Wondering what your options are for email software?
Maybe you are using a free plan at the moment, but starting to get to the point where your subscriber list is pushing you out of the free plan into a paid plan?
Or maybe you have decided it’s time to start giving email marketing a try, and you are interested in what’s available and how to identify the best solution for you?
Well, let’s walk through how to find what you need.
4 Factors For Selecting The Best Email Software For Your Business
Remember that you are looking for a solution that will help you grow your business – and that typically means something that will help you save time, consistently deliver a valuable experience for you and your subscribers, and generate a positive return on your investment.
With that in mind, here are four basics you should focus on during your search.
Easy to learn, easy to use. As you look around and gather information about your email software options, go beyond reading reviews and their websites, and check out their training videos and programs. The outstanding email software options have a substantial investment in video and written content that helps users develop their skills.
Spend some time on their “How to get started,” “How to upload your subscriber list,” and “Sending your first email.” These are the three first steps, and if you can use their training materials to get through them with a sense of calm, you might have found yourself a solution.
Email Automation. One feature you will want is automation because it saves you a lot of time, effort, and energy. Email automation is the ability to create an email campaign that sends emails to subscribers based on their actions or inactions.
For example, let’s say you create a lead magnet (offer) with a landing page so you can capture the email address and name of someone that wants that offer. Email automation allows you to create a campaign based on rules so that when someone submits the landing page form, an email is sent to the person with the lead magnet.
No fuss. No muss. Easy peasy.
List Segmentation. You will want to segment your email subscriber list so you can easily send the right information to the right people. Most email software offers this feature – you will want to see which one lets you perform this task in a way you find the simplest.
For example, some subscribers might be long-time clients, and others might still be prospective clients. You might want to segment based on these factors so you can send emails focused on the benefits of becoming a client to the prospects, but not the clients.
You might also have clients and prospects that are interested in one of your products, and others that are interested in more than one of your products. You might want to segment your list based on these factors so you can send the right product information and offers to the right subscribers.
Email segmentation is an effective marketing strategy that can increase your email open rates by 203%.
Price. This factor is last on purpose. I know that price is important to all of us. But try to focus on the potential return on your investment rather than the expense.
Why?
Remember, your goal with email marketing is to make your life easier while growing your business, and if a feature you need costs a little more, try to calculate how that feature pays for itself.
I have had clients that needed advanced automation so they could create some rather complex automations, but that would cost them $40 per month, and they didn’t want to pay the money. But when we sat down and looked at the projected impact on sales, they saw how one new client per year would cover the cost.
Also, remember to check out their free plans and trial offers. They are great ways to test the email software in real-world settings so you can determine if the software will meet your needs.
Sendinblue is an email and SMS marketing software, and its design is simple, straightforward, so anyone can quickly get started without any prior experience.
You can design your emails easily, send your emails to your entire list, segments of your list, as well as 1:1 transactional emails – all with robust tracking and reporting capabilities. And you can automate emails as well as SMS.
Pricing is based on emails sent, not the size of your subscriber list – which is an attractive option to some businesses. And they do offer a free plan to help you get started with their software.
You can check out their Help Center as well as their YouTube channel to learn more.
And you may want to check out Sendinblue review on PC Magazine’s site, this review on Email Vendor Selection, and this review on Email Tool Tester.
Constant Contact is one of the more popular email marketing services for small businesses and offer email templates, automation, the ability to manage your ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Google, as well as e-commerce integration.
They have a free test drive option and offer two plans with various levels of features that start at $20 per month based on the number of subscribers. (If you have up to 500 subscribers, the price for their Email Plan is $20. This plan increases to $45 per month for 501 to 2,500 subscribers and tops out at $95 per month for 5,001 to 10,000 subscribers.
The Email Plus Plan, which offers your surveys, polls, coupons, and other services, starts at $45 per month for under 500 and tops out at $335 per month for 35,001 to 50,000.
Remember, the benefit of a pricing plan like this is there is no cap on the number of emails you send out – unlike the plans that charge based on the number of emails sent. So, depending on your strategy, this option could be more beneficial fo you.
You can check out their Knowledge Base, and their Youtube Channel, and you can read the Email Vendor Selection review as well as the PC Magazine review.
Mailchimp is another highly popular email marketing platform with some powerful and very affordable features, including segmentation, drag-and-drop email design plus templates, surveys, polls, landing pages, social posting, pop-up forms, and automations.
Pricing is based on list size and starts with a free plan for lists under 2,000. The features are minimal with the free plan, but if your needs are simple, it should be more than enough. They also offer an “Essentials” plan that lets you manage up to three audiences and 50,000 contacts that starts at $9.99 per month, and a “Standard” plan that enables you to manage up to five audiences and 100,000 contacts that starts at $14.99 per month.
(An ‘audience’ at Mailchimp is a unique group of people, and you can have segments within the audience. The ability to have multiple audiences is ideal for someone with several different businesses.)
You can check out their Training Resources, and Youtube Channel, as well as their review on PC Magazine, and Email Tool Tester.
AWeber is “stress-free email marketing designed to help your small business grow.” They offer you a smart designer, landing pages, drag-and-drop email design, a free template library, automation, segmentation, and more.
AWeber offers a free trial, and they base their paid plans on the number of subscribers that start at $19 per month for 500 or fewer, and up to $149 per month for 10,000 to 25,000 subscribers. And they offer custom plans for more than 25,000 subscribers, as well as quarterly and annual payment options that can save you up to 14.9%.
You can check out their How-to Videos and Youtube channel.
So, What's The Best Choice For Your Business?
These email software options are just a few of many options in the market today, so you need to get out there and see what you prefer.
Take advantage of the free trials and take the email software that captures your interest for a test drive. (I would suggest a test drive with friends and family before reaching out to your clients.)
Some other options include:
Drip – for automating your e-commerce site
Convertkit – for online creators
GetResponse – for small businesses, includes webinar platform
MailerLite – for small businesses
Keap – email, CRM and more for small businesses
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Let’s talk about your needs and how I can help you achieve your goals.
