaigns, you need landing pages and forms. Luckily, ConvertKit allows you to create them to help convert site visitors into leads.
Key Features:
- Simple interface: even if you’ve never used email marketing software, you’ll still find your way around ConvertKit due to its intuitive interface.
- Automated email sequences: With ConvertKit, you can easily create automated email sequences to nurture your subscribers.
- Contact segmentation: you can manage your contacts lists by adding different tags to subscribers. This could be based on your interactions with them.
- Products sale: if you sell products, you can promote the products in your emails.
Pros:
- It’s easy to create automated sequences with the drag-and-drop sequence builder.
- It provides advanced list segmentation options.
- It has high deliverability rates.
Cons:
- There are limited design options.
- There are limited reporting options.
Who is it for?
- Creators
- Bloggers
- Marketers
- Consultants
- Writers
Pricing Plans:
The plans include free for up to 300 contacts, Creator for $9 monthly, and Creator Pro for $25 monthly. Those prices are for 300 subscribers.
8. MailerLite
Summary:
MailerLite is one of the best email marketing platforms for small businesses. First, you have access to a generous free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers.
In this software, there are templates for different purposes which fasten up the email creation process. With the drag-and-drop email editor, you can easily customize a template to suit your taste. While creating emails, you also have access to a free image library.
To nurture your subscribers effectively, you need to send relevant emails as they go through your marketing funnel. MailerLite’s marketing workflows make this possible.
Another important feature of MailerLite is its high deliverability. The team ensures that your email list is clean before you obtain approval to send emails.
If you run an eCommerce store, you can integrate it with MailerLite. Then, this will allow you to sell products in your emails. Beyond that, you can track subscribers’ activities when they visit your store.
By using surveys and quizzes, you can engage your subscribers and obtain vital data about their interests. Furthermore, A/B testing makes it possible to test different email elements to discover the best-performing versions.
Other features such as landing pages, popups, and signup forms help to acquire leads on your website. Then, you can monitor your campaign performance through the reporting dashboard.
Key Features:
- Simple interface: one advantage you get on MailerLite is that you can perform most tasks on the tool no matter your technical proficiency level.
- Marketing automation: MailerLite lets you keep your audience engaged by using automated sequences to send relevant and targeted emails to subscribers.
- Track subscriber activity in store: when subscribers click on email links to your eCommerce store, you can track their activity once they land on your website.
- Email and mobile preview: MailerLite will show you an email preview to see how subscribers will receive your emails. This will help you make changes where necessary.
- Multi-user account: if you want to add team members, then you’ll find it easy to do that on this platform. Likewise, if you run email marketing campaigns for different websites, you can easily manage those accounts.
Pros:
- It has a robust free plan.
- It’s easy to use.
- It has high deliverability rates.
- It has excellent customer support.
- The pricing is affordable.
Cons:
- The approval process is tough.
- It has basic reporting features.
- Some pro features are missing compared to their competitors.
- The top-tier plans may be too expensive for small businesses.
Who is it for?
- Solopreneurs
- Small businesses
- Marketers
- Writers
- E-learning brands
Pricing Plans:
The plans available are free, growing business which costs $9 monthly, advanced which costs $19 monthly, and enterprise, which is available on quote. Those prices are for 1,000 subscribers and will increase with your subscriber count.
9. SendinBlue
Summary:
On Sendinblue, you’ll find email templates to create your emails in minutes. Then, you can use its drag-and-drop editor to customize the template for your audience.
Furthermore, you have the option to personalize your emails with details such as names, colors, and others unique to each subscriber. Once you finish designing your email, you can deliver it to each subscriber at the right time using machine learning-powered send-time optimization.
Beyond these, you can segment subscribers into groups according to various criteria. Likewise, it’s easy to create automated email sequences with triggers. For example, if you sell products, you can send transactional emails to customers during the buying process.
To nurture your leads, you can create remarketing Facebook ads for subscribers who have interacted with your emails. In addition, landing pages and signup forms help you acquire more website leads.
With shared inbox, you can keep track of your conversations with leads and even your team members. You also have a CRM feature that lets you keep track of contact details and your interactions with them.
Apart from email marketing, Sendinblue also provides chat and SMS. Through these, you can answer questions quickly on your website and reach out to leads.
Key Features:
- Marketing automation: With Sendinblue, you can create automated email sequences such as welcome, promotion, abandoned cart, onboarding, etc. You also have access to templates of these sequences. Hence, you can send relevant emails to subscribers based on their activities.
- Contact details and segmentation: Sendinblue has CRM that helps you track your interactions with contacts. Based on their interests, you can segment your subscribers.
- Transactional emails: during the purchase process, customers need to have updates about their transactions. Sendinblue lets you send purchase confirmation, shipping information, and other details.
- Landing pages and signup forms: By using the templates and editor, you can create landing pages and signup forms to capture more leads for your business.
- Chat and SMS marketing: with chat, you can answer questions visitors have while browsing your website. SMS marketing allows you to send updates to subscribers that they can’t miss.
Pros:
- It has a free plan with robust features.
- It’s easy to execute transactional emails and SMS marketing.
- It’s affordable.
Cons:
- The web application can be slow sometimes.
- There’s a sending limit on the free plan.
Who is it for?
- Marketers
- Information technology workers
- Software companies
- Retailers
Pricing Plans:
The pricing plans include free, lite at $25 monthly, premium at $65, and enterprise on a quote.
10. Omnisend
Summary:
Omnisend pride itself as an eCommerce email marketing platform and its features have reflected that. If you run an eCommerce store, you should consider this email marketing tool.
First, you have email templates to promote your products and offers to your customers. Then, all you have to do is use the drag-and-drop email editor to customize these templates for your business.
Furthermore, Omnisend allows you to create shoppable emails and make product recommendations according to a subscriber’s interest and purchase history. With Omnisend’s segmentation features, you can split your subscribers into different groups based on their data. This will help you send relevant emails to them.
Beyond that, there’s a robust automation feature that allows you to create automated email sequences. These include abandoned cart emails, upsell/cross-sell emails, onboarding emails, and more.
With A/B testing, you can test different elements of your emails to discover the best-performing variant. Then, there’s robust analytics with a sales dashboard and advanced reporting. Through the data, you’ll track your email performance and how they affect sales.
In addition, you can integrate with major eCommerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, etc. Apart from emails, you have access to other channels such as SMS, push notifications, Facebook retargeting ads, and Google retargeting ads.
Key Features:
- Shoppable emails: this feature allows you to add your products to emails. You can also recommend products based on a subscriber’s preferences.
- Email automation: you can create automated email sequences such as abandonment cart, upsell/cross-sell, onboarding, etc.
- A/B testing: since there’s no guaranteed performance for any email, Omnisend allows you to experiment with different elements of your emails.
- Analytics: for email marketing and other marketing channels, you need to track your campaign performance. Omnisend has a sales dashboard to see sales performance for your emails. Likewise, you can see automation reports and advanced reports.
Pros:
- It has marketing automation features for ecommerce brands.
- It’s easy to use.
- Its product picker makes it easy to insert product details into emails.
Cons:
- It’s only available in English.
- Apart from ecommerce, there are limited integrations.
Who is it for?
- Ecommerce store owners
- Small business owners
- Retailers
- Fashion brands
Pricing:
Its plans include free, standard which costs $16 monthly and pro which costs $59.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Here are some questions you’ll have while planning and running your email marketing campaigns:
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is the process of sending emails to your email subscribers to build trust with them and convert them into customers down the line. To achieve this ultimate goal, you can run different types of email campaigns for various purposes.
For instance, you can send welcome emails to new subscribers, educate subscribers about various aspects of your business and what benefits they can derive, send promotional offers to them, remind them about the cart they abandoned, and sell more products to current customers.
But without the right email marketing service, it’s almost impossible to achieve these benefits.
Why you should consider using email marketing software?
If you’re planning to run effective email marketing campaigns, you’ve probably heard that picking the right email marketing software is vital. Why is this so? Here are critical reasons to use email marketing software to run your campaigns:
High ROI:
According to a study by Litmus, email marketing has an ROI of $36 for every dollar spent. Of course, you can only achieve this ROI when you use email marketing software to run your campaigns. After all, the software will have features to ensure you create relevant emails and send them to your subscribers at the right time.
High deliverability:
If you want to use an email provider like Gmail, you have a cap on the number of emails you can send. For instance, you can’t send more than 2,000 emails daily. Again, you won’t know the health of your email lists. With email software, you’ll have details about deliverability, and the software will provide tips to improve it.
Subscriber/contact segmentation:
One of the beauties of emails today is that you can send different emails to different subscribers. This is necessary since subscribers have different needs. So, during your marketing campaigns, you can segment your contacts based on their interests, location, website pages visited, and more.
Personalized marketing:
Apart from segmenting your subscribers, you must send them messages at the right time. So, when a subscriber completes a purchase order, they expect a confirmation email. Beyond that, you can send automated emails when a subscriber has taken an action like abandoning a cart, visiting a page, clicking a link, etc.
Lead nurturing:
To move a lead from the top of the sales funnel to the bottom where they buy a product, you need to nurture them. With email marketing software, you can send messages to subscribers at intervals to convert them to customers.
Analytics:
Without email software, it’s difficult to know how your emails perform. With email software, though, you can track opens, click-through rates, A/B test results, and other metrics. These will help you improve your email marketing results.
These are just a few reasons you should invest in email marketing software. In fact, this should be a critical part of your planning process for your email campaigns.
What are the requirements to begin my email marketing campaign today?
When you see people who have thousands of subscribers and send emails every week, it looks daunting. How can you get to that height? Well, you have to start. Here are vital steps to take:
Select the best email marketing software:
Frankly, you’ll find many great options when researching email marketing software. Unfortunately, only a few will fit your needs. First, you have to define your needs and determine the best email marketing software to meet those needs. Read guides like this, reviews on popular review sites, and watch videos to make your choice.
Have email marketing goals:
Ff you have no aim, there’s no way to determine results. So why are your running email campaigns? Is it to build awareness, nurture leads, or market a product? These goals will help streamline your strategy.
Build your email list:
Without a subscriber list, there’s no email campaign. Even though you can start with a small list, you still need people to communicate with. One way to build your list is to add forms to your website.
Build your first campaign:
Your first campaign may just be a simple welcome email or an email series. Go through your email marketing software, pick the right template, and customize it to your taste in the tool’s editor.
After building your campaign, you’re ready to begin connecting with your subscribers.
What are the best ways to grow my email marketing list?
Some of the best ways to grow your email marketing list include promoting offers on landing pages, using signup forms, creating lead magnets, running contests, and more. Here’s a breakdown of these tactics:
Use landing pages:
For your pay-per-click ads, social media ads, banner ads, etc., you have to direct people who click to a landing page. On this page, you’ll promote an offer attractive to the visitor. At least attractive enough to convince them to release their emails.
Use popup forms:
Even though popup forms may be annoying, they’ve been proven to be effective at acquiring leads. You can make popup forms less intrusive when it doesn’t cover the page. For example, this can be a slide-in form. Furthermore, an exit-intent popup is rarely intrusive as it only appears when a visitor is leaving your page.
Create lead magnets:
Lead magnets provide value to your website visitor in exchange for their information. For a lead magnet to work, it has to be relevant to the audience. Examples of lead magnets include ebooks, white papers, webinars, discounts, etc.
Run contests and giveaways:
Everybody wants to win gifts, especially if they have to compete for them. While running these contests, one of your requirements should be their email address. Ensure you state that they should expect future messages from you.
Run Facebook lead ads:
With this ad type, you’ll present your lead form to Facebook users on the social media platform. These ads make it easy for Facebook users to submit their details.
A/B test your opt-in forms:
No opt-in form will convert every viewer. That’s why you should A/B test elements of your forms, such as the number of form fields, background, CTA, CTA button color, etc. Through this, you’ll improve your conversion rates.
Use social proof:
One way to convince people to join your list is to tell them thousands of people are already on your list. If 55,000 people receive your emails, there’s something good there, right?
By implementing these tactics, you’ll grow your email list over time.
What are must-have Email Marketing Features?
Whatever business you’re in, whatever needs you to have, there are essential features that must be present in an email marketing tool. These features are vital to running an email marketing campaign.
Here are 7 must-have features:
1. Email automation capabilities
The era of sending messages to your subscribers without considering their interests is gone. Now, you have to send messages tailored to each subscriber.
An email tool must allow you to set up automated emails and their triggers.
2. High deliverability
What’s the point of your email campaigns if your messages don’t get to the intended recipients? Your email software must have processes in place to ensure high deliverability.
3. Relevant integrations
During marketing campaigns, many systems work together to turn a lead into a customer. Sometimes, you need to get more information about a subscriber from your CRM software.
Another time, you need to connect to your ecommerce platform. Therefore, your email marketing software must provide integrations to other vital marketing tools.
4. Intuitive user interface (easy to use)
Some users spend weeks before they can create emails properly with a tool that costs an arm and a leg. Do you want to be in such a frustrating situation? Enough said.
5. Email marketing templates
If you’re like most marketers, you’d rather watch paint dry than design emails from scratch. With this in mind, having access to different templates will make your life easier and save you time.
So, get a tool that has templates for your regular campaigns.
6. Robust reporting and analytics
Having robust analytics will help you track your email marketing campaign performance. In turn, you’ll obtain more insight into necessary changes for your future campaigns.
7. Responsive customer support
From time to time, you can encounter issues while using email marketing software. In such situations, you want fast and helpful customer support to resolve those issues.
Is it recommended to buy an email marketing list?
No, it’s not recommended to buy an email marketing list. First, sending emails to people who never opted in to receive those emails is unethical.
Second, you’re likely to achieve poor results with such email campaigns. Since the subscribers never submitted their emails to you, some will never open them. Worse still, some of them will mark your emails as spam.
And if you’re really unfortunate, some of them may report your account. Consequently, your sender’s reputation will be in jeopardy. So, you’ll likely lose those subscribers and may lose your sender status.
More so, the chances of selling to these people are low. After all, you’ve lost their trust at the beginning of the relationship.
The best step is to build your email list, no matter how long it takes.
How do I go about segmenting my email marketing list?
Considering that segmentation is a vital task in personalizing your emails, this is a critical question. Fortunately, there are many ways to segment your email list. Here are some tips:
Create buyer personas:
What does your ideal customer look like? Your buyer persona document will contain details such as name, gender, location, income, hobbies, and more. If you sell many products, you can create a few buyer personas for them.
Define relevant data points:
Since you know your ideal customers, which data points will be most important to you? Usually, you’ll segment your subscribers according to these data points. For instance, Target may be interested in your pregnancy status, while HubSpot may be interested in your subscription date.
Ask subscribers for their preferences:
Sometimes, the best source of your subscribers’ preferences is your subscribers. You can send them emails (like a survey) to tell you their preferences.
Create your segment:
With the amount of data you have, you can determine the most crucial data points to group your subscribers into the right segments. Luckily, most email marketing software allows you to do this.
Track your results:
How do your emails perform across segments? Over time, you may discover that some segments are irrelevant while some are vital. Therefore, tracking results will help improve your segments.
In a nutshell, segmenting your list will boost your email conversions as you can send relevant emails.
Can you charge for people to attend your webinar?
Yes, you can charge people to attend your webinar. But to do this, you have to offer value your audience is willing to pay for.
Usually, webinars are free to attend. However, webinar software packages have tools that allow you to take payments. Some webinar tools have in-built payment systems that let you receive payment and track your earnings.
In addition, you can integrate payment systems such as PayPal, Stripe, and Square. Before launching this webinar, ensure you set up the payment system. Then, you’re good to go with your paid webinar.
Is email marketing worth it for my business?
Yes, email marketing is worth it for your business. First, email marketing boasts of one of the highest ROIs of any marketing channel. For instance, Litmus estimates that businesses obtain an average ROI of $36 for every dollar spent on email marketing.
Of course, there are many reasons for this. Majority of people who have an email address check their inboxes daily. So, it’s likely that they’ll see the messages you’ve sent to them.
With other channels such as social media or search engines, your messages are left to the whims of their algorithms.
Another factor that has contributed to email’s high performance is personalization. You can now send very relevant emails to subscribers based on their preferences. Since you’re sending messages they want to see, you’ll increase your conversion rates.
Apart from the high ROI, another reason email marketing is worth it for your business is your level of ownership on your email list. Even if you change your email marketing software, you still keep your subscribers’ list.
This level of control means you can run your campaigns without fear of violating some rules, unlike other marketing channels.
Final Thoughts
Choosing the best email marketing software for your business depends on your unique needs. Therefore, you need to define your needs first before hunting for a tool.
Then, since most of these tools have free plans or offer free trials, you can use the tool for a period before going for a paid plan. Go through this list, and you’ll find tools that will fit your current needs.
What’s your best email marketing software and why? Tell us in the comments!
