Email marketing provides brands with an amazing opportunity to engage with their target audience in a personal way. Not only does it enable you to promote products and services to your existing customer base, but also attracts new leads. But email marketing is a business’s most trusted ally when used correctly; for this reason, there are several things to consider when choosing the right email marketing service for your business needs. In this article, we'll list the top email marketing services to reach your marketing objectives and discuss some of the most decisive factors for picking the one most suitable for your business. But first things first, let’s discover the benefits email marketing brings to the table.
What Are the Benefits of Email Marketing?
Many marketers and business owners are under the mistaken belief that emails are outdated in the era of social media marketing. Well, they couldn’t be more wrong. Email marketing is a powerful tool in your marketing toolkit, and it can be used for a variety of purposes. Here are some of the benefits it reaps:
- Lead generation. Emails help you generate new leads and convert them into customers through targeted messages that showcase the benefits of joining your email list
- Building trusting relationships with your recipients. You can use your newsletter content to nurture them over time through content like educative blog posts or engaging videos
- Personal and direct communication. With emails, you access a prospect’s most private space - their inbox - and keep a direct line of communication with each and every reader.
- Personalized targeting. Email personalization allows you to target specific audiences with tailored messages based on criteria like demographics, behavioral information, purchasing habits, and more
- Increased engagement. Most email creators allow you to incorporate components like videos, images, surveys, etc. Including these elements in your email campaigns increases recipient engagement.
5 Best Email Marketing Services to Power Up Your Emails
Now that you know the benefits that come with email marketing, it’s time to review the best email marketing services for building your subscriber base and getting readers to open and interact with your emails.
Moosend
Moosend is a robust email marketing automation platform that offers solutions for creating emails, sign-up forms, and landing pages while managing and segmenting your email lists. It features a flexible drag-and-drop email builder with an intuitive interface. It’s packed with designer-made, customizable, and responsive email templates to use as a starting point for crafting stunning emails without any coding experience. The platform’s subscription form and landing page builders are equally user-friendly, which makes it great for beginners.
Moosend takes your email marketing to the next level with pre-built automation workflows that you can tweak to your liking by editing, adding, or duplicating steps. The tool’s real-time reporting and advanced A/B testing options help you better understand your audience and build more accurate customer personas. Also, there are several integration options with reputable apps so that you can seamlessly transfer data from one platform to another.
Pricing:
Moosend’s pricing starts at $7/month (billed annually), giving you access to a plethora of ready-made email templates, its built-in automation recipes, spam testing, and A/B testing options, as well as detailed analytics. Its 30-day free trial lets you test most of its features, including sending unlimited emails. Once the 30-day period is over, the platform’s flexible pricing model allows you to adjust your plan to your specific needs.
Mailchimp
(Mailchimp is a well-established email marketing service that lets you craft professional-looking email campaigns through a flexible email creator. It also offers basic social media tools, such as the option to create Facebook or Instagram ad campaigns, as well as a landing page builder. Mailchimp offers hundreds of integrations with popular applications like Shopify and detailed reporting metrics like eCommerce conversion rates. One of the features that stand out is its Content Optimizer tool which offers suggestions as to how to improve your content, even if you don’t have a content writer on your team. And if your business offers online or in-person services, Mailchimp has an appointment feature through which customers can check your availability and book their appointments.
Pricing:
MailChimp offers a free version for small businesses that don’t need advanced features like tracking or automation. The free version of Mailchimp limits you to 500 subscribers and lets you send 1,000 emails per month. You’ll have access to tools like basic email templates, 1-step automations, and social media options but not much else. Paid plans start at $12 per month with 5,000 email sends as well as some additional features like A/B testing.
Constant Contact
(Constant Contact is one of the oldest players in the market. For many years, many marketers and business owners have put their trust in it to create their emails, build their websites, manage their social media posts and ads, or set up their eCommerce businesses. It has a user-friendly email builder where you can create campaigns from scratch or customize existing templates by dragging and dropping the components of your choosing. Constant Contact simplifies contact management with a navigation bar while offering segmentation options through the use of tags. The platform brags for its Content Blocks feature that enables users to add elements like coupons or polls to their emails. There’s even a donation action block option for non-profit organizations to direct readers to a dedicated landing page and put in their donations to support their cause.
Pricing:
You can sign up for the tool’s 14-day free trial or start off with their basic plan. The Lite plan costs $10/month, letting you send up to 500 emails per month and use its social media marketing capabilities. It comes with limitations, though, like lacking access to segmentation options. The features offered increase as you upgrade. So if you want more from your ESP, you must consider upgrading to a high-tier plan.
SendInBlue
SendInBlue is an email marketing service with a large list of features. With regard to its email marketing, the platform provides powerful tools, some of which include a large selection of responsive email templates, personalization capabilities, and A/B testing. There’s an autoresponder feature that lets you set up automated emails based on user behavior, like when someone makes a purchase on your website. SendInBlue isn’t limited to email marketing, though but gives you alternative channels to reach out to prospects, like SMS, WhatsApp, or live chat. That makes it a good option for businesses that want to monitor all customer interactions on one platform. We should note, though, that this email marketing tool usually scores lower than other reputable ESPs in terms of email deliverability.
Pricing:
SendInBlue offers a free version, granting you access to its email template gallery, SMS marketing, and WhatsApp campaigns but limiting you in terms of A/B testing or landing page creation. The platform’s paid plans start at $25/month, removing the daily sending limit and the brand’s logo from your emails while allowing you to use basic analytics.
AWeber
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AWeber’s email marketing solution features an intuitive drag-and-drop editor and a large collection of pre-made email templates, which come in handy for people with zero coding experience. You can also use data from your website or Facebook account to craft visually-appealing emails that are aligned with your branding. There’s even an AI-driven design assistant to make the email creation process easier. AWeber offers capabilities to grow your email list with custom subscription forms and landing pages. In fact, it gives you the ability to build a landing page even if you don’t own a website. On top of that, its landing page creator comes with a wide collection of fun stock images to incorporate into your landing page.
Pricing:
AWeber’s free plan allows you up to 500 subscribers and includes basic email templates, one email automation, and one landing page. Paid plans start at $12,50/month (billed annually), offering unlimited contacts along with 3 landing pages and email automations. However, you don’t have access to the full template library and advanced reporting unless you opt for a more high-priced plan.
How to Choose the Best Email Marketing Service for Your Business
We understand that when searching for the ideal email marketing service, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. So, if you’re still uncertain of which ESP will best serve your business goals, here are the most critical factors to take into consideration:
Email Editor:
The first thing your email marketing tool should have is a large library of pre-made email templates you can customize in case you don’t want to build one from scratch. ESPs with intuitive drag-and-drop email editors enable you to add, remove, or edit elements and create emails that match your needs and branding. The more flexible your template options are, the better.
Easiness of Use:
Easiness of use is of utmost importance in order not to waste valuable time on platforms with complex interfaces or editors with steep learning curves. So, opt for an email marketing tool that allows you to set up and dispatch targeted campaigns from scratch, even if you lack the technical expertise.
Automation Features:
Investing in an ESP with advanced automation takes some of the load off your shoulders. Most reliable email marketing solutions are equipped with pre-made automation workflows that you can tweak to fit different needs and occasions like product recommendations, follow-up emails, or cart abandonment campaigns.
List Management and Segmentation:
There is no email marketing without email recipients. Therefore, you need proper list management and sophisticated segmentation to dispatch relevant email campaigns to every subscriber. Ensure your email marketing service has several segmentation criteria to take advantage of as much recipient data as possible.
Pricing Structure:
Before anything, you have to consider which type of pricing plan works best for your business needs without putting too much strain on your budget. For instance, some services charge based on the number of contacts, while others based on the number of emails sent per month.
Free Trial Period:
To pick the most appropriate tool, you need to check its features and usability for yourself. But if it doesn’t offer a sufficient free trial period for you to test its capabilities for long enough, it won’t do you any good. So, consider choosing a service with a reasonable timeframe to understand whether or not it suits your business goals.
Final Words
Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to connect with prospective customers. It’s also a great tactic to get more sales from existing customers, thus reducing your marketing costs and increasing ROI. Using a solid email marketing service will help you build an engaged audience and dispatch personalized content at regular intervals so your brand stays top of mind. Also, you can monitor their interactions and use the insight collected to optimize future email marketing efforts. No matter which will be the final winner, make sure you research and test the best ESPs before making a choice. This way, you’ll save valuable time and make the decision that best resonates with your marketing objectives and target audience.
