No matter what you may have heard, e-mail marketing has not gone out of fashion. It is still an amazingly efficient way of marketing your services or products to customers on a mass scale… and it’s cheap!
In order to get the most from your e-mail subscriber list, you need professional e-mail marketing software that you feel comfortable with. Don’t worry, it isn’t expensive. In fact, all of the products on our top 5 list offer either free plans or free trials.
If you like you could test drive dozens of programs for free and decide which one you like best before committing. Just be sure you know about the 5 mistakes that will cost you e-mail subscribers before you actually start going live with your e-mail blasts.
If you don’t have quite that much time on your hands, don’t worry, we’ve already narrowed it down to our top five choices. These 5 programs have all of the most important features you will need and want for effective e-mail marketing:
- Unlimited e-mails – You want to build the biggest e-mail subscriber list you can manage, so this is essential.
- Multiple Users – Even if you don’t need this now, it could be useful later.
- Custom autoresponders – Welcome new subscribers, say thank you for purchases, wish customers happy birthday.
- E-mail templates – It’s always nice not to have to start from scratch.
- Tracking – See what works, what doesn’t. Tweak.
- User segments – Personalize your e-mails based on gender, purchase amounts or whatever data points you like.
- Google Analytics – Dig deep into your data, there’s a lot to learn.
- A/B testing – Check out HubSpot’s user guide for this, it’s excellent.
- Sign up forms – Make it easy for people to sign up.
So, without further ado, here are the five best programs for effective e-mail marketing today.
Mail Chimp – Free Plan
Mail Chimp is most definitely the favorite when it comes to e-mail marketing. It has all the required features for easy and reliable sending, as well as chat support, G-mail import and sign-up forms.
Campaigner – Free Trial
Campaigner is another great option that allows you to import your contacts from G-mail. But, in addition to chat support, it also has 24/7 phone support which is great for those high tension moments when you just need to hear a vice on the line!
GetResponse – Free Trial
GetResponse offers G-mail import and chat support as well, but also offers social media marketing features. This is a highly useful tool in today’s increasingly social media driven world market.
Emma – Free Trial
While Emma offers most of the features discussed above, it doesn’t offer G-mail import or chat support, and the phone support is only offered during normal business hours.
Zoho Campaigns – Free Plan
Not to be confused with Campaigner, Zoho Campaigns doesn’t have chat support, but it does offer 24/7 phone support as well as G-mail import. This is probably the most limited out of the five, and it may seem a bit dated compared to the rest, but if it has what you need it works very well.
Everyone has different preferences, and businesses have different needs. You should spend some in-depth hands on time with at least a few of these to see which will be most suitable for what you plan to do before committing to one. Happy trials!
