Looking for the best email marketing tool for your business? Should be quite the task because out of the hundreds of options available out there, it’s definitely hard for you to choose the best email marketing software!
It’s a well-known fact that growing businesses have a lot to take care of – right from the budget to decisions they make when it comes to buying tools, they’ve got to do it right in order to make sure that none of the processes is being sabotaged. And while email marketing tools are quite important for the success of a business, it is also important that you choose the best one. This is why we’ve come up with some of the best email marketing software around!
But before that, here are a few things you should consider before you choose your free email marketing software (paid even)!
5 Characteristics You Should Look for Before Choosing an Email Marketing Tool
A market is now a place where you’ll be having hundreds of email marketing tools appear in front of you when you search. And choosing “the one” (like I already said), could be quite a tedious task!
So, here are some of the characteristics you should look into before choosing an email marketing service for your small business!
Drag & Drop Builder:
Sometimes, your email needs to be visually appealing, especially when it’s during the festive season. And it is mandatory that your email marketing tool comes with an inbuilt drag-and-drop builder that allows you to create eye-catching templates with ease. Remember, having a drag-and-drop builder eliminates the need for you to have a dedicated designer/developer.
Email Deliverability Tools:
What’s the point in sending your email when they don’t even get to your subscriber’s inbox? And being a small business, this is something you definitely cannot afford. This is why you need to make sure that your chosen email marketing tool comes with email deliverability tools like spam checkers, email verification, Whitelabel IP, and more.
Email List Segmentation:
It’s a well-known fact that a growing business has an audience base from around the world and is based on different factors. And one common email you come up with isn’t going to be an ideal fit for everyone in your subscribers’ list. Make sure your chosen email marketing tool allows you to segment your email list based on factors like age, geographical location, interests, and more.
Automation Factor:
As your business grows, it is no wonder that you’ll be having more and more tasks to take care of which eventually leads to a situation where you can no longer send emails manually. And this is where automation comes into play. Sending your emails at the right time and at the right place is quite essential for the growth of your business which makes automation a must-feature in any email marketing tool.
A/B Testing:
Writing email copies is quite the art because you need to get on the right foot with your audience. And it’s best that you come up with copies that perform the best. So, make sure that your email marketing tool has the A/B testing feature to let you know which one of your email copies is the ideal one to be sent.
The above-mentioned are some of the features you should consider taking a look at before you choose your email marketing platform. Now that you have, let’s look at the best email marketing software around.
Best Email Marketing Tools for Small Businesses
1. NotifyVisitors
NotifyVisitors is an incredible email marketing tool that helps businesses of all sizes keep their customers informed. With its easy-to-use interface and intuitive design, NotifyVisitors allows marketers to communicate effectively with their target audiences.
It provides a wide range of features including drag and drop email editor, automated email campaigns, user segmentation, automation, analytics, personalization, and extensive A/B testing options. Through effective email campaigns powered by NotifyVisitors, marketers can build relationships with their customers to encourage loyalty and drive more sales.
Pricing
Notifyisitors offers a free plan and its paid plan starts from $49/month.
2. SendinBlue
SendinBlue is one of the best email marketing tools that is being used by thousands of businesses around the world. This email marketing software is easily one of the complete SMS and email marketing tools for businesses. With a chunk of users from Europe, the platform is extremely easy to use and allows you to create highly engaging emails – it doesn’t matter if you do not have any prior experience in email marketing!
What makes SendinBlue special is its email builder tool that lets you create/edit email campaigns with ease. Also, you can have a preview of the same on multiple devices like desktop, tablets and mobiles.
As for importing contacts, SendinBlue gives you three options – copy and paste, import contacts from a specific file, or add them manually. Other features include customer segmentation options, a live chat plugin, and a fully functional sales CRM.
Pricing
There’s a free version available to use and the highest-paid plan costs $65 per month. Unfortunately, SendinBlue doesn’t have a money-back guarantee but you can know how it feels to use it by going for the free version.
3. ActiveCampaign
Another email marketing software that definitely wouldn’t have missed our list. ActiveCampaign has been in the industry for quite a number of years now and has over 90,000 small business customers. And the reason – ActiveCampaign is both easy to use and quite the affordable email marketing tool around.
Speaking about what makes ActiveCampaign so good, it is the way they’ve come up with the visual automation builder. You can come up with a brilliant email drip campaign with the utmost ease even if you don’t have any previous experience.
ActiveCampaign also allows you to run A/B split tests on your email sequence campaign. There are other features like goal tracking and attribution, a live chat plugin, an inbuilt CRM system, and more.
Pricing
The basic plan starts from $9 (when opted annually) and the enterprise version goes up to $229 per month. Also, there are no free versions available.
4. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is another best email marketing software that has been in the good books of small businesses, thanks to the drag-and-drop builder that comes along. You can simply edit existing email popup templates or build one yourself from the scratch. Though it might take a bit of time to get used to, once it gets going, there’s no stopping.
Some of the main features of Constant Contact are the drag-and-drop tool, mobile-responsive emails, and the ability to segregate emails based on targeted and personalization factors. And what’s cool is, you can reach out to their customer support team via phone/chat support pretty much any time you want.
Constant Contact comes with a mobile application that is available on both the App Store and Google Play which helps you to create, send emails and see campaign insights – an ideal application for marketers who would like to do things on the go!
Pricing
Constant Contact comes with two plans – a $20 plan and a $45 plan. There’s no free version available but you get some attractive discounts when you decide to pay upfront.
5. GetResponse
Need to know how GetResponse is going to be? The below phrase can let you know!
If you start using GetReponse, over a period of time, you’ll be amazed to see how user-friendly the entire product is by the seamless experience you get!
And that’s GetResponse for you!
Adding contacts is a walk in the park – you can either choose to import your contacts from a file or upload them individually. And as for building emails, you can choose from pre-existing templates or build one from scratch using the drag-and-drop email builder.
Other important features include the option to get dynamic content based on customer segmentation, mobile-friendly emails, A/B testing, unsubscribers tracking facility, autoresponders, a 24/7 support team, and more.
Pricing
You get a free trial with GetResponse which is valid for a month. And the paid plans start from $15 per month and go up to $99 per month.
6. Mailchimp
Mailchimp has been like the forever favorite email marketing software in the industry. And the forever free version they offer could be a good reason for it. Like GetResponse, Mailchimp is also one of the best email marketing software that is extremely popular and easy to use.
If you are a beginner and you don’t have the budget to pay for sophisticated email marketing software, MailChimp should definitely be your choice. This email marketing tool comes with an inbuilt drag-and-drop builder and you get the options to create emails in plain text, custom HTML code, or choose from pre-existing email templates.
You also get a mobile application from Mailchimp which allows you to create emails, access data, add email contacts, and more. The fact that Mailchimp can be easily integrated with Shopify, WordPress, and Magento makes it one of the best choices in the segment!
Pricing
As I mentioned earlier, there is a forever free version available. And the paid plans start from as little as $10 per month and go up to $305 per month.
P.S. If you’re looking for an email marketing tool, it is pretty sure that you’d be having a website. And in order for your website to grow, you need to make sure that the basic SEO configuration is intact. Here are some of the best WordPress SEO plugins for you to get started with!
7. Drip
If you’re running an eCommerce store or you’re a blogger or a digital marketer, don’t think twice about choosing Drip. This powerful email marketing software comes with a wide range of tools that will probably make personalization and automation completely hassle-free for you!
Though there’s a bit of a learning curve at the beginning, once you get over it, it’s going to be pretty much easy going forward! Like all the other email marketing platforms, you can add contacts in two traditional ways.
The email tag system allows targeting simpler when your email list grows substantially. Also, the email design tool is great to use and you can have a preview of the same on multiple device orientations. And what’s great with Drip is that you get the same features across all the plans.
Pricing
There is no free version available. And the paid plans start from $19 per month
8. ConvertKit
The last email marketing software we’re going to look at is ConvertKit. What makes ConvertKit bag a position in this read is the extreme simplicity that makes it an ideal email marketing software for beginners.
With Convertkit, you can add individual contacts, import them from a CSV file, or import contacts from another platform as well.
Though ConvertKit doesn’t come with a modern drag-and-drop builder, it gives the option to create emails as plain text and in custom HTML code.
Other features include email automation options, sign-up forms, tag-based customer segmentation, the option to integrate with 65+ third-party applications, and more.
Pricing
ConvertKit offers its users a free plan. And the paid plan starts from $25 per month.
Additional Bonus:
Speaking of email marketing tools and software, what is the first thing you should be having? Yes! An email list that is being built in-house and organic of course. Collecting leads and growing your email list is one of the mandatory tasks you should do as a small business. And Optinly popup builder tool helps you do just that!
Optinly
Optinly is a goal-based popup platform that lets you create website popup campaigns within minutes. The pre-existing growth goals and appropriate popup temples allow you to build goal-specific campaigns that in turn drive 10x conversions and sales.
Also, the inbuilt WYSIWYG popup builder allows you to edit popup templates to any extent. Other features include advanced popup triggering and targeting options, popup transition effects, multiple types of popup forms to choose from, and more.
You can also integrate with 10+ popular email marketing tools like MailChimp, Constant Contact, Mailer Lite, and more.
Pricing
Optinly has a forever free version available. And the paid plan starts from $25 per month.
Final Few Words…
We’ve come across some of the best email marketing software in this read. Before you choose your pick, make sure you assess your business needs, the budget, and the features you would want out of an email marketing platform. And when you’re done answering this, you would pretty much know which email marketing tool you’ll be choosing!
P.S. Since email marketing is all about email open and click-through rates, this read should help increase your email-click through rates to a great extent!
So, what’s next? All you need to do is, choose your platform and start sending out emails!
Cheers!