Emails, which we all know and have affection for, are sent and received on a global level at a staggering rate of over 290 billion per day. It is an undeniable fact that consumers have a fondness for receiving newsletters as they eagerly desire immediate communication from their preferred brands. In a nutshell, it can be concluded that email is highly favored by people.
Email marketing is important because it provides a straightforward and efficient means of connecting with leads at a low cost. It has been reported by marketers that email marketing can yield a return on investment as high as 44x. Furthermore, it allows for creativity in terms of crafting enticing subject lines, testing visually appealing templates, and generating sales of supplementary products and services.
Email marketing is popular and effective because it allows targeting of existing and future customers without expensive investments. Numerous email marketing software options are available, offering scalable tools for various markets.
What characteristics should you consider when choosing an efficient and budget-friendly email marketing service that makes it great?
- Budget
- Costs
- Size of the database
- Level of automation
- Special additions such as analytics
While it’s helpful to have this information, how can you determine the most suitable email marketing platform for your business? We have a few handy recommendations to assist you. Here are the top email marketing platforms for startups and small businesses.
Best Email Marketing Services for Small Businesses
- Campaigner
If you want to try something that can help you increase sales and revenue, impact your audience’s customer journeys, and widen your marketing channels while safeguarding your business’s reputation, then you should consider giving Campaigner a chance.
With Campaigner, you can create impressive emails using customizable templates and send personalized messages that provide genuine value to your customers. Additionally, its robust email automation feature enables you to build customized customer journeys that effectively drive conversions.
The Reputation Defender feature guarantees that your list is in good health, detects errors prior to sending emails, and aids in identifying risky contacts that may harm your sending reputation.
Additionally, if you plan to explore alternative marketing platforms, Campaigner provides a solution called Campaigner SMS. This is a marketing automation service that allows you to develop workflows.
Campaigner offers a month-long (30 days) free trial period, which allows you to try out all of its over 60 advanced features and see how Campaigner can enhance your marketing strategy.
- Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)
Brevo, like the well-known ActiveCampaign, provides a service that is both easy to use and comprehensive in its functions, while being more affordable.
Brevo offers a comprehensive CRM section and provides exceptional opportunities for automation, integration, and segmentation, giving it a distinct advantage over other platforms. Nonetheless, the interface may be more complex compared to simpler services such as Mailchimp.
It is a great tool for SMS marketing and offers a variety of templates for email creation.
Brevo enables the creation of personalized workflows to automate email sending. It is also possible to utilize the contacts’ website activity as a trigger for the emails. For instance, an automated email can be sent if a customer adds an item to their cart but neglects to proceed with the checkout process.
Brevo provides a completely free account that allows you to send up to 300 emails per day and receive an unlimited number of contacts. If you require a higher email sending limit, paid plans begin at $25 per month.
- SMTP
SMTP has achieved consistently amazing results in email deliverability, making it one of the few service providers to do so. Its high delivery rates have resulted in its placement among industry leaders. Therefore, it is not surprising that over the past two decades, more than 100,000 businesses worldwide have relied on SMTP for their email delivery.
SMTP is part of Ziff Davis, Inc., a digital media giant in the MarTech industry. It is known for its reliable infrastructure, which prevents server blacklisting and ensures successful delivery of emails to subscribers’ inboxes.
SMTP provides detailed reporting, email relay API, and reliable support from an in-house team of experts to all of its clients. Additional services offered include Reputation Defender, dedicated IP, and on-demand statistics aggregation. Clients who are satisfied have reported notable enhancements in deliverability, brand engagement, and customer retention.
SMTP offers a variety of plans that accommodate businesses of all sizes and types, ranging from small startups to large enterprises. The plans begin at $25 per month and include 50,000 emails along with essential features. For growing businesses, there is an option to send up to 500,000 emails per month by paying a monthly fee of $300.
- Omnisend
If you are a small business in the eCommerce sector, you may want to consider Omnisend. It is a reliable choice with a strong reputation among over 70,000 eCommerce brands. Omnisend provides a range of user-friendly marketing tools specifically designed for eCommerce, including powerful features for email marketing.
In conclusion, they are ideal for email campaigns that include a lot of visuals and provide an excellent selection of templates. Their user-friendly content editor allows for easy customization of each template by dragging and dropping elements.
In order to ensure that your well-crafted email receives the appropriate open rate, you have the option to utilize features such as A/B testing, segmentation, and optimization. By utilizing customer profile data and their shopping history, you can create audience segments that have the potential to enhance your conversion rates by up to 60%.
With the assistance of their advanced reporting, you can accurately track and attribute sales to measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns. This will provide a clearer understanding of how subscribers are interacting with your emails and enable you to identify best practices for future campaigns.
- Convertkit
Free Plans provide you with the opportunity to initiate the growth of your audience by offering beneficial features such as an unlimited selection of landing page templates and forms, as well as the ability to handle up to 1,000 subscribers.
Based on the number of subscribers, the cost of paid plans varies from $9 to over $25.
Convertkit offers a seamless and user-friendly experience to create and execute email campaigns. It provides the desired fluidity and flexibility, resulting in great performance and increased productivity. Additionally, Convertkit’s automation feature allows users to save time and easily create customer funnels. Compared to other software, Convertkit is affordable and eliminates the need to know coding and HTML, making it accessible to all users. The platform also includes a drag-and-drop capability, allowing for the creation of professional emails that convert. Furthermore, Convertkit offers an automation feature that allows users to view the entire layout of their funnel.
- GetResponse
GetResponse is an email marketing platform suitable for small and medium-sized businesses, as well as for those who have recently established a business. However, even major corporations like Ikea and Unicef use GetResponse to effortlessly generate impactful and streamlined emails using a user-friendly tool.
The service is known for being cost-effective and user-friendly. It provides a range of features and integrations, along with comprehensive statistics. However, the drawback lies in its limited development of automation processes.
One reason why GetResponse is a great email marketing service to consider investing in is the availability of additional features to meet various marketing requirements. These include, but are not limited to, creating and optimizing landing pages, managing conversion funnels, and utilizing marketing automation.
- ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is an affordable Email Marketing platform that is user-friendly and offers various tailored features for small businesses and startups to choose from.
Active Campaign has a CRM system to manage leads and automatically organize sales and marketing. The platform offers process automation, along with informative reports, to help users evaluate the effectiveness of their email marketing efforts.
ActiveCampaign is a great email marketing service to consider because of its ability to filter the process of acquiring a customer experience. The platform’s official website filters potential users based on industry, product, and role, enabling them to tailor your email marketing service to your specific needs and preferences.
- AWeber
AWeber is an appropriate option for individuals working in the web marketing industry who are seeking a dependable tool but have a restricted budget.
AWeber’s official website states that their mission is to provide email marketing that is both powerful and simple for small businesses, with the aim of doing 90% of the work for them. The remaining 10% is left for the businesses to enjoy and have fun with. It is hard to resist the appeal of having fun, isn’t it?
AWeber’s detailed and intuitive reports can be beneficial for beginners, while split tests are advantageous for more experienced power users.
AWeber offers various features such as a ready-to-use template library, an AI-driven design assistant, an email and landing page designer with drag-and-drop functionality, a campaign marketplace, and automated campaign capabilities.
- Drip
Drip, a robust email marketing platform, offers strong integration with WooCommerce, making it an excellent choice for e-commerce website owners. With its smart marketing automation tools and advanced email segmentation capabilities, it provides effective marketing solutions.
Drip also offers extensive support via live chat, in addition to webinars, comprehensive online courses, and high-quality documentation.
Depending on your email marketing outreach needs, it might not be the most cost-effective option, but investing in it is worthwhile to optimize your marketing endeavors.
- OptinMonster
OptinMonster excels as a conversion optimization software platform in the market for effortlessly transforming website visitors into email subscribers and customers.
It includes lightbox popups, slide-in modules, welcome mats, coupon wheels, and other features that are easy to integrate.
OptinMonster collaborates seamlessly with widely-used email marketing services, efficiently boosting the number of subscribers on your email list.
It contains numerous features that enable automatic targeting of users and displaying personalized campaigns. As an illustration, it allows tailored messages to be showcased for various pages on your website. Additionally, it facilitates campaigns that are determined by user activity and geographical location.
What Is Email Marketing Software?
Email marketing software refers to platforms that are specifically designed to make it easy for you to create and transmit marketing emails to leads and customers. These platforms offer various features that aid in contact management, audience segmentation, and tracking email interactions. Additionally, they assist in maintaining compliance by ensuring that marketing emails are sent only to individuals who have subscribed and given consent to receive communications from you.
Many email marketing programs offer tools that allow you to create digital marketing campaigns. These tools include drag-and-drop email editors, landing page builders, custom forms for lead generation on your sites, and workflow automation. Additionally, these programs provide various reports, such as click-through rates and open rates, to help you improve audience interactions by identifying areas that need adjustment.
How To Choose the Best Email Marketing Software
When deciding on the best email marketing software, it is important to consider the specific requirements of your team. A basic email marketing tool allows you to create, send, and monitor emails. If you require more advanced features, consider an email marketing platform that offers additional capabilities beyond sending emails. It is beneficial to opt for all-in-one solutions that enable you to create landing pages, establish web intake forms, and incorporate automation features for increased efficiency.
To choose the right tool for you, take into consideration these factors.
- Send volume: Do the send limits and their corresponding price points make sense for your business plans for the near future?
- Migration: Can you easily migrate customer data from an existing platform into a new one?
- Integrations: If you need to, can you use your email list for retargeting ads on social media and around the web? Does the platform work with your existing CRM, online store, and other systems?
- Design: Do the available templates and customization options fit your brand? Do the free themes and templates include features that serve your needs?
- Ease of use: How easily can you create and send an email or set up an automation? Will you need to hire an email specialist, designer, or coder to build emails?
- Autonomy and customization: How much control do you have over the look and feel of your emails and newsletters? Does the platform have the functionality you need? Will your customers see the software’s logo on your emails?
Characteristics that are necessary or vital
All options for an email marketing platform should have basic features, as mentioned previously. At minimum, you should anticipate the presence of tools for creating emails and managing contacts. It should be possible for you to categorize your audiences into two or more groups. For instance, you can establish a separate contact list for non-marketing purposes (vendors, business partners, etc.) that is distinct from your subscribers.
Email marketing software includes basic reports that allow you to track open rates and click-through rates of your email campaigns. These reports provide insights into the effectiveness of your call-to-action. Additionally, email marketing software offers integrations and automation features that enable you to share data between your email marketing platform and other tools like CRM or project management software that you utilize.
Step by step, consider revising the text below to maintain the same meaning. Do not introduce additional information or omit any information: Automation and artificial intelligence (AI)
Automation and AI are found on the more advanced side of email marketing features. Among the top email marketing platforms, there are workflow automation capabilities for campaigns. Hence, it becomes possible to arrange a sequence of emails for a specific audience and establish a schedule for each email to be sent based on various conditions like opening an email, clicking a link, or not opening an email. Consequently, this enhances the effectiveness of each campaign and minimizes the need for extensive involvement from the marketing team.
In terms of AI, you can discover machine learning capabilities that involve predictive analytics, enabling you to assess the relative interest of leads and determine those that would gain from email or time-based predictions, such as identifying the optimal time to send an email to enhance open rates. Additionally, you can access tools that provide AI-generated content, encompassing subject lines, images, and body text.
Designing and creating templates.
When searching for the most suitable email marketing platform for your business, take into account how each platform handles design. Utilizing drag-and-drop editors can simplify the process of creating visually appealing emails, regardless of your level of design expertise or talent. Additionally, utilizing pre-made templates can be advantageous as it eliminates the need to design a newsletter from the ground up. Some templates are specifically optimized for achieving the highest possible click-through rate (CTR).
The process of adapting or modifying something to suit specific needs or requirements.
When you are beginning email marketing, it can be beneficial to use free or inexpensive plans. However, it is important to consider that these plans may offer limited customization options. The reason for their low cost is often due to the inclusion of the company’s branding on your sent emails and the forms you create and host on your website.
When considering which email marketing platform to choose, you should opt for one that may require additional cost but provides greater control over the appearance of your emails, landing pages, forms, and surveys. By being able to incorporate your own branding and refraining from giving away valuable advertising space to the email marketing service, you will appear more professional in your communications.
How much does email marketing software cost?
The price of email marketing software varies greatly depending on the plan you select. Some plans are free but have restrictions on the number of emails you can send per day or month, while others cost around $5 to $10 per month and also have limitations on sends or contact list size. According to Forbes Advisor’s top 10 list, the average cost of email marketing platforms for 500 contacts is approximately $20 per month.
Is Email Marketing Effective in 2023?
Email marketing is a cost-effective strategy that can drive sales, making it highly effective for several reasons. It can be used as the main marketing tool or as a supplement to other forms of direct marketing, but its effectiveness remains unchanged.
Email is used by over 4 billion people worldwide, making it a great platform for sales, marketing, and information. It appears that email marketing has been getting better over time. In 2022, almost 67% of email marketers saw an increase in the number of emails opened. Unlike traditional direct marketing methods, email marketing aims to foster communication between businesses and consumers. This may explain why unsubscribe rates are low, as indicated by GetResponse’s 2023 email marketing benchmarks report, which states an average unsubscribe rate of 0.09% in North America.
Email Marketing ROI
Regardless of whether you believe Omnisend’s 2022 data report indicating a $40 ROI for every $1 spent on email marketing or Litmus’s report stating an average ROI of $36 for every dollar spent, it is evident that email marketing is effective. It boasts one of the highest ROIs among various digital marketing methods for small businesses.
6 Tips To Improve Your Email Marketing Strategy
Improving your email marketing strategy involves a series of steps that revolve around the techniques, tools, and processes you employ. It commences with selecting the appropriate tools, constructing and segmenting your email list, and analyzing the outcomes of your campaigns. Here are a few helpful suggestions to enhance your email marketing strategy:
- Use Tools Made for Email Marketing
Email marketing software is specifically designed for managing contact lists, generating leads, and sending and tracking bulk emails. It offers additional features and integrations with other marketing tools like CRM and landing page builders. Standard email services like Microsoft Outlook and Gmail are not intended for email marketing purposes.
- Build Your Email List Proactively
You might already gather email addresses from customers after interacting with them, but there are additional steps you can take to increase your email list. Regardless of whether you sell physical products, digital items, or services, you should possess valuable information to provide for free—or in exchange for an email address. To attract leads, offer e-books, free trials, coupons, or a webinar, and all they need to do is provide their email address.
You can place the free offers you design on your website and promote them on social media or through digital advertising. After expanding your email list, you can proceed to segment it, which enables you to market to each group more effectively.
- Segment Your List by User Intent
Segmentation is an essential aspect of successful email marketing. By categorizing your audience based on their interests, you can develop campaigns that are more tailored to their preferences. At the minimum, you can divide your audience into customers and leads based on their purchase history. However, you have the option to further refine this categorization by considering factors such as geographical location, types of purchases, and website engagement.
You can simplify the process of segmenting your customers and leads by using surveys or setting up sign-up forms to gather information about their interests. This information can be used to create lists based on sales history or user behavior on your site using automated segmentation, which is a feature offered by top email marketing services.
- Engage Your Readers at Every Step
Crafting an effective marketing email involves more than solely focusing on the content. By making adjustments to various aspects of your emails, such as the form and subject lines, you can enhance your open rates and CTR.
- From: Try to avoid generic “from” names. Use your brand name or a name your users will recognize.
- Subject line: Several email marketing software help ensure you keep your subject line short so it’s eye-catching for the recipient. The preheader line is what shows up after or below the subject line, which can be a bit longer and include more enticing info to encourage a click. Use an emoji or two to make it fun.
- Body text: This is the meat of your message. You want to keep it short but informative and lead directly to the action you want your readers to take.
- Call to action (CTA): These are buttons or links that drive the email recipients to click through to your website, a form, or a product page.
The optimal time to send an email varies, but it is generally agreed that the best window is between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on weekdays. To increase your chances even further, consider sending your email on a Monday as data from HubSpot reveals that 22% of marketers believe that Monday yields the highest open rates.
- Measure Your Email Marketing Campaign Results
To determine the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns, it is advisable to review the reports provided by most email marketing software. These reports typically consist of basic metrics such as open rate, bounce rate, and CTR.
By incorporating split testing, also known as A/B testing, for subject lines, body text, and CTAs, you will be able to analyze the efficacy of different approaches. Utilize the collected data to refine your email marketing strategy and improve your open rate and click-through rate.
- Scrub, Rinse and Repeat
If you receive bounced emails, it’s only worrisome if it occurs frequently or if you fail to remove the incorrect email addresses. A high bounce rate may impact the placement of your emails, potentially causing them to land in spam folders instead of the desired inbox for your readers.
In order to maintain the same meaning, the text can be rephrased as follows: Ensure that the email addresses, which were not delivered due to reasons like fake or blocked emails, are eliminated. It should be simple to remove the bounced email addresses and proceed with your campaigns, adjusting them as necessary for improved outcomes in the next round.
