Email marketing is an integral part of overall digital marketing services. If planned, implemented and maintained well, it can deliver effective results. It is a powerful tool for organizations which want to connect with their audience. Email marketing is also a wonderful way to build relationships and drive sales. Today, there are many email marketing platforms available. Selecting the best platform can be a rigorous process. But there are steps to making the right choice.
With time, email has evolved as a popular marketing tool. The effective email can prompt the users to take some kind of action. It can also drive traffic to one’s blog or social media platforms or even websites. Businesses can segment their emails by demographics and other parameters to make it a personalized marketing tool. The messages which you can send with emails may range from newsletters, content, announcements, infographics and personalized offers. Also, many organizations send confirmations and shipping notifications to customers. The ultimate goal of email marketing is to send messages to your audience, mainly commercial and promotional messages. It is a direct line of communication you maintain with your audience.
Direct Communication:
Email marketing allows brands to communicate with their audience in a personalized manner.
Cost-effective:
Email marketing is low-cost. Compared to other marketing channels, it is an affordable way of bridging the gap between your brand and its target audience, considering its potential ROI.
Measurable:
It is possible to measure email marketing efforts or campaigns easily with various platforms that provide detailed analytics. Businesses can keep track on open rates, conversions, click-through rates and more.
Scalable:
You can scale email marketing to meet your business needs. Be it a small list of subscribers or a large database of customers, email marketing serves as the best option, if managed well by a professional team.
Targeted:
There are segmentation as well as personalization features offered by email marketing platforms to help businesses send relevant content to specific segments. This is an effective way to stimulate engagement and increase conversions.
Before you go on to select an email marketing platform, you need to first identify your business goals and requirements. Firstly, you should know what your purpose is. Your email marketing purpose could be to increase sales, boost engagement, enhance brand awareness or simply provide comprehensive customer support.
Secondly, you should know what types of emails you want to send. As aforementioned, they can range from promotional offers, newsletters to automated sequences. Another important consideration is figuring out your desired frequency. Determine whether you want to send email daily, weekly or monthly. Having a thorough understanding of these objectives can help you evaluate the right platform offers, explore their features and capabilities and make the right selection.
There are long-term considerations too. As your business evolves, you need to select a platform that can scale with your changing business dimensions. It should be able to offer the flexibility.
Study your subscriber base:
Make sure you evaluate the size of your audience while selecting an email marketing platform. While some platforms may cater to small businesses which have limited subscriber bases, others are specifically designed to handle larger databases.
Different email marketing platforms have their own criteria to determine the pricing. One of them is the number of subscribers.
Make sure the email marketing platform you select allows you to segment your audience based on behaviour, engagement levels and demographics.
Determining Budget:
Your budget certainly affects the choice of email marketing platform. Know how much you want to spend on email marketing every month or every year.
Assess Pricing Plans:
This again is an important step. Different email marketing platforms offer different pricing plans based on subscriber count, features, email volume, etc. You should compare pricing plans by different platforms to identify the one that works well for your budget.
Free vs. Paid Plans:
Three are free plans with limited features offered by several platforms. On the other side, some platforms have a paid plan to access advanced features. For a start-up business, it could be a convenient option to choose free plan and then gradually, navigate towards the paid ones.
User-Friendly Interface:
Having a user-friendly interface is necessary to make email marketing more efficient. So, check if the platforms you consider offer intuitive drag-and-drop email builders, easy to understand analytics, along with clear navigation.
Moreover, take into consideration the learning curve related to each platform. While some platforms need a steeper learning curve, others are simply designed for the ease of use. You should focus on selecting a platform that suits the technical expertise of your team.
Email marketing platforms may offer comprehensive customer support options through email, phone, live chat and extensive knowledge bases. Consider these aspects too.
When you begin evaluating different email marketing platforms, you should take into consideration these features.
Email Templates:
The platform you select must offer you an access to customizable email templates that save your time and also look professional.
You should be able to take advantage of various automation features such as welcome series, drip campaigns, trigged emails, etc. to nurture leads and also maintain engagement.
Apart from this, the email marketing platform you select must allow you to target specific group of subscribers and share relevant content with them. Also, you need personalized options such as dynamic content, personalized subject lines, etc. to improve engagement. Detailed analytics and reporting tools are wonderful way to measure the success of your email marketing campaigns.
A/B Testing:
It is the ability to test diverse versions of emails to decide which one delivers the better performance.
The email marketing platform you select must integrate well with other platforms or tools you use such as e-commerce platform, social media, etc.
Deliverability Tools:
There are deliverability tools features which help ensure your emails land in the inbox and not the spam folder.
Mobile Optimization:
Make sure your emails look good and also function well with mobile optimization.
Mailchimp
Being one of the most popular email marketing platforms, Mailchimp is known especially for its advanced features and user-friendly interface. The free plan may come with some basic features. A paid version provides more advanced capabilities. It is easier to use. It is equipped with extensive templates and automation features. It can be integrated well with your existing systems. However, as your list of customers or audience grows, this platform can become expensive. Moreover, some advanced features might be available on higher-tier plans.
This one is a reliable platform, especially for small to medium-sized businesses. It offers a wide range of templates. It is an intuitive email builder. The key benefit associated with Constant Contact is excellent customer support. It has easy-to-use interface. Its deliverability rates are good. However, there are limited automation features compared to other platforms. Besides, the pricing for advanced plans is higher.
SendinBlue is a versatile email marketing platform. It interestingly combines email marketing with SMS marketing. It offers multiple effective automation and segment features. The advantages include competitive pricing, robust automation tools, along with SMS marketing integration. However, this platform offers limited template options. It could be a steeper learning curve especially for beginners.
It is a comprehensive and reliable marketing platform. Email marketing is an integral part of its extensive marketing suite. Businesses which look for an all-in-one solution may find HubSpot as an extremely beneficial and workable email marketing platform. It easily integrates with HubSpot’s CRM. It offers extensive analytics and powerful automation. Nevertheless, cons include higher costs. It can be complex to be understood for beginners.
ActiveCampaign is a popular email marketing platform known for its advanced features. Even its powerful CRM capabilities are remarkable. It is a great choice for businesses that focus more on customer journeys. The CRM integration, smart segmentation capabilities and advanced automation make it a top choice. However, ActiveCampaign could be expensive for larger lists of audience. For beginners, the interface might turn out to be overwhelming.
Small businesses and entrepreneurs can view AWeber as a straightforward platform. It is equipped with essential features. It is easier to use. It provides good customer support and also comes at affordable pricing. On the contrary, its advanced features are limited. There are limited customization options too.
In order to choose the right email marketing platform, you need to evaluate your requirements, consider your goals, study your audience size and also work on budget. Moreover, you must know what features matter to you the most. It is important to consider the strengths and weaknesses of every platform to make an informed decision that support your email marketing efforts.
Neel Networks is end-to-end, bespoke digital marketing agency. We also provide comprehensive guidance to our customers from all industry verticals with choosing the best email marketing platform and leverage their potential for client’s benefits. Schedule a call with the team Neel Networks.
