5 Tools to Help You Get the Most Out of Your Email Marketing Campaigns
The jargon-heavy, complicated world of email marketing can be intimidating to outsiders, but it’s an essential part of any web marketing campaign, in any industry. The opportunity to reach consumers directly in their inbox is one that no company can afford to pass up, and email marketing has many advantages over other ways of creating and pursuing leads. It’s cheaper than traditional advertising, with no cost for sending as many messages as you’d like. It allows you to personalize your messages for a friendlier tone, making for higher levels of engagement with your consumers and lasting relationships (if you play your cards right). And the wealth of data for analytics encourages endless amounts of tinkering, as you can use methods like A/B testing to determine which email blasts are generating sales and traffic to your website, and which are falling on deaf ears. But with so many different strategies to try and so many other companies jockeying for space in customers’ inboxes, some email marketers need more than their own intuition to be successful. Luckily, there are a ton of software packages available to help you perfect your email marketing strategies and maximize the efficacy of your campaigns. Here are ten tools that can help you take your email marketing to the next level today.
One of the most popular email marketing solutions out there, MailChimp’s selection of tools tun the gamut from simple campaign planning to advanced data dive analytics. You can track every metric of interest with their analytics system, and try out new ideas with A/B testing, which lets you split your audience into groups and compare the effectiveness of different campaign techniques. And on the off chance there’s something you need to do that’s not included in MailChimp, the software integrates seamlessly with nearly every third-party plugin out there, and works perfectly with all the most popular e-commerce platforms.
This service is heavily focused on automation, which frees up your time to work on the content of your messages. Unlike many other email marketing services, GetResponse can easily import contacts from third-party address books, saving you a ton of time copying addresses into your new mailing list. Their email creator tool comes loaded with attractive templates for people with a limited programming background, while more advanced coders can build emails with the HTML tool. They also let you preview your messages to see how they’ll fare on mobile, an important consideration giving that more and more people are checking their email on their phones these days.
Emma has become the leader in the industry for modern, sleekly designed messages, with a level of typographical and graphic beauty that you won’t find from many other services. Even people with no graphic design background can use Emma to make messages that look fantastic on any device, with creative layouts that stand out in crowded inboxes. They also include a range of features for laser-targeting your intended audience and automating your campaigns.
The world’s biggest tech company is also its leading innovator in analytics, both for websites and email campaigns. You won’t be able to actually plan and create campaigns within Google Analytics, but it’s indispensable for analyzing your customers’ response to your emails, with unparalleled access to dozens of metrics, giving you the opportunity to pore over endless data about each message and incorporate your findings into planning your next blast. You can also set up conversion goals and track your progress. And best of all, it’s completely free to use.
Technically, Infusionsoft is a CRM (customer relationship management) service, but its email marketing features are excellent, and they’re among the best for small businesses, in particular, allowing you to track your interactions with individual customers down to the most minute detail. For businesses with few employees and resources, Infusionsoft can make email marketing easy and effective without requiring a massive time commitment, with simplified analytics that suggest courses of action instead of depending on you to divine your next move from the trove of data. You can maintain a list of thousands of contacts and send thousands of emails a month with minimal effort, and their easy-to-use templates take graphic design out of the equation.
