Are you starting a new business and need an email marketing platform, or looking to change your existing email marketing provider? With so many options on the market offering a range of features and solutions for your business, making the right choice can be tricky. Here are six popular, tried-and-tested email marketing platforms to consider.
Email marketing is a vital part of business marketing. An email marketing service allows businesses to send targeted emails, communicate directly with customers, and build brand engagement, all with the click of a button. Business News Daily spent dozens of hours researching over 100 of the industry’s top email marketing services. We examined their features and pricing and tested many of the services firsthand to see exactly how easy (or difficult) it was to use. Here are the services we recommend, an explanation of how we chose our best picks, and, below, a list of vendors. To learn more about email marketing, see what experts advise in our guide to choosing the email marketing service for your business.
- Customer.io
- Boomerang for Gmail
- MailChimp
- Campaign Monitor
- Sendy
- 6Mixmax
- Smore
- Replyify
- SellHack
- Proofy.io
- MailLift – Handwritten Letters
- Sidekick by HubSpot
- Elink
- MailTrack
- MailerLite
- BEE free
- ActiveCampaign
- Gmelius
- Revue
- Remail.io
- Reply
- SendGrid
- Publicate
- ReplyUp
- aText
- Canned Emails
- Really Good Emails
- LeadCooker
- NewsletterBreeze
- Email 1K
- Technetto Email Marketing
- NewZapp
- Goodbits
- Flashissue
- Art of Emails
- Mailjet
- eMailPlatform
- Mailto
- Stripo
WHAT IS EMAIL MARKETING SOFTWARE?
When you set up a small business, all of your efforts go into acquiring new customers. Once you have the eyes and ears of those customers, it makes sense to sell to them again.
In fact, research shows that more than 80% of sales in an average company come from existing customers that return to repurchase again. So we know that these marketing messages can make a real difference to your turnover, increasing profits from existing relationships.
You can also use email marketing software to send offers to customers who have not yet bought anything from you. For example, you could sign people up to a coupon list, and then send offers periodically to encourage them to spend.
HOW EMAIL MARKETING SOFTWARE WORKS
The concept of email marketing is based on an ‘opt-in’ model. In other words, you invite people to sign up to your email list. You may offer an incentive for them to do so.
Email marketing is not spam, because you aren’t blasting random people with offers. You’re targeting existing customers and people that have chosen to hear from you.
All small businesses should use email marketing. It’s cost-effective and simple, and it can be leveraged for any niche or industry. The return on investment is potentially huge, particularly if you compare it to non-targeted advertising methods like newspaper ads.
GETTING ROI
Building an email marketing list is only part of the story. Once you’ve invested in getting those users signed up, you’ll need to encourage them to buy from you by developing compelling newsletter content.
At the same time, you need to avoid alienating subscribers by sending them offers that are not relevant.
This is a crucial point when you’re comparing email marketing providers. All of them will let you build a list. From there, the features vary quite considerably. Using the right provider is key to unlocking ROI.
Email marketing software should also provide multiple ways to get people signed up. For example, you could:
- Add a subscribe link in your regular transaction emails
- Allow people to check a box to sign-up at checkout
- Place a subscription form in the sidebar of your eCommerce site
- Allow people to sign up via email
- Provide an incentive (like a code, or digital download) when a new user joins the list.
The easier you make it for people to sign up, the faster your list will grow, and the better your ROI will be.
