Email Marketing Solutions – How to Automate Your Newsletters
Effective communication channels are vital to the success of modern businesses. Email marketing remains one of the most powerful, costeffective tools to directly deliver updates, promotions, and news straight to customers and followers.
While there are numerous apps available to help you manage subscriber databases and design eye catching campaigns, finding the right solution can be overwhelming, so…
Which email marketing solution is best for you?
Choosing the best email marketing solution for your business generally comes down to three things: your specific feature requirements, the size of your audience, and your monthly sending volume.
Essential features to look for in an email marketing platform
The best email marketing platforms are constantly evolving, many platforms now also provide SMS marketing and Whatsapp messaging solutions, expanding the number of direct communications channels you have with contacts. An effective solution should offer these core features:
Drag and drop design quickly create e-newsletters
Most email marketing solutions come with powerful design tools to help you create beautiful emails, whether using predesigned templates, or by creating your own designs from scratch.
Drag and drop editing tools make adding images and content simple.
GDPR Compliance
Built-in GDPR complaince provides peace of mind by ensuring your subscribers are onboarded correctly, opt-ins are tracked, and private data is handled securely. Subscribers are also able to easily unsubscribe, or request for personal data to be removed.
Integration with other business Apps
Ability to integrate your email marketing with e-commerce, accounting and billing Apps e.g. Shopify, Woo Commerce, Magento, Xero, QuickBooks and other services.
Advanced Analytics
Monitor delivery success, open rates, link clicks, subscriber engagement email bounces, mail blocking and more.
Why is email marketing important?
If you aren’t utilizing email marketing, you are likely missing out on sales from both new and existing customers. Here is why it outpaces other marketing channels:
Great Return on Investment (ROI)
Unlike social media ads that charge you for every single click, sending an email costs next to nothing. On average, effective email marketing can return around 30 times initial spend.
You Own Your Audience
Your followers on Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn are essentially ‘rented’. If the platform changes its algorithm, locks your account, or loses popularity, you can lose touch with these followers overnight. Your email list belongs to you, nothing can get between you and your subscribers.
Highly Targeted and Personalized
You don’t have to shout the same message to everyone. You can organise your subscribers into groups (by segmentation) based on specific interests & behaviour e.g. what they’ve bought in the past.
- Example: A furniture store can send a discount code for bedding to people who bought a bed in the last month, rather than blasting it to their entire list.
It provides a ‘nudge effect’
People go to social media to be entertained or connect with friends. They check email with a different mindset – looking for updates, news, and money off deals. Because of this, consumers are much more receptive to promotional offers in their inbox than in their social feeds. Email marketing can provide a nudge effect, prompting consumers to go and make that purchase they have been considering.
Automation helps you do more business: Once you set up an automated email sequences -like a “Welcome Email” when someone signs up, or an “Abandoned Cart” reminder – these features can run in the background… you can literally make sales while you sleep.
Best email marketing solutions for SME’s & startups
- Email Octopus – Great for startups with a FREE solution for up to 2,500 contacts/subscribers. Affordable ‘paid’ plans for over 2,500 contacts.
- Brevo – Priced by emails sent (not contacts), making it cost-effective for large lists with infrequent sends. FREE plan for up to 2,500 contacts. Affordable ‘paid’ plans for over 2,500. Good SMS + email combo.
- Mailchimp – The most popular entry point. Great free tier, easy drag-and-drop builder, decent automation. Can get pricey as your list grows.
Best email marketing solutions for established & growing businesses
- Constant Contact – Powerful email and messanging tools for small and larger businesses. Constant Contact can grow you grow. Great integration options for e-commerce businesses
- Klaviyo – Very popular solution for e-commerce based businesses (especially Shopify). Deep segmentation, powerful integration & automation, built-in revenue tracking.
- ActiveCampaign – Best-in-class automation and CRM integration. Great for complex nurture sequences and lead scoring.
- Kit (was ConvertKit) – Popular with creators and bloggers. Simple, clean, and built around audience tagging and sequences.
What do email marketing solutions cost?
Email marketing apps often base pricing levels on the number of emails you send each month and the number of subscribers you have. For startups and small businesses with a few thousand subscribers, you take take advantage of FREE plans, providing everything you need to get started.
Larger organisations sending 10,000’s emails to many subscribers will need to consider paid subscriptions, these can range in cost. As a guide prices can range from £10 to over £350 per month.
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