Best email marketing software 2021
Over the years, a lot of marketing trends have come and gone but not email marketing. Wondering why email marketing is still a very important strategy to implement in your business?
In the year 2024, it has been estimated that over 4.48 billion people will become email users as opposed to the 3.9 billion in 2019. Also, the number of sent and received emails is expected to grow from 293.6 billion in 2019 to 361.6 billion in 2024 (Source: Statista)
Asides from the fact that the number keeps growing yearly, email marketing is a simple and cheap alternative for reaching out to clients and subscribers.
Another big advantage of using an email marketing strategy is that the entire process can be automated. No trouble with that.
Coming in second place, email marketing has been reported to be more effective than social media. For this reason and the others, it is no wonder big co-operations still invest in email marketing today.
Seeing as you know the importance of email marketing now, how do you choose the right one for your business?
Find out how to get more Instagram followers for your business here.
How to choose the right email marketing software
In this part of the article, we are going to look at some of the common features you should look out for when choosing an email marketing system.
Generally, good email marketing software should have a good user interface so that creating an email will be easy and flexible. And one of the features we look out for, this is the most important feature, a good email marketing software would ensure your emails aren’t sent to the spam folder of your subscribers.
There are varieties of email marketing software on the market today. This usually ranges from the oldest one on the market, Mailchimp, to newer and fresher ones.
We understand how confusing choosing the right email marketing tool can be, so, we are going to quickly run through all the attributes you should look out for before making a choice.
- Templates and designs
- Software integrations
- Audience segmentation
- Email automation
- Scalability
- Email tracking and analytics
Templates and designs – wouldn’t it be cool if your subscribers read your emails? In today’s world where everybody who is someone is sending out emails, you would want to stand
out and keep our readers’ attention by sending emails that have a beautiful design. A lot of these email marketing software have different templates and designs that you can pick from. So, ensure you look up the options available to you before committing fully.
Software integrations – this is a huge factor to consider when hunting for the right email software. Always ask and check to be sure of email software that has client management systems (CRM). This is a useful feature that allows you to collect and store the data of your prospects with ease. Compare this feature to manually collecting the data of your website’s visitors.
Audience segmentation – this is also another feature that determines the quality of emails your subscribers will be getting. Audience segmentation allows you to categorize your audience into different groups based on their interest, how fast they open your emails and other factors. A good example would be sending a particular email to people interested in social media marketing and a different one to people interested in small business ideas and marketing.
Email automation – imagine not having to create an email every day. A good email marketing software will provide email automation that will allow scheduling. A nice example is a welcome email you receive every time you subscribe to a newsletter.
Scalability – before picking an email software, ensure the platform can accommodate your growth. It is expected that your business grows and with it your email list. Having to move from one platform to another because your old email software couldn’t take more email addresses is a problem you wouldn’t want to face down the road.
Email tracking and analytics – a good email marketing software will provide you with insights to track how well your strategy is doing. With email tracking and analytics, you will track the behavior of your subscribers, how well they’re engaging with your content, the number of people that sign up for your newsletter, or the number that unsubscribes from it.
Email marketing tools to save time and money
- Getresponse – if there is an email software tool that gets the work done with even additional features, it is Getresponse. Getresponse allows you to build landing pages, sales funnel, and it allows you to send automated campaigns. Getresponse is an all-in-one marketing tool with the following features; email drag and drop editor, auto-responder, and responsive email design.
- Hubspot email marketing – businesses can now send emails to their subscribers with the new Hubspot email marketing software. This free email marketing tool is easy to use and features a drag-and-drop visual editor. There are ready-made templates if you do not want to go through the stress of designing yours from scratch. The feature that sets this email marketing tool apart is its ability to be integrated with other HubSpot tools. A good example is the free-forever CRM.
- SendinBlue – SendinBlue is a beginner-friendly email marketing software with a handy drag and drops email editor. This feature makes it for a beginner with no design experience to create beautiful emails that their subscribers would be delighted to read. This email tool also contains marketing automation tools that allow you to create workflows for automatic follow-up emails and segment users. SendinBlue has a free plan and a paid plan starting from $25 per month. The free plans allow you to send up to 300 emails daily but your emails will carry their logo. You can also include SMS to your account, but the pricing will vary based on your sending requirements. They have improved their premium plan recently to include more advanced features like landing page builder, live chat, sales CRM, and Facebook ads integration. This means users now get more value for the same price.
- Mailchimp – Mailchimp is one of the oldest email marketing tools on the market today. They have got a free plan and a paid plan. Their free plan provides you with basic email marketing features such as email creation and scheduling. The feature that sets Mailchimp apart from the rest includes smart analytics, this feature allows you to gain valuable insight into the behavior of your subscribers. There are a lot of templates and designs if you cannot design yours and you can also schedule emails to be posted later without any worry.
- Omnisend – Omnisend is an email marketing platform made for e-commerce businesses. Omnisend has a free plan and a paid plan. With the free plan, you can only send out emails to your readers, which is more than enough for small businesses just starting. Omnisend’s automation feature enables businesses to send out emails based on the behavior and at the convenience of your customer. And if you can’t design your own you can use Omnisend’s product picker to select a variety of features you want in your email.
Conclusion and Frequently asked questions about the Best email marketing tool on the market today
Are you wondering if there are other email marketing software asides from those mentioned in this post? The answer is yes. There are many other email marketing software that was not mentioned. Some of them include; MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Ontraport, Mailjet, Campaign Monitor, InfusionSoft (now Keap), Klaviyo, Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot by Salesforce, Sendloop, iContact, Moosend, Emma, TotalSend, SharpSpring, MailPoet, and more.
How much does email marketing cost?
There is no direct answer to this question. The cost of email marketing depends on several factors; the number of email subscribers, the number of emails you send out every month, and the email marketing platform you use. The price a small business owner accrues at the end of the month for email marketing won’t be the same as a big business using the services of a digital agency.
Which is the best free email marketing service?
A good majority of the email marketing software today has a cap on the number of emails you are allowed to have on their free plan. But few such as SendinBlue, Mailerlite, and Mailchimp are the only exceptions out there.
Can email marketing help with SEO?
There is no correlation between email marketing and SEO. Although both of them deals with traffic, email marketing deals with sharing information with just your subscribers while SEO involves a set of practices that gets your content to a wider and newer set of audience.
Hopefully, on getting to this part, you would have gotten an idea of the best email marketing software that suits your budget and business needs. And we hope you have a better understanding of the various features you ought to look out for now.
Also, as a small business, you should check out our steps to marketing your small business for more insights.
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