How To: Select an Email Marketing Service

by: Jen Udan | ChooseWhat.com

Email marketing helps you build relationships with customers, get new or repeat business, and encourage loyalty.

More than half of Internet users check or send email every day. Because email is so popular and pervasive, email marketing has become a cost-effective and viable marketing tool for many types of businesses.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a method of marketing to your customers or subscribers through regularly sent emails, which usually feature promotions, sales, tips, tools, or advice. There are many benefits of utilizing email marketing to promote your business. In fact, email marketing is now increasingly preferred over direct mail marketing due to the proven speed, effectiveness and impact of email campaigns on consumers.

What is an email marketing service?

Email marketing services enable businesses or marketers create and send email marketing campaigns easily, effectively, and without much training. An email marketing service typically offers the following: 

• A design interface that will walk you through the email campaign creation process and lets you see what your email will look like to your readers as you are designing it
• A contact management system that keep all of your contacts in one 
• Advanced reporting options that let you see who opened and click links in your email, who unsubscribed and bounced from your list, and many other statistics

Go through the following steps to help you select an email marketing tool that meets your needs.

1. Evaluate your email marketing needs.
   

   
   How big is my contact list? 

   Most email marketing services offer pricing plans based on the size of your contact list. The smaller your list, the cheaper your monthly price will be. If you’re just starting up, chances are you don’t have a very large contact list, which is great because you can take advantage of free plans from service providers. These plans are limited though, either by number of contacts you can email or number of emails you can send per month. But you can always upgrade your plan when your list gets bigger.

   Top email marketing services offering limited free plans:

   • GetResponse:  Limit of 100 contacts and 500 emails per month
   • MailChimp:  Limit of 2,000 contacts and 12,000 emails per month 
   • MadMimi:  Limit of 100 contacts
   • StreamSend:  Limit of 200 emails per month
   • EliteEmail:  Limit of 1,000 emails per month

   There are also top email marketing services that offer 60-day free trials:

   • Constant Contact:  Offers a 60-day free trial; limit of 100 contacts
   • MyNewsletterBuilder:  Offers a 60-day free trial; limit of 250 emails

   See the full list of email marketing services we’ve reviewed.

   How often do I need to email my list every month?
   
   Most of the email marketing services we’ve reviewed let you send as many emails as you like to your contact list every month, as your only limitation is the number of contacts in your list. But what if you have a relatively small contact list and don’t need to email your subscribers often? You may not send out a regularly scheduled newsletter each week, but you’d like a way to reach customers and contacts when necessary. If this is the case, we recommend taking advantage of email marketing services that offer plans based on the number of emails you send each month, instead of on the number of contacts in your list. These plans are cheaper in general than regular plans based on your contact list.
   
   Top email marketing services offering plans based on number of emails:
   

   • Benchmark Email:  Starts at $9.95 for 600 emails/month
   • GoDaddy:  Starts at $9.99 for 1,000 emails/month
   • GraphicMail:  Starts at $9.95 for 2,000 emails/month
   • StreamSend:  Starts at $19.90 for 2,000 emails/month
   • Emma:  Starts at $30 for 1,000 emails/month

   Which features do I care about most?
   
   Most email marketing services offer pre-made email templates and an editor that helps you create and design your email newsletters. They also have reporting tools that track the number of people who opened your email, unsubscribed from your list or bounced. In addition to email creation and reporting tools, some services offer special features such as:

   • Autoresponder:  A program that lets you send automated messages to your readers, such as a welcome message.
   • Spam Checker:  Most companies offer a tool that checks the likelihood of your email being marked as spam (based on the content in your email). A few companies even offer a manual review of your campaign, which means a real person checks your email before it’s sent to your list.
   • A/B Testing:  This is the ability to run split-test campaigns. You can test elements of your email, such as the From Name or Subject Line to see which works best. Some companies will also let you test the time of day your email is sent.
   • Integration with Social Networks and Google Analytics:  Some services give you the ability to integrate your email campaigns with social sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, so that you can automatically post links to your campaigns on your profiles. Some companies also let you integrate your campaigns with Google Analytics, which is helpful if you use Google Analytics to track visitors and other stats on your business website.

   Learn more about email marketing services that offer the features above.

2. Compare email marketing services and read reviews.

   We’ve done extensive research on the top hosted email marketing services with low monthly fees. Visit our Email Marketing Reviews and Comparison page for more information about these services.
   
   

3. Sign up for a free trial to test your email marketing service.

   Every email marketing service we’ve reviewed offers a free trial that allows you to test the service for a limited amount of time. After you compare providers, read reviews and select an email marketing service, sign up for a free trial of one or more services to ensure that you like the service you’ve selected before you buy.

   Tip:  Switching email marketing services costs time and money, so make sure that the one you select is able to meet your present needs as well as your anticipated needs

4. Create, send, and analyze your first email campaign and evaluate your experience.

   After you’ve signed up for a free trial, go through the entire process of sending an email campaign. You’ll probably want to send a test campaign to a small group of people, such as your employees or friends, before you send a real campaign to customers. Make sure you’ve tested everything in the following list to ensure you’ve made the right selection before you buy.

   • Email Creation Tools
   • Email templates
   • Ease of using the email design editor
   • Contact Management Features
   • Ease of uploading contacts
   • Ease of managing new subscriptions
   • Ease of managing unsubscribed readers and bounced emails
   • Reporting Features
   • Analyze opens, forwards, unsubscribes, bounces, etc.
   • Export reports to .csv or .xls
   • Ability to receive automated reports in your email
   • Email Deliverability
   • Make sure they provider is following CAN-SPAM rules (i.e. opt-in required, spam checker available, provider is added to email white lists)

5. Fine tune your email marketing strategy.

   Your email marketing strategy can be continually improved. Check out our other resources that will help you fine tune your email marketing strategy to promote your business and reach out to your customers and subscribers:

   • How to Get More People to Open Your Emails
   • How to Share Your Email Marketing Campaigns
   • How to Stop Email Marketing from Becoming a Four-Letter Word
   • Email Marketing for Advanced Users

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