When launching a startup, business founders will acknowledge that it necessitates both bravery and, more importantly, the appropriate skill set and suitable tools.
Email marketing is a highly effective tool for startups because email is the most widely used form of marketing communication. It is widely accessible, with over 4 billion people, or more than half of the global population, using email in 2022.
In addition, email marketing generates a notable return on investment. Based on a survey conducted in 2021, an average return of $36 can be anticipated for every $1 spent on email marketing.
If you’re uncertain about where to begin when it comes to adopting email marketing software in 2022, this guide will provide step-by-step explanations of the reasons, methods, and components involved.
Why is email marketing important for startups?
The foundation of every digital marketing strategy is email marketing. It serves as the main method for a brand to engage with customers and potential customers, display its products and services, discuss promotional opportunities, and share company updates.
The use of best practice email marketing has the potential to transform brand engagement from nothing to extraordinary. By enhancing the brand-customer relationship, it also leads to a boost in customer retention. As a result of establishing a strong connection, a brand can securely gather customer data, enabling them to provide more customized communications.
The primary objective for a startup is to entice a high-quality lead to open your email. When they do, you will have their undivided attention, provided that the content is pertinent, well-presented, and avoids being marked as spam (we will address this later). Emails have the potential to be interactive and dynamic, without being influenced by an algorithm, ensuring that recipients see exactly what you send. Afterwards, it is your responsibility to convert them.
What is email marketing software?
Email marketing software improves email marketing efforts by enabling users to effortlessly create and distribute marketing emails, as well as analyze key performance indicators like open rates and click-through rates. It simplifies time-consuming tasks such as sending individual emails, creating email templates, and organizing marketing campaigns across various platforms.
By utilizing marketing automation tools, companies are able to combine their email, digital advertising, social media, and lead-generation campaigns, while also evaluating the effectiveness of the complete customer journey.
VentureBeat states that companies that utilize marketing automation software witness an 80% surge in leads and a 77% increase in conversion, clearly demonstrating the effectiveness of marketing automation.
The benefits of using email marketing software in a startup
Below, there are five reasons why you should invest in email marketing software, as you are already aware of the significance of communicating with customers and potential customers through email.
- Efficiency
Given that business founders often have limited time availability, it becomes crucial to introduce tools that can enhance productivity and efficiency.
When considering all the steps involved, it is not feasible to manually send an individual email every time a person engages with your website or buys something, particularly if you want to expand your business. By utilizing email marketing software, you can automate time-consuming responsibilities, thereby giving you more freedom to concentrate on vital aspects such as your marketing strategy.
- Content relevance
Although email is the primary means of communication, it does pose difficulties. According to Statista, the daily count of sent and received emails surpasses 333 billion, and this figure is anticipated to reach 376.4 billion by 2025.
A startup faces the challenging task of distinguishing itself and promoting its business amidst the large number of emails we receive in our inboxes every day.
To ensure that customers and leads receive content that genuinely appeals to them, it is crucial to use email marketing software to collect and analyze audience data. This includes identifying the lead source and considering customer preferences based on their purchase history and interactions with brands. By doing so, the email content can be personalized accordingly.
One way to experiment with targeting is by segmenting your audience. An example of this is conducting A/B split tests on email subject lines to identify the type of content that appeals the most to your audience.
The more information you have about your audience, the more you can customize the content you send them, leading to a higher engagement rate.
- Personalization
Continuing from the previous point, having a better understanding of your audience enables you to add more personalized elements. A majority of customers (72%) indicate that they currently only interact with marketing materials that have been customized and adapted to their specific interests. Emails that are personalized have a higher open rate by 4.5% compared to the typical open rate (26% and 21.5% respectively).
One way to personalize is by including the customer’s name in the email subject line. Another way is to display products that potential customers have shown interest in, according to their website visits.
- Mobile optimization
Litmus reports that the Apple iPhone is the most widely used email client globally, as it accounts for 34.2% of email openings. Following closely is Gmail with 30.7%. Additionally, a different study discovered that 70% of users delete emails that fail to render correctly on their mobile devices, and 15% of users opt to unsubscribe due to this issue.
The main point is evident: Make sure your emails are optimized for mobile. Specifically, prioritize the appearance of emails on mobile devices over their appearance on desktops.
- Email templates
When launching a startup, it is necessary to take shortcuts, but using email marketing software allows you to maintain integrity without making any compromises.
You can utilize email marketing software such as Ortto to create a personalized email template. This includes ensuring the appropriate balance between images and text, placing call-to-action buttons in the correct locations, and so on. Once the template is created, it can be saved for future use. Furthermore, you have the option to establish your own Brand Book which allows you to define your brand colors, logos, padding, and more. When you need to send an email again, you can effortlessly insert your new content into the pre-designed template and the email will automatically adapt to match your branding.
Ortto provides a range of email marketing templates that can be fully customized using a drag-and-drop email editor. These templates cover various types of emails, including welcome emails and announcements for new features.
How to choose the best email marketing software for your startup
To simplify the decision-making process, ask yourself the following questions when comparing email marketing software.
- What’s your biggest pain point?
To start, contemplate the primary issue you aim to resolve. Email marketing software can tackle various problems. For instance, it can simplify the management of your campaign process and flow. Additionally, it can enhance lead management by helping to generate and nurture leads.
If you are a startup, your main obstacle is most likely converting strangers into leads and leads into customers.
- What features are you looking for?
Are you wondering what is at the top of your shopping list? Do you require assistance in dividing your lists into leads and customers? Are you interested in exploring pre-made email templates? Alternatively, would you like to create customized email drip campaigns? Perhaps you would like to evaluate customer journeys and compare the effectiveness of each email.
- What channels are you targeting?
Do you aim to reach customers through various channels such as Facebook, Google, SMS, and email? Are your customers scattered and do they consume content online and offline? Do you require diverse content strategies to stay competitive?
- What is your lead management strategy?
Are you in possession of CRM software that you already use and want to find a method to combine it with a marketing automation platform? Do you have a compilation of leads and customers that are spread out across various spreadsheets, event lists, or sales marketing tools?
- What can’t you live without?
Are you in need of integrating with Salesforce, Pipedrive or any other CRM software? Are you in need of customizing your messages and maintaining your marketing in line with your brand? Are you in need of a method for creating customer journeys and fostering collaboration between teams?
The best email marketing software for startups
Best Email Marketing Overall for Startups: AWeber
With its status as one of the oldest email marketing services, AWeber has long been a popular choice for small businesses. If you’re seeking a reliable email marketing service, AWeber is an excellent option.
AWeber provides essential features, such as automated emails, segmentation, list management, and more, necessary for running successful email campaigns. The notable aspect of AWeber is its high reliability, ensuring that your emails are consistently sent out on schedule and to the intended recipients.
Benefits or advantages
- Extremely reliable and widely used
- Has a full set of email marketing features
- Great customer support with online resources
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- Higher cost than other email marketing services
The breakdown of the price is to be thought about step by step.
- AWeber Free: $0
- AWeber Pro: Starts at $19.99/month
Best for Ecommerce: Drip
No matter the platform your website is on, Drip can seamlessly integrate with it to effortlessly create a robust email marketing funnel. This is beneficial because establishing an email funnel is crucial for successful email marketing, and Drip simplifies the process.
Drip differentiates itself from others by offering advanced email marketing tools such as improved automation, segmentation, and split testing capabilities. It is particularly beneficial for ecommerce businesses and provides ample automated support to ensure the smooth functioning of your sales pipeline.
The advantages are: – It allows for a logical and organized thought process. – It helps to break down complex tasks into manageable steps. – It aids in problem-solving and decision-making by considering all factors and alternatives. – It promotes clear communication and understanding by presenting information in a structured manner. – It enhances efficiency and productivity by ensuring a systematic approach to tasks.
- Integrates into most major website-building platforms
- Offers advanced tools for ecommerce businesses
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- Harder to use and integrate
Breaking down the price into separate components by considering each step.
- 500 contacts: $19/month
- 2,000 contacts: $29/month
- 2,500 contacts: $39/month
- 3,000 contacts: $49/month
- Higher-volume packages available
Best for Sending Newsletters: GetResponse
If your goal is to send newsletters to your audience, consider using GetResponse. It provides a variety of templates to choose from and simplifies the process of creating visually appealing emails that will be compatible with all devices.
In addition to its good automation capabilities, GetResponse allows users to establish email campaigns that will operate automatically, eliminating the need for any manual input. Moreover, if you seek a method to monitor the effectiveness of your newsletters, GetResponse provides reliable reporting tools.
Advantages
- Variety of original templates to choose from
- Great automation tools
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- Lack of integrations and API abilities
A breakdown of the price.
- Free up to 500 contacts
- Basic: $19/mo
- Plus: $59/mo
- Professional: $119/mo
Best for Marketing and Advertising Startups: Keap
For businesses seeking a more advanced email marketing system, Keap is an excellent choice. It provides a wide range of features such as automation, CRM integrations, and lead scoring, all of which can enhance your sales process.
If you need to make adjustments, Keap offers a high level of customization, allowing you to tailor it to your preferences. Additionally, if you require guidance on any particular feature or task, Keap’s support team is readily accessible and willing to assist you.
Advantages
- Marketing automations
- Lead nurturing
- Opportunity tracking
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- Outdated user interface
A breakdown of the price is provided.
- Free for up to 100 contacts and one user
- Lite: $79/mo (500 contacts)
- Pro: $169/month (1,500 contacts)
- Max: $249/month (2,500 contacts)
Best for Non-Tech Savvy Entrepreneurs: Constant Contact
Due to its integration with the WPForms plugin, Constant Contact has gained a strong reputation in the email marketing industry. Its popularity among entrepreneurs, who may lack technical expertise and seek simplicity, can be attributed to its seamless compatibility with WordPress.
The functionality required to expand your email marketing is included, such as segmented audiences, options for importing contact lists, pre-designed templates, and a drag-and-drop email builder.
Advantages
- Extremely easy to integrate into WordPress
- Has essential email marketing features
- One of the fastest-growing services in the industry
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- Very focused on WordPress sites
Explanation of the cost breakdown.
- Core: $9.99/month
- Plus: $45/month
Best for Scaling: HubSpot
In 2006, HubSpot was established as a platform for inbound marketing and sales. Over time, it has emerged as the top CRM for small businesses globally. HubSpot provides various tools for businesses, encompassing email marketing, SEO, social media, and content management.
HubSpot is advantageous because it is not solely designed for startups, but can also adapt to the growth of your business. If you seek a platform that can accommodate your business regardless of its size, HubSpot is the ideal choice.
Advantages
- Integrated with CRM functionality
- Can service small to large businesses
- Largest offer of features available
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- Can be confusing to use all of the functionality offered
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- Starter: $45/month
- Professional: $800/month
- Enterprise: $3,200/month
Best for Customer Engagement: Sendinblue
If you want your email marketing to enhance your ability to engage with your audience and foster stronger connections, Sendinblue is an excellent choice. It provides all the capabilities of an email marketing system, along with a CMS system, to equip you with everything necessary for running successful campaigns.
With its user-friendly interface and editor that allows for simple dragging and dropping, sending personalized emails to your audience becomes extremely effortless. Additionally, you will have the capability to categorize potential customers according to their level of engagement with your brand.
Advantages
- Very easy-to-use interface
- Combines email marketing with a CMS system
- Advanced features available like prospect ranking
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- Not as established as other brands
Breakdown of the price
- Free: $0
- Lite: Starts at $25/month
- Premium: Starts at $65/month
- Enterprise: Contact for quote
More email marketing software for startups
- Ortto
Renowned for its ability to combine all customer data to improve personalization in email communications; providing a comprehensive overview of customers, along with powerful reporting and analytics tools.
Ortto’s email marketing software offers a comprehensive solution for top-notch email marketing. With this software, users have the ability to create visually appealing branded emails, customize messages, conduct A/B tests, utilize AI technology, and monitor and analyze outcomes. It encompasses all the advanced features without any complexities.
Ortto’s customer data platform differs from other software by having reporting functionality, which allows users to have a unified perspective of customer journeys and assists in visualizing customer activities and behavior.
The main characteristics are:
- Team collaboration and sharing
- SMS marketing
- In-app messaging
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Brand book
- Visual journey builder
- Mobile insights reporting
- Marketing automation
- Lead management
- Lead scoring
- A/B split testing
- Smart segmentation
- AI tools including subject line recommendations
- Facebook and Google ads
- Marketing automation templates
- Known and anonymous visitor tracking
- Mailchimp
Recognized for its expertise in batch and blast email marketing.
Mailchimp’s email marketing software, which is easy to use for beginners, is widely recognized globally. It is utilized by 13 million businesses in 175 countries, enabling marketers to prioritize their audience and effortlessly send effective conversion-focused emails.
The main features of it comprise:
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Mobile insights reporting
- Marketing automation is available on every plan
- Lead management
- High-volume sending
- A/B split testing
- Facebook and Google ads
- Marketing automation templates
- Basic reporting
- Campaign Monitor
Famous for: emails that are highly personalized.
Campaign Monitor is an email marketing tool that is user-friendly and enables marketers to create personalized and visually appealing emails. It offers a drag-and-drop email builder that is straightforward to use, and includes a segmentation functionality based on engagement, making it easy to target subscribers.
Key features: The primary characteristics:
- Build and personalize emails
- Drag-and-drop builder
- Email and mobile preview
- Manage email lists
- High-volume sending
- Manage email deliverability
- Automated email responses
- A/B testing
- Basic reporting
- Moosend
Renowned for: emails that are interactive and include multimedia content.
Moosend is a platform for marketing automation and email marketing that enables users to effortlessly generate email newsletter campaigns, subscription forms, and landing pages.
The primary characteristics are:
- Email and mobile preview
- Build and personalize emails
- Automated email responses
- Manage email lists
- High-volume sending
- Management email deliverability
- Omnisend
Renowned for: its expertise in omnichannel marketing.
Marketers have the ability to create personalized automated workflows for every step of the customer journey using Omnisend. The omnichannel feature allows for better management of customer engagement across various channels such as SMS, social media, website, and email.
The main features are:
- Build and personalize emails
- Automated email responses
- Dynamic content
- Mobile optimized
- Segmentation
- Online behavior tracking
- Basic reporting
- ROI analytics
Email marketing tips for startups
- Grow your email list
For a startup, building brand awareness from the beginning to attract leads of high quality can be a challenging task; however, thanks to the ever-evolving field of digital marketing, there are various paths available for exploration.
To begin with, it is necessary to cultivate a list of email addresses. Email addresses hold immense value for marketers. People do not readily disclose their email addresses to just anyone; they must be deserving. Hence, when someone provides you with their email address, they are essentially giving consent to receive communication from you and expressing interest in your content.
The following are the most common methods of expanding an email list:
- Harness social media to encourage signups: Using targeted ads based on audience demographic and behavior, you can talk to your target audience and promote your content and/or products and services. Tip: Instagram has a higher engagement rate than Facebook (due in part to its ecommerce features), and TikTok is the fastest-growing social network with a 105% user growth rate between 2019 and 2021.
- Implement email signup forms on your site: Most ecommerce sites incorporate a visible signup form, either on the sidebar or as a pop-up.
- Collect emails at checkout: Perhaps the easiest way to grab someone’s email address is when they are purchasing a product or service on your website. This email address holds value because they are already a customer.
- Segment leads and customers
After gathering all the emails and information about leads and customers into a single location, the next step is to separate them into segments. Segmenting leads is crucial in marketing as individuals have varying requirements and are in different phases of the purchasing process.
Leads can be categorized into different groups using demographic, behavioral, event-based, transaction, and firmographic data. Instances of activity or behavior include:
- Homepage visit
- Email subscriber
- Existing customer
- Content download
- Product/service page visit
- Repeat visit
- Abandoned shopping cart
Once you have finished dividing the audience into segments, you can proceed to send them email content that is relevant to their interests in order to enhance their level of engagement.
- Send personalized emails
Improve open rates by automating email marketing campaigns with time-zone-based delivery, using either a pre-designed email template or your own custom design saved in your template library.
- A/B test to improve conversions
To enhance open rates, conversions, and revenue, it is recommended to engage in A/B testing within email marketing. This involves testing different language and communication styles in email subject lines, content, and CTA buttons to identify effective strategies.
- Ensure good deliverability
Email deliverability is the reason why one out of every six emails either ends up in the spam folder or is blocked from reaching recipients’ inboxes.
The location where your email arrives in your recipients’ inbox is known as email deliverability. If your email is directed to a recipient’s spam folder, it indicates inadequate deliverability.
The deliverability of your emails is contingent upon the level of trust that a mailbox provider associates with them. If a mailbox provider identifies spam-triggering words in your emails, it is probable that they will classify them as spam and they will not be seen. The quality of your email list is another factor that affects deliverability. If you consistently send emails to contacts who are not engaging with them, the mailbox provider might view your campaign as low quality and reroute it to the spam folder.
Your sender’s reputation and the deliverability of your emails will be influenced by all these factors. To address this, provide your contacts with the choice to unsubscribe or receive less frequent emails. This will result in including more high-quality leads in your lists and improving your engagement rates.
- Track and analyze performance
To ensure continuous improvement, carefully assess the effectiveness of your email marketing strategy.
