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Listen, let’s just address the obvious – there are so many tools out there that can help with every aspect of email marketing.
It’s overwhelming!
From creating beautiful templates to sending emails to tracking analytics, the new age email marketing systems have far reached their predecessors.
With endless options available, it’s hard to know which software is right for your business goals.
So we decided to help!
We have compiled a list of some of the most popular systems used by small business owners. Keep in mind this list focuses on email marketing systems (you can find CRM suggestions here).
Email Marketing Systems for Your Business
1. Aweber
With Aweber, you can create personalized email campaigns with a variety of easy to use email templates and design options found on the platform.
From font choices, to branding colors – you can zoom in on the aesthetic details to help create your own unique marketing campaign that will appeal to your audience.
Favored by the self proclaimed “technologically challenged”, Aweber is a bare-boned easy to use email marketing system to get your feet wet in the email marketing game.
Features of Aweber:
- One stop shop—Get emails, landing pages, ecommerce, web push notifications, and tons of conversion-proven templates
- Support for you 24/7 —if you need help, their team is always there.
- 20 years and counting—They have been the online marketing experts since before it became a thing.
- Beautiful designs—All of their tools can get you up and running with beautiful, customized designs in a matter of minutes. They’re very simple to use too!
- Plus, they have direct integrations with most of the popular apps, so you don’t have to use third party programs to connect (sorry Zapier). They work seamlessly with Canva, WooCommerce (and other e-commerce sites), WordPress and other publishing platforms for marketers, PayPal and Etsy and thousands more.
How to get started:
Aweber offers a free plan for up to 500 contacts. Check it out here.
2. MailChimp
MailChimp is another email marketing tool that has long been a popular option among businesses.
The service provides a simplistic automation feature which makes it easy to organize your messages according to the interests or events of certain recipients.
Audiences allows you to segment your list from one another. Within those audiences, you can break it down further with groups and tags.
Recently, MailChimp has branched into the ecommerce and funnel game – creating the ability to create landing pages, sell products directly through MailChimp, and now connect domains and create websites.
Features of MailChimp:
- Customized Email Templates or HTML email design – With several options from which to choose, you can create the right email for your audience and build your brand.
- Easy to setup landing pages – The new drag and drop landing page feature allows you to drive people directly to your list, or purchase items via the ecommerce option with a clearly defined call to action.
- Create Digital Ads directly within the platform. With MailChimp, you can find new leads or retarget individuals who visit your site or engage with your emails.
- Two in one – create emails AND social media posts! When you create your newsletter, you can also publish organic social media posts or create social media ads at the time of publishing.
- Need something tangible? MailChimp has incorporated postcards to meet direct mailing needs.
How to get started:
MailChimp offers a free plan for up to 2000 contacts. Check it out here.
3. Constant Contact
Constant Contact has been holding its own in the email marketing world since 1995.
While it has become the lesser preferred option due to its lack of a free tier, over the years it has built in the features demanded by its clients to increase its popularity.
Now offering the ability to do A/B testing around subject lines, Constant Contact as evolved to a rivaling email marketing system.
With its real-time email tracking and reporting, you have the ability to track the performance of your email campaigns.
Their straight-forward email automation system allows those who may be intimidated by more complex features to build campaigns for the opt-ins.
Asides for the above, what helps Constant Contact stand out from the rest is its high deliverability rates, its customer service, and its no-nonsense, easy to use platform.
Features of Constant Contact:
- Marketing Automation for business owners – Constant Contact can help you deliver autoresponder series, birthday and anniversary emails automatically to your list of contacts.
- Contact Management – The solution’s contact management dashboard is well equipped with tools that let users categorize subscribers into a single contact list. Marketers can use their automatic text processing service or import contacts direct from their Outlook or Gmail account, keeping your contacts neat and tidy is simple. Constant Contact lets you avoid duplicates so the address database stays clean.
- Reporting – Constant Contact’s reporting allows you to gather the important stats and reports about your marketing efforts. You can see stats on number of clicks, unsubscribes, forwards, opens and much more.
- Event Planning – Constant Contact’s event marketing tools EventSpot has great features that can help you with email marketing when driving attendance for trade shows and conferences.
- E-commerce integrations – Constant Contact offers direct integrations with many of the most popular e-commerce platforms and allows marketers to process abandoned cart emails, see sales right in their dashboard, etc.
How to get started:
Constant Contact’s plans start at $20 a month BUT you can try it out for free here.
4. Benchmark
Benchmark Email Marketing is a company that connects marketers with the technology and knowledge they need to strengthen their email marketing campaigns.
They offer a variety of subscriptions for marketers who want to be successful in their email marketing efforts.
Benchmark Email Marketing is one of the fastest growing companies in the industry, winning multiple awards for its excellence, including the recent 2018 Best Marketing Technology Award.
They pride themselves on providing marketers with top-notch resources that are easy to implement and give them complete control over their campaign.
Like most of the above, Benchmark offers the same array of features – custom templates, automations, reporting, and list building tools.
As more of the mainstream SaaS applications are eliminating their free tiers, Benchmark is quickly gaining ground but offering a forever free account up to 500 contacts.
Features of Benchmark:
- 400+ Email Templates – with over 400 email templates, you have the ability to pick and choose the perfect design that fits your needs.
- A/B Testing – Not sure which image, subject, text is working best with your audience? Take advantage of their split A/B testing feature.
- Inbox Checker – Benchmark’s inbox checker allows you to see exactly how your email will look when it lands in front of your contacts. Need to ensure the design is mobile friendly, Benchmark let’s you preview that as well!
How to get started:
Benchmark offers a free plan for up to 500 contacts. Check it out here.
5. GetResponse
GetResponse is a company that is revolutionizing the way businesses communicate with their customers.
They have gone from being a small email marketing company to having one of the most popular email marketing platforms in the world.
Founded in 2001, GetResponse has grown to be one of the leading top players in the email marketing game, and they are committed to expanding their services while maintaining an ethical approach.
What makes this company different from others is its focus on performance-based metrics, data-driven copywriting, and customer engagement tools.
If you are looking for an all-in-one approach to your email marketing needs, GetResponse is the answer.
Features of GetResponse:
- Email Marketing – With a proven deliverability of 99%, you can create professional, easily designed, drag and drop emails. Need to add .gifs and photos, their free stock is just a click away.
- Webinars – Forget paying for another third party webinar software again! GetResponse allows you to host unlimited webinars with up to 1000 guests. You can even host the webinars with others. Need storage? You can store up to 20 hours of recordings in your account!
- Landing Pages – The need for coding is over. Build websites or simple landing pages with the help of their AI builder. Choose from an assortment of predesigned, easy to customize templates and promote your site – all within GetResponse.
- Automations – Need to add workflows but not sure where to start? GetResponse has prebuilt workflows for an assortment of campaign needs.
How to get started:
GetResponse plans begin at $15 a month; however, you can try them out for FREE for 30 days. Check it out here.
Which One is the Right Email Marketing Tool for You?
Email marketing is still an effective way to reach your target audience and encourage customer engagement. They give you the ability to tailor content specifically to your audience, while helping you understand what they want.
While the email marketing tools available today are vast and offer a variety of features, finding the right one will always be based on the tried and true triangle: quality, speed, and price.
If you looking for something with guaranteed fast deliverability that is affordable, it may not have as many bells and whistles.
Same if you are looking for something with fast deliverability and high tech features, it may be outside of your budget.
Simply put, there isn’t a quick and easy answer for which tool is right for you.
Choose what works best not only for your needs now, but your needs in the future (as migrating an entire database, email templates, and workflows can be costly and extremely time consuming).
Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash
* Please note – we do not endorse any of these products and some may contain affiliate links. If an affiliate link is used when making a purchase or signing up, Kopf Consulting may receive compensation in return. A portion of the passive income generated is donated to charities of our choosing. You can see a list of our charitable contributions here.
