Despite the numerous negative claims you might have heard about email marketing, it still remains to be one of the best marketing methods.
Well, its conversion efficiency may have slowed down in the recent past. But still, this does not mean that you should give up on your email list.
The one thing that sets email marketing apart from the rest of the online marketing methods is its pinpoint targeting ability. As you know, you only collect emails from viewers who have actually visited your website and got interested in your content.
Simply means that all the people in your email list are potential customers. They have a higher probability of buying from you since they already know you, unlike social media marketing where you do it to complete strangers.
After all, it is the cheapest marketing method out there. All you need is an email list- which is free to collect from your website- and an automation tool to send your bulk emails to your potential customers.
Talking of automation tools, which one exactly should you choose to send your emails? You obviously don’t want a tool that sends your emails directly to spam. No one will ever open them.
With that said, let’s dive into some of the best email and marketing automation tools available, and try to determine the best to go with.
Mailer Lite
Mailer Lite is quite new to the email marketing world evidenced by its newness in design and features. And I don’t negatively mean this. This newness makes it one of the best email marketing tools currently, thanks to its updated features tools.
It is equipped with just the right features, making it very clean and simple to use such as newsletters, forms, landing pages etc., which you can easily edit using their easy editor, for quick results. And all this is available on their ‘Free Forever’ option. How amazing!
It also turns out to be the cheapest option on this list. Their plans start with a free-for-life option catering for less than 1,000 email subscribers, a 2,500 email subscribers option costing $15, a 5,000 subscribers plan for $30, and a 10,000 subscribers plan going for $50. They also have other plans for people with 10,000 plus subscribers.
Mailer Lite is best suited for people with a tight budget, especially starters and new bloggers. Its only downside is you miss out on some of the crucial features such as spam/design testing, advanced automation features, and full reporting.
Visit MailerLite
Active Campaign
By all means, this is the best email automation tool for those of you who are not limited by cash. It offers a ton of advanced features such as drag-and-drop email design, social integration and tracking, lead capture forms, email campaign reporting, and web tracking.
Additionally, it allows for integration with several popular third-party customer relationship management (CRM) websites/tools, while also offering its own sales force automation functionality such as lead scoring, contact management, and pipeline management.
Sounds overwhelming? No worries! Active Campaign offers free live chat customer support plus phone support. If this is not enough, you get free custom design services from them when you upgrade to the enterprise customer, one-on-one consulting, and advanced support.
On the downside, it lacks a landing page builder; however, you can get one by integrating third-party apps such as LeadPages. The reporting is also shoddy, and you will have to pay for email compatibility testing. Kind of feels like you are being robbed.
Its pricing varies between a $9 Lite plan, a $49 Plus plan, $149 Professional plan, and a $259 enterprise plan.
Generally, it is a good email automation tool and provides more compared to its peers. I highly recommend it.
Visit Active Campaign.
Mail Chimp
It’s probably the oldest automation tool on this list but has lagged quite behind in a lot of ways. What attracts many people to it can create very beautiful newsletters, and its free plan which allows for sending up to 12,.000 emails a month to up to 2,000 subscribers.
They offer three plans; a free plan, an essentials plan costing $15 for up to 500 contacts, a standard plan costing $17 for up to 500 contacts but offering more functionality compared to the essentials plan, and a pro plan costing $299 a month that unlocks all the features that the platform has to offer. They additionally offer other small plans based on the number of contacts you have, which you can check here.
On the plus side, Mail Chimp offers excellent reporting tools which include geo-tracking, social media and Google Analytics integration, and client tracking. Their free option is also pretty generous considering the features it offers. As I mentioned earlier, their editor template is incredible, especially for making newsletters.
On the downside, their advanced automation feature is disappointing. Their premium plans are also really expensive, especially for beginners. Once you decide to upgrade from the free plan, you feel like you are literally throwing away money.
Visit Mail Chimp.
GetResponse
GetResponse is another simple-to-use email marketing automation tool offering incredible flexibility and features. Its plans start with a free option for up to 500 contacts, a basic plan costing $12.5 a month for 1,000 contacts, a $40.18 plus plan for 1,000 contacts but with more features compared to the basic plan, and a $81.18 professional plan for 1,000 contacts. However, you can customize each plan based on the number of contacts you have and the pricing will be adjusted automatically. The plans are more dependent on the features offered rather than the number of contacts. Click here to check it out.
On the plus side, it is very easy to understand and use especially its editor. It also has a wide third-party integration option and 24/7 customer support. Furthermore, its email tracking is short of excellent and even allows you to maintain different lists.
On the negative, they do not have a free plan. Alternatively, they offer a 30-day trial which does not require any credit card details. Moreover, their templates are a little outdated/
Visit GetResponse.
Campaign Monitor
By far, this is the most expensive option on this list.
Their plans range between $9 per month for the basic plan, $29 for an unlimited plan, and $149 per month for the premier plan. However, it gets expensive when you try to host a database of emails on the platform. It becomes twice as expensive as compared to MailChimp and GetResponse.
On the positive, it has the best templates for creating newsletters and landing pages. Not only this, but you also get the chance to change the font on the templates. Additionally, it has an array of excellent autoresponders and other incredible features that match the high price.
The negatives are lack of convenient customer support; very expensive; split testing is constricted to only 2 variants; and offers no proper free trial.
Visit Campaign Monitor.
Conclusion
All these platforms are excellent, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. Judging the best platform is quite challenging as there are many factors to consider such as price, and the number of subscribers you have.
However, I would generally recommend MailerLite for those of you with limited funds, and ActiveCampaign for those with extra cash to spend on marketing. However, you can still go ahead and try all of them, especially those with a free trial, or free plans, to find out what exactly they offer. It will be easier to choose the best yourself.