As a blogger, you will definitely need the best email marketing software to send out newsletters or promote your blog posts. Here’s what you’ll want to consider in choosing the best email marketing software, and how to create newsletter with it so you can stay informed and grow your subscribers.
Email is the best way to automate your blog, so it won’t take away from any other important aspect of your business. How do you choose the best email marketing software for bloggers? What factors should be considered when selecting an email marketing service for bloggers? This article about best email marketing for bloggers will help you find the answers.
Many bloggers find that email marketing is the best traffic generation channel for their blog. But, finding good email marketing software is hard. After all, there are so many options available that it can be tricky to select the right one.
If you are running a blog for quite some time now, I’m sure you would be thinking about how to expand it even further. You would probably want to try out and explore more things related to it. Exploring more is good, but don’t confuse your readers and visitors by bombarding them with email marketing. Before that, the best thing you have to do is learn which email marketing software opens the doors to your success.
What is email marketing?
In simple terms, email marketing is when you reach out to your readers via email to send messages, provide value, and promote your products or services. It allows you to build a relationship with your readers, share new blog posts, and market your blog through emails.
To get started, you usually need to create a pop-up, slide in form, landing page, or other method to collect emails. The most effective way to do this is to offer something of value to your readers, such as a checklist, cheatsheet, training, or other free resource in exchange for their email.
Once you have a list of emails, you can communicate in a couple of ways. For one, you could send one-off emails to your list, often known as broadcasts. With a broadcast, you might make an announcement or share a new blog post with your subscribers.
You can also often set up automated sequences, sending out a series of pre-written emails over several days whenever a new subscriber signs up. With this approach, you can “set it and forget” and ideally make sales or earn affiliate commissions on autopilot.
Whatever methods you choose, communicating regularly with your list will help readers develop a stronger connection to you and your blog.
What to consider when choosing an email marketing service
Now that you know what email marketing is and how it could benefit your blogging career, consider the following factors to select the best email marketing service for your blog.
Price
If you’re a beginner blogger, you want to choose the most affordable email marketing tool out there, without compromising on quality. Don’t worry, there are free email marketing services for those on a very tight budget, though they typically have some restrictions.
Ease of use
You want a digital marketing service that doesn’t require advanced tech skills. The easier it is to use, the better.
Features
The best email marketing platform should have features that are geared toward helping you succeed. Some features to consider include form and landing page templates, broadcasts, email sequences, and automations.
Deliverability
It’s important to choose an email marketing software that guarantees deliverability.
If a reader shares their email to download a freebie from your site, you don’t want them to have to wait hours before they receive it. Nor do you want your emails getting lost in their spam folder.
Make sure to choose email marketing software that actually delivers your email to the intended contacts – and fast!
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is my number one recommendation for the best email marketing service for bloggers. This email marketing tool was made for bloggers by bloggers; it’s 100% committed to helping bloggers succeed.
Not only is it incredibly easy to use and navigate, even if you’re completely new to email marketing, but the company also provides weekly live trainings to help you grow.
Plus, ConvertKit comes with a supportive community of like-minded creators to help you throughout your email marketing journey. (You’ll even get a free T-shirt after you sign up and complete its new user checklist.)
With ConvertKit, you can create eye-catching pop-ups, slide in forms, and other types of forms, as well as landing pages to encourage readers to subscribe.
It’s easy to get these forms on your blog with the free ConvertKit plugin for WordPress. On the free plan, you can collect up to 1,000 emails and send broadcast emails.
If you upgrade to a paid plan, you can also create sequences of emails and automate them. In other words, you can create a series of emails to send automatically after someone subscribes to a certain form.
If you’re trying to market an affiliate product or sell one of your own, these automations will help you make sales 24/7 without having to do any extra work on your end apart from the initial set-up.
For a deeper dive, check out my full ConvertKit review here.
Pros of ConvertKit
- Ability to create email sequences and automations
- Powerful email creation tools
- Easy integration with blogging tools, such as WordPress
- Option to send free automatic downloads to your readers in exchange for their email addresses (for instance, you could offer them a checklist, cheatsheet, workbook, roadmap, or other freebie)
- Generous free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers
- Allows you to “tag” subscribers into different categories so you can separate them into different lists. For instance, you could create one list of potential customers and another of people who have already made a purchase.
- Easy-to-use interface that’s intuitive, even for those completely new to email marketing
- Attractive templates for forms (pop-up, slide in, in-line, etc.) and landing pages to boost conversions of readers into subscribers
Cons of ConvertKit
- If you have over 1,000 subscribers already, you will have to pay $29 per month (or more on the pro plan), which is higher than you’ll find on some other plans
ConvertKit pricing
Here’s a look at how much you’ll be charged every month to use ConvertKit.
Bottom line: ConvertKit is an email marketing tool that’s incredibly easy to use and has lots of useful functions. It’s my #1 recommendation for the best email marketing service for bloggers.
MailerLite
MailerLite is another user-friendly email marketing service that’s great for bloggers and online business owners. It’s a little more affordable than ConvertKit, and it offers even more templates for designing your email.
However, it doesn’t have quite as many options when it comes to categorizing your subscribers, nor does it have as many advanced automation features.
To learn more, head to my in-depth MailerLite review.
Pros of MailerLite
- Offers affordable pricing, including a free plan that allows up to 1,000 subscribers
- Has lots of well-designed email templates to snazz up your emails
- Provides a variety of form templates, as well as the option to place forms in different places on your site
- Allows you to set up email automations
Cons of MailerLite
- Doesn’t offer chat support on the free plan
- Doesn’t have as robust subscriber tagging or email automation features as some other services
- Has a longer sign-up process than some other sites that requires approval before you can email more than 500 subscribers
Although MailerLite may not have as powerful features as ConvertKit, its pricing is a little easier on the wallet, making it a solid choice for new bloggers.
Moosend
Moosend is an all-in-one marketing platform that offers email marketing, landing pages, automation, and plenty of integrations.
It’s an excellent choice for bloggers and online business owners with its easy, drag-and-drop design tools and affordable pricing structure. While some email marketing platforms are tough to learn, Moosend has a straightforward user experience that anyone can pick up.
With this platform, you can design customized newsletters, build your email list, and automate emails. You can either build your own email automation or use one of Moosend’s “recipes,” or pre-built automation templates.
You choose the trigger that starts the email automation, specify the steps, and set the actions. For example, you can send out a series of emails when someone subscribes to a form, or even send “abandoned cart” messages to remind someone to check out.
You can learn more about Moosend in my in-depth review here. Or keep reading for a closer look at its pros and cons.
Pros of Moosend
- Intuitive drag-and-drop builder makes it easy to design beautiful newsletters, forms and landing pages without knowing any code
- Landing page builder tools allow you to design custom pages to increase sign-ups and conversions
- Automation tools and templates let you set up pre-written series of emails to send to subscribers after they take a certain action
- Opt-in forms that you can customize to increase sign-ups and grow your email list
- List segmentation options to tag and categorize your subscribers based on certain identifying features or behaviors (e.g., when they subscribed, who abandoned a cart, etc.)
- Reporting tools that give insight into all the important analytics of your email marketing efforts
- Customer support that includes phone support with each paid plan, live chat, email, informative webinars, and a large knowledge base. Plus, custom enterprise plans have their own account manager.
- Affordable pricing that beats many of the other competitors on this list, as well as a free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers
- Integrations with lots of other apps and platforms
Cons of Moosend
- Doesn’t offer phone support on the free plan
- Free plan doesn’t include landing pages
- Some Moosend reviewers have said the dashboard can load slowly at times
Moosend pricing
Moosend is one of the most affordable email marketing platforms out there. Not only does it offer a free plan for lists of fewer than 1,000 subscribers, but its paid plans start at just $8/month when paid annually.
The price goes to $44 per month for up to 10,000 subscribers and $100 per month for 10,000 to 25,000 subscribers. You can also request a custom enterprise plan for your business with a dedicated account manager.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is a leading email marketing service known for having the best balance between functionality and affordability.
This tool is top of our best email marketing services list before it has an extremely rich feature-set that goes beyond email marketing. It has an incredibly powerful visual automation builder – one of the best I’ve tested.
When it comes to the core emailing functionality, you have all the features you need. For example; you can choose from a selection of email templates, or design your own with a drag and drop editor.
You have several options for sending your campaign emails; one-off emails, timed campaigns, automated emails, RSS-based, A/B testing, or auto-responder.
ActiveCampaign has a lot to offer in terms of contact management. You get plenty of ways to filter contacts, and full history of how your contacts have interacted with you – this works in sync with their site & event tracking functionality. List cleaning functionality is included, which can also be done via automation sequences.
Segmenting your email list is easy, and you have access to advanced functionality such as A/B testing and dynamic content. These two features alone can help you get more opens, clicks, and conversions.
Balancing functionality, price, and performance, ActiveCampaign is the best all-round email marketing service.
ActiveCampaign’s offering is configured in such a way that it makes industry-leading marketing automation available to content creators and small businesses, while supporting larger businesses with enterprise-specific functionality.
You’ll find user accounts available for your team, live chat, on-site messaging, custom domains, CRM & sales automation, and plenty more.
Key Features:
- Powerful marketing automation – ActiveCampaign has one of the most feature-rich visual automation builders around.
- Large library of automation sequences saves you time & effort – Don’t waste your time building long automation sequences from scratch. Import pre-made sequences you can edit in moments.
- Site & event tracking – Automate your email marketing based on triggering of events, and how your visitors interact with your website.
- Inclusive live chat functionality – Add live chat to your website in minutes that connects to your automation sequences easily. Use mobile apps to reply to live chat messages on the go.
Pricing:
Plans start at $9/month (paid yearly) for their lite plan which includes all the important email & automation features most people will need. Increase your plan to unlock site messaging, custom domains, CRM, SMS marketing, and more.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the most popular and reliable email marketing services in the market. They are suitable for bloggers, small businesses, startups, and even mid-level businesses.
It comes with a drag and drop builder that helps you design professional email templates easily. The user interface is very easy to use. Not only that but the templates are also mobile-friendly, so it will load perfectly on every device.
Constant Contact helps you automate your marketing campaigns to increase engagement. You can send personalized welcome emails, schedule an email series, send different emails based on clicks, resend emails to non-openers, add social media sharing buttons, and more.
You can also track your campaigns in your admin area and see the results in real time. This will help you to understand what you’re doing correctly and what is not working for you.
Best of all, Constant Contact offers awesome support to its customers. Unlike most other providers, they even offer 24/7 phone support! You also can contact them via email, forum, or live chat if you face any problem.
Pros
- Easy to use for beginners
- Offers a drag and drop builder to design email templates
- Helps you track your marketing campaigns
- Offers a vast library of helpful resources
- 24/7 support via phone, email, or live chat
Cons
- Doesn’t offer a free plan
- Comes with limited automation features compared to Drip
How Much Does Constant Contact Cost?
Although Constant Contact doesn’t have a free plan, it allows you to test their service for the first 60 days for free. And you’ll get access to all their email marketing tools during that period.
The best part is you don’t even need to provide your credit card details to start the trial. Isn’t that great?
After the trial period ends, you’ll have to purchase one of their plans starting at $20 per month. You can also buy an annual plan and get a 15% discount.
In my opinion, Constant Contact is the absolute best choice for beginners if you have the budget for it. Plus you can try it our for 60 days at no risk.
Looking For The Best Email Newsletter Tool To Cover Your Needs?
Creating beautiful and converting messages requires one of the best newsletter platforms available out there.
To be on the winning side, make sure to choose the one that fits your business goals and needs. All of the above tools are more or less easy to master and you won’t need to spend hours upon hours in their respective knowledge base.
So, take advantage of any available free plans or trials and make a data-driven decision that will help you nail your future email marketing strategy without breaking the bank!
And if you feel that Moosend hits all the right notes, make sure to sign up for an account and see how it can help you turn into a newsletter hero!
Conclusion
Email has long been neglected by content marketers and bloggers, but the tides are finally shifting. More and more content marketers are realizing the incredible value of email marketing to build an engaged and loyal readership.
If you are a blogger, blogger or sole proprietor, you must be using email marketing. You can send newsletters or contact list updates by email. Or if you hire virtual assistant(VA) to handle social media updates, email marketing software will be handy for her too (which is much easier than writing series of emails)