As a business owner, email marketing is one of the most cost-effective and successful marketing tools at your disposal. When done right, it is easy to manage and allows you to speak directly to your target market on a regular basis.
With so many options available, how do you know which provider best meets your needs? Here we provide a quick overview of five of the most popular email marketing services available in the market today.
MailChimp
MailChimp is one of the most popular and widely used email platforms around. Their interface is intuitive, simple to use and quirky with a monkey theme running throughout. Although already incredibly easy to use, their email creator has just been updated to make creating campaigns even more straightforward and faster than before.
They also offer a huge array of integrations with virtually every marketing tool available – WordPress, Shopify, Facebook, Magento and many more. Other features include the ability to easily segment contacts into groups, email automation, simple tracking and analytics and send time optimisation to automatically find the best time to send your campaign.
Support is provided through a huge database that includes videos and tutorials as well as live chat and emails.
A very attractive feature for those just starting out with email marketing is the forever free plan which allows you to send up to 10,000 emails to up to 2,000 subscribers a month (although some functionality like automation is not available under this plan). Once your needs move beyond this, paid plans start at USD$17 per month.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the fastest growing email marketing services around and is very beginner friendly for small businesses.
Each account gives you access to tracking and reporting, an image library (with the ability to edit images within Constant Contact) and 1GB of storage for your own files. Although some find their interface slightly dated, it is easy to manage your email lists and they provide a library of hundreds of email templates and built in social media sharing tools.
Their support is extensive – in the form of online training, personal coaching, live chat, emails and a library of resources – all invaluable for the small business who wants to get up and running as quickly as possible.
Constant Contact offers a free 30 day trial, after which, pricing starts at USD$9.99 per month.
Drip
Although Drip is a beginner friendly email marketing platform which offers a wide range of tools for building effective campaigns, their point of difference is the ability to send intelligent, customised campaigns that adapt to customer’s interests and behaviour.
Their intelligent marketing automation tools allow you to segment your database smarter and ensure your content is more personal and relevant to your customers. You can easily insert personalised data into the emails you send and segment your database by any attribute you can image, allowing you to speak to 10 or 10,000 customers each with a personalised message.
Drip’s analytics are also top notch giving you access to powerful insights and data including custom conversion tracking, the ability to apply custom tags, fields or events to your customers and exportable data sets designed to let you analyse your data in your preferred system. They also offer support including automation training, webinars, live chat and free guides.
There is a free option for up to 100 subscribers and beyond that, pricing starts at USD$39 per month.
Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor is an easy to use email platform which has an array of attractive templates – including mobile optimised ones to ensure your emails are easily readable on mobile devices. It also features an Inbox Preview tool which allows you to see screenshots of your email design on the most popular email programmes ensuring you know exactly how your customers see your messages.
Like other email platforms, Campaign Monitor also offers a decent automation service with up to nine templated workflows and detailed analytics to track the performance of your campaign.
One big draw back with Campaign Monitor is the lack of live support. While they have an extensive Help section and the ability to send an email which will be replied to within 24 hours, the lack of ability to call or live chat can be frustrating if you’ve run into an issue and need to resolve with a deadline looming
Pricing starts at NZD$9 per month for 500 contacts and 2,500 emails.
GetResponse
GetResponse is very easy to use for beginners and small businesses but also offers many very well done features for more advanced users such as A/B testing and API.
There are over 500 email templates, all optimised for mobile and a drag and drop builder so you can build effective email campaigns. They also offer landing pages, mobile inbox previews, single opt-in and the ability to integrate with third party lead generation software.
GetResponse also features a good automation tool that allows you to create basic to intermediate level automated campaigns.
The customer support at GetResponse is first rate with an online library and very responsive email, live chat and phone option available to solve any issues immediately.
The free option is for up to 500 subscribers, after that pricing starts from USD$15.58 per month.
Email marketing can be one of the most cost effective marketing tools available to your business. If you want to get started but are feeling overwhelmed with the number of providers available and what they offer, contact us here at Energise and we can match you with the service that best meets your individual business needs.
