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Email marketing is a vital strategy for businesses in 2023, and choosing the right email marketing software is essential for the success of your marketing campaign. In this article, we will review and compare the best email marketing services for small businesses.
Why Choosing the Best Email Marketing Service is Important
Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies for small businesses. According to marketing statistics, email marketing sees an average return on investment (ROI) of 4400 percent for businesses in the United States. Email marketing is easy to manage, gives you full control, and allows you to establish direct contact with your customers.
It’s important to understand that the success of your email marketing depends on the software you choose. The right email marketing service ensures that your emails get delivered, offers features for creating engaging email newsletters, enables personalized and targeted bulk emails, and provides tools for managing your contact list and tracking campaign performance.
What to Look for in a Good Email Marketing Tool
A good email marketing service should have an easy-to-use interface for creating highly engaging email newsletters. It should offer a drag-and-drop editor for easy customization. The service should also provide marketing automation features that allow you to send personalized and targeted bulk emails without much effort.
Additionally, the email marketing software should offer tools for managing your contact list, segmenting users into groups, and tracking the performance of your campaigns. It should ensure that your email campaigns do not end up in the spam folder.
The Best Email Marketing Services for Small Businesses
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the largest and fastest-growing email marketing services in the world. It is also the most user-friendly email marketing service, making it ideal for beginners. Constant Contact offers unlimited emails, easy tracking and reporting, built-in social media sharing tools, a free image library, list segmentation, Facebook ads integration, and a powerful eCommerce integration for Shopify stores.
Their Email Plus accounts come with advanced features like email automation, drip campaigns, surveys & polls, coupons, online donations, and subject line A/B testing. Constant Contact offers unmatched customer support with live chat, phone calls, email, community support, and a vast library of helpful resources. The pricing starts as low as $9.99 per month, and they offer a 60-day free trial.
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)
Brevo is a complete SMS and email marketing software for businesses. It is one of the fastest-growing email marketing platforms in Europe. Brevo offers an easy-to-use platform with excellent tools for creating beautiful and engaging emails. Their drag-and-drop email editor is perfect for beginners.
Brevo includes user-friendly marketing automation tools for sending transactional emails, creating workflows for automatic follow-up emails, and segmenting users. It also uses AI algorithms to determine the best time to send bulk emails, ensuring optimal email deliverability.
Brevo offers a completely free email marketing plan with unlimited contacts. Their paid plans start from $25 per month for Lite. They also offer a separate SMTP bulk email marketing service. Brevo’s premium plan includes advanced features like a landing page builder, live chat, sales CRM, and Facebook ads integration.
HubSpot
HubSpot is a well-known software in the customer relationship management (CRM) and email marketing space. Their email marketing service is free to start and comes with advanced automation features. HubSpot offers an easy drag-and-drop email builder and a selection of templates for creating custom newsletters.
With the native integration with the HubSpot CRM, you can personalize your emails for each subscriber based on various factors. HubSpot offers all the powerful features you’d expect from an enterprise-level email marketing software, including send time optimization, high email deliverability, A/B testing, detailed performance analytics, marketing automation, and drip campaigns. They also offer an all-in-one marketing platform that includes email marketing, CRM, automation workflows, sales tools, website builder, and more.
Omnisend
Omnisend is a powerful SMS and email marketing service for eCommerce businesses. They offer one of the most generous free email marketing plans, including pre-built automation workflows, subscriber segmentation, A/B testing, performance reports, and even SMS and web push notifications.
Omnisend seamlessly integrates with popular website builders and eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify. They offer pre-built eCommerce marketing automation workflows for welcome emails, cart abandonment emails, cross-sell emails, and more. Omnisend’s email builder is easy to use and comes with customizable templates.
Omnisend’s free email marketing plan allows you to contact up to 250 subscribers, and their paid plans start at $16 per month.
Drip
Drip is a powerful enterprise email marketing platform for eCommerce, bloggers, and digital marketers. It offers tools for marketing automation, sales funnels, and personalization. Drip integrates seamlessly with popular website builders, including WordPress and WooCommerce, allowing you to add pop-ups and opt-in forms to your website.
Drip’s intelligent marketing automation tools, smarter email segmenting, split testing features, and visual drag-and-drop builder for automation workflows set it apart from the competition. Drip offers live chat support, webinars, automation training, detailed courses, free guides, and excellent documentation. Although it’s a bit pricey, Drip is the best email marketing software for eCommerce websites and business owners who want advanced features.
Moosend
Moosend is an affordable email marketing service for small businesses. It offers a suite of powerful marketing automation features, email list building tools, landing pages, and more. Moosend allows you to create and customize email newsletters using pre-made templates or custom templates.
Moosend’s marketing automation features allow you to offer a personalized subscriber journey for your newsletter subscribers. They offer detailed email analytics, including opens, clicks, bounces, product views, purchases, custom event tracking, and predicted demographics data.
Moosend offers a 30-day free trial with unlimited emails. Their pricing starts at $9 per month for their Pro plan, which includes a landing page builder, transactional emails for eCommerce websites, team management, and more.
AWeber
AWeber is one of the oldest and most popular email marketing service providers. It offers tools for managing email lists, autoresponders, A/B testing, and email tracking. AWeber integrates seamlessly with most platforms, including WordPress.
AWeber offers a limited free plan for up to 500 subscribers. Their paid plans start from $19 per month. AWeber provides support through live chat, phone, email, webinars, and a vast knowledge base.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is a robust email marketing platform for professional bloggers, authors, and marketers. It offers an easy-to-use interface and advanced segmentation and funnel features. ConvertKit allows you to offer content upgrades and incentives with email signup forms.
ConvertKit’s automation features enable personalized drip emails. It offers all the powerful features you’d expect from an email marketing service, including A/B testing, customizable email templates, landing page builder, smart workflows, and more. ConvertKit offers email-based support and extensive learning material.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing service providers, primarily due to its forever free plan. While there are better solutions available, Mailchimp’s popularity cannot be ignored. Mailchimp offers an easy drag-and-drop email builder, autoresponders, contact segmentation, and email tracking.
Mailchimp integrates seamlessly with WordPress and other platforms. Mailchimp’s marketing automation features are limited compared to other providers on this list. Mailchimp offers support through email, live chat, tutorials, and a knowledge base.
Conclusion
Choosing the best email marketing software is crucial for the success of your business. Based on our review and comparison, the top choices for small businesses are Constant Contact, Brevo, HubSpot, Omnisend, Drip, Moosend, AWeber, ConvertKit, and Mailchimp. Each service offers unique features and pricing plans, so it’s important to choose the one that best suits your business needs.
Remember, email marketing is a valuable strategy, and integrating it with other marketing tools like web push notifications can further enhance your marketing efforts. With the right email marketing service, you can effectively engage with your customers and drive business growth.