Email marketing is a reliable way to spread your message to your prospects. If you are a blogger, you would probably want to share regular updates with your subscribers. Or if you are a business owner, you would need to create more leads. Well, email marketing is a low-cost way to send your messages to the inbox of others and convert your prospects into customers. It helps you build a connection with the visitors after they have left your website. That is why 89% of marketers use email as the key channel for producing leads for the company, and 93% of B2B marketers use emails to distribute the content. If you are interested in learning the basics of email marketing from start to finish, enroll in this email marketing course.
For businesses that do not have much technical know-how, some email marketing tools are cost-effective and automate the whole process of email marketing, ultimately saving the marketers’ time. In a nutshell, email marketing software helps you automate marketing workflows, control metrics, send quality emails, and build a strong connection with your prospects.
Also Read: Best Practices for Email Marketing to Grow Your Business
How do you Choose a Good Email Marketing Tool?
A good email marketing tool should allow you to create appealing emails using a drag and drop interface. Also, it should empower you to send voluminous personalised emails without putting too much effort. Contact management, segmentation of user groups and performance tracking should be some of the other ideal features you need to look for. Putting in simple words, your emails must be promising enough to stay in the inbox of the people.
The Internet provides many email marketing services. However, it is wise to choose one that goes well with your business needs. Cost, features, email templates, free trials, and social media integration are some of the prime factors you need to consider when making a choice.
- Ease of Use: Using the email marketing service should be extremely easy. It should be a five-finger exercise to create emails.
- Cost: Budget is the most important factor. You should know how much you are willing to spend.
- Automation: Find out how the tools automate your marketing campaigns. It is important to know how they will help you fulfil your needs.
- Industry: Know your industry. The email marketing services are designed keeping in mind the needs of certain industries. Sign up for email marketing tools that solve the need of a particular business.
Well, it is necessary to draw a comparison between the features of the email marketing tools to make your selection easier. Here are the best email marketing tools which you can use if email marketing is your priority:
1. Constant Contact
If you are a small business owner and you want to make the most out of your email marketing, Constant Contact is the best email marketing service. It features a simple and user-friendly interface. All the important email statistics are displayed on the dashboard.
Source: Constant Contact
All the important email statistics are displayed on the dashboard.
- Multiple customization options
- Social media integration helps you create coupons and downloads to post on social media channels
- Event management tool
- Easy integration with other applications and services
- A rich selection of niche-based templates
- Strong customer support through email, chats, phone calls
Constant Contact offers you two plans – Email Plan and Email Plus Plan. These plans come at different pricing packages depending on the number of contacts. You can start for a 60-day trial which allows you to experiment with the tool for up to 100 contacts.
2. SendInBlue
SendInBlue is the best email marketing tool for marketers who have limited funds. The tool comes with a free plan (though with limited capacity). This service was initially designed to send transaction-based emails, however now it offers both SMS and email campaigns.
Source: SendInBlue
- Easy to use
- Smooth list management
- Email layout optimization
- Campaign reporting
- Offer support for third-party integrations
SendInBlue is the right pick if you need to send a large volume of emails. The cost of this email marketing service depends on email capacity, not contact list size. It comes in different plans which are as follows:
Limited Free plan
- Send up to 300 emails every day
- Unrestricted contact numbers
- 9000 emails monthly
Lite Free plan
- Send up to 40,000 emails per month
- Limitless contact numbers
- Send unlimited emails every day
Essential Free plan
- Send up to 60,000 emails per month
- Unlimited contact numbers
- Send unlimited emails every day
Premium Free plan
- Send up to 120,000 emails per month
- Unlimited contact numbers
- Send unlimited emails every day
- Advanced automation
Know your social media tools.
3. GetResponse
GetResponse is a powerful email marketing tool. It is a one-stop email marketing platform for diverse marketing needs. It has an intuitive drag and drop interface that allows you to automate emails. The tool has an advanced feature named Perfect Timing. As the name indicates, this tool forecasts the best time to send out emails to increase maximum engagement.
Source: GetResponse
- Facilitates creation of landing pages
- Webinar solution
- Segmentation of lists
- A/B testing
- Integration with different software
- Autoresponders
GetResponse is a great pick for medium businesses that require a huge bundle of marketing options. It comes in three plans which include Basic Plan, Plus Plan, Professional Plan, and Enterprise plan.
If you face any difficulty using the tool, you can access customer support in the form of emails, chat, or phone calls.
Also Read: Digital Marketing for Startups
4. ConvertKit
ConvertKit is an email marketing tool for people who create. For example bloggers, authors, vloggers, influencers, YouTubers, podcasters, and Instagram stars. It allows you to manage email automation workflows easily. The visual automation builder helps you control the email sequencing using robust automated email funnels.
- In-built landing page editor
- Advanced email segmentation features
- Managing subscribers effectively
ConvertKit allows you to design engaging forms and send personalised emails to individual subscribers. You can start with a free trial of 14 days and then switch to premium plans after testing the service.
5. MailChimp
MailChimp is a popular email marketing platform. Around 1 billion emails are sent using this service every day. It is packed with extensive features making it a leading email marketing service provider.
- Easy to customize templates
- Social media integration
- Contact segmenting,
- Application integration
- Autoresponders
- A/B testing
- Time-zone based sending
- Highly responsive support team
MailChimp is an ideal choice for business owners and bloggers who need a user-friendly tool with robust features. It is available under different pricing options:
- Send 10,000 emails monthly
- Add 2,000 subscribers
- Email support for a month
Apart from the free plan, you can switch to premium plans which include Essentials plan, Standard plan, and Premium plan. All these plans have different subscription benefits depending on pricing.
6. Drip
Drip is a recently developed email marketing service designed for eCommerce business owners and bloggers. Its unique marketing automation features make it a preferred marketing service.
Ecommerce website owners can accelerate their business using Drip. It helps you get a strong understanding of the customer intent and their buying behaviour. You can analyse the following metrics and then create emails to convert them.
- People who left their cart
- New visitors versus recurring visitors
- Prospects who clicked on emails versus who didn’t
Some of the intriguing features of Drip include:
- Integration with WordPress and WooCommerce
- Send text messages for tracking
Drip comes with affordable pricing plans:
Starter Plan – Send limitless emails and add up to 100 subscribers
Basic Plan: Send limitless emails and add up to 2, 500 subscribers
Pro Plan: Send limitless emails and add up to 5,000 subscribers
Enterprise Plan: Add up to 5,000 subscribers
Learn more about top digital marketing tools.
7. Aweber
Aweber offers extraordinary features that you can expect from a superior email marketing service. It has a drag and drop email builder that helps you create emails effortlessly. Apart, it has a rich selection of in-built templates and a variety of integrations that enhance the power of email automation.
Source: AWeber
Aweber helps trigger the visitor’s behaviour and create automated emails along with follow-up email sequences. This way you can easily control all the metrics that include open rate data, deliverability rates. You can easily perform A/B tests on all your emails.
- Create email signup forms and put them on your website
- Extensive resource library
- Technical support in the form of documentation and live chat
8. Keap
Keap is a dynamic email marketing service provider. This tool contains robust features such as drag and drop automation builder and CRM combination. All the data related to your email campaigns, transaction history of the customers, and sales information is available on the dashboard. All you need to do is to define your goals, design an email automation sequence to fulfil that particular goal.
- Easily create customer profiles that enable you to create more focused marketing campaigns.
- Tagging subscribers
- Advanced segmentation
Source: Keap
Keap doesn’t support split testing features, thus making it difficult to experiment with diverse marketing campaigns to upgrade sales and open rates.
9. MailerLite
MailerLite is a simple email marketing tool that allows you to automate your emails effectively. It has an easy to use intuitive interface that helps you create emails with no delays.
MailerLite is an affordable solution for small business owners and freelancers who need cheap solutions to amplify their business.
- Minimalist templates
- Comes in different languages
Source: Mailerlite
It provides a free plan for a 14 days trial. The premium plan offers features as per the needs of the user. It also provides Add-ons like SitesPro, MailerPro and Dedicated IP for different needs of the business.
Also Read: Digital Marketing Strategies: Ultimate Guide to make a Digital Marketing Plan.
10. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is a one-stop solution for all kinds of email marketing needs. It allows you to send lesser emails, but achieve desirable results.
ActiveCampaign is the best choice if you are planning to create logic-based funnels. It uses the if/then logic with respect to the subscriber behaviour to automate your emails.
Some of the benefits of using ActiveCampaign are:
- Send SMS to your associations
- Segment users depending on parameters such as location, actions, and behaviour
- Expand reach to the regular users through SMS integration
- Lead and contact scoring ( giving you an insight on whom /what you need to prioritize)
- Offers extensive guides that help you make the most of this dynamic tool
- Create mobile-friendly signup forms
Source: ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign offers you four different plans — Lite Plan, Plus Plan, Professional Plan, and Enterprise Plan. You can choose any plan that suits your needs and budget.
11. HubSpot
HubSpot is a reputed email marketing tool for business owners who are looking for free email marketing tools. The drag and drop email builder helps you customise emails easily.
HubSpot can be easily connected with HubSpot CRM. You can use HubSpot CRM to create personalised touchpoints for your prospects. For example- You can add details such as first name and company name to make your prospects feel like they are being referred to in person. To do this, you need relevant data such as website activity and form submissions.
Source: HubSpot
You can use HubSpot to send 2,000 emails monthly and then switch to premium products.
12. MoonMail
Moonmail is a cloud-based email marketing platform that works with Amazon AWS. The tool uses event-based communication to send messages. This is preferably ideal for business owners who are aiming to boost their messaging capability beyond emails. You can send all kinds of messages such as SMS, voice, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and chatbots.
- Interactive email headers
- Dynamic customer support
- Easy customization
- Management of email bounces
- Reporting of spam mails
- Compliance tracking
Source: MoonMail
You can start with the MoonMail’s free plan which allows you to send messages to 2,000 people and one campaign in a day. You can add only 10 participants in a single campaign.
It is wise to use the Starter Plan which comes for a $23.99 monthly fee that allows you to add 25,000 email subscribers. Also, you can send limitless campaigns and emails over the month.
MoonMail has a Shopify app that enables the e-commerce vendors to send autoresponders and cart abandonment emails to the prospects and convert them.
Also Read:23 Marketing Automation Tools You Need to Use
13. MailJet
MailJet is a robust email marketing service that helps you send emails rapidly. However, there is a certain limit to do that. It is the right tool if you are looking forward to targeting a large audience.
Source: Mailjet
MailJet features a simple easy to use interface. You can take advantage of its free plan which allows you to send 6,000 emails monthly or 200 emails every day.
Conclusion
Take into account your marketing needs and budget for choosing the right email marketing tool. If you’re a beginner, who just wants to reap the benefits of email marketing, you can go for tools with a free trial. Experiment with the tool and deploy all its features to grow your email list. If you are happy with the results, you can go for the premium versions. Create effective marketing campaigns that will increase your engagement with these tools.
Great Learning’s Digital Marketing Postgraduate Course offers an extensive course to help you grasp the key concepts and become industry ready. Check out the curriculum to full-proof your marketing strategies.
