As mentioned in our previous blog post, Email marketing remains a quick and effective way to engage and nurture leads into loyal customers. It's also extremely cost-effective — some studies show an ROI of up to 4,400%!
With so many email marketing tools available today, where should you start? Which tool meets your business's unique needs, and how can you differentiate one tool from the next? We'll answer those questions and more in this article.
MailChimp
Even if you haven’t used email marketing software before, you’ve more than likely heard of MailChimp. Launched in 2001, it’s a veteran and leader in this arena, allowing users to create and send professional marketing emails to a database of customers.
Like many other products, there’s a built-in designer that offers a selection of templates that can be edited to your tastes. You can add elements like clickable text, graphics and logos, and there’s also the option of designing your own email from scratch if you have the requisite coding skills.
MailChimp does well on the integration front, too, especially for online retailers. You’re able to link the system up to services such as Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento to send targeted product campaigns. Once you’ve unleashed your campaign, you can analyze its performance via the report feature.
AWeber
Overall, with the sheer amount of template designs, helpful support team, and knowledge base, AWeber is a great option for small business owners. Like other tools on this list, they offer over drag-and-drop email builders, list management tools, and analytics reports.
With AWeber list management, you can import an email list and create a database from common file types like XLS, XLSX, TXT, CSV, and TSV. They make it easy to manage your lists with any rules you create automatically. Additionally, with their marketing automation tools, you can create an autoresponder workflow based on actions like email opens, link clicks, site visits, and purchases.
One selling point is their 700 design templates – this compares to 500 with GetResponse and just 80 with MailChimp. Some of their templates look outdated, but some also look great and resemble high-quality Instagram ads.
Sendinblue
SendInBlue is one of those email marketing solutions that combine email and SMS marketing, allowing you to send transactional emails through email and SMS.
When it comes to its email marketing capabilities, the platform lets you create your HTML templates through the drag and drop email builder. You can also benefit from SendInBlue’s display conditions to design email templates that will show specific content. It also includes A/B testing to discover which campaign elements convert better.
Like most other tools, this email marketing software gives you access to email automation, allowing you to configure your automated workflows. Also, you can easily segment your customers based on demographics or lead scores, and manage your email list by importing, exporting, or editing your contacts.
Apart from email marketing, SendInBlue will also equip you with SMS and landing page features to engage with your audience and boost your lead generation, respectively. Overall, SendInBlue is part of our best email marketing software list due to its email and SMS marketing capabilities that enable businesses to target their audience more effectively.
GetResponse
GetResponse is an email marketing software that allows you to grow your email list with beautiful emails and high-converting signup forms.
With their modern and beautiful user interface, getting your email newsletter campaign up and running is easy.
Aside from email marketing, GetResponse is bundled with many online marketing features that help you grow your business. For example, you can create and host webinars on your site, build beautiful landing pages to turn visitors into customers, and more.
Support is provided by phone, live chat, and email.
GetResponse also publishes a lot of useful marketing resources such as courses, whitepapers, and videos that walk you through different aspects of email marketing.
If you’re looking for an email marketing software that comes with a beautiful and fast user interface, then GetResponse might be the right solution for you.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is an email marketing service with a strong-focus on bloggers & content creators.
Most platforms focus on trying to please everyone. ConvertKit doesn’t. Instead, they cater to the needs of a specific audience – bloggers & content creators.
The result is a well-crafted tool that is incredibly simple to use. You get the all important features such as visual automation, with the addition of opt-in forms & landing pages. While you’ll get more mileage out of a dedicated landing page builder, it’s a nice option to have for building your email list.
Simple reporting gives you a good top level view of how your forms are performing, and how your email list is growing overall, and tagging/segmentation is extremely easy.
You can add email sequences, then pull them into the visual automation builder. You can do the same with forms too. With most platforms, you’d need to jump between these options, but you can open both directly while editing your automations.
Given ConvertKit’s simplicity, there are some limitations. For example, filtering your subscribers isn’t as easy as other platforms, there’s no spam scoring, and there’s no visual email builder as such.
If you’re new to email marketing and you’re after simplicity without sacrificing powerful email automation functionality, be sure to give ConvertKit a try.
Not sure what's the best fit for you? contact us below!
