Email marketing has been used as a low cost and highly effective way of communicating with customers for years. In fact, senders are more likely to get recipients to click on links in their emails than they are to click on banner ads. Today, consumers are more bombarded than ever with advertising messages through online display ads and email messages delivered by spam bot programs. Because the Internet is so cluttered with spam messages, consumers have become more selective about which emails they will open. To be more effective in reaching consumers and earning their trust, business owners should consider using an open source email marketing software program or tools to manage email campaigns.
There are many open source solutions for the sending of mass emails. Even with the heavy limitations and issues related to the major providers in this space, their systems still work for a large number of people. However, if you fall into a small percentage of users who have run into issues with sending, then other solutions are needed. In this article we talk about the best open source email marketing software available today.
E-mail is one of the most popular points-of-contact between businesses and customers in the modern world. Customers resort to E-mails and social media these days to communicate their queries or grievances regarding products and services. On the other side, businesses and enterprises use E-mail very effectively to advertise and market their products among potential customers as well as solving issues within the existing customer base. E-mail Marketing Software tools are key to achieving optimum utilization of all resources when it comes to using E-mail as a point-of-contact.
E-mail is just the start. Social Media is a whole another dimension where customers are resorting to communicating their queries. But still, E-mail remains the primary contact point for businesses even today. Sending bulk E-mails in a jiffy, categorizing them according to target groups and keeping subscribers in the loop on a daily basis was a torrid task a few years ago, but now, E-mail marketing software tools have made all these tasks simple and achievable every single day. Even if you are a small business owner, E-mail marketing software tools are extremely vital to maintain your internet presence.
What is an E-mail Marketing Software Tool?
E-mail Marketing Software tools help you in conducting E-mail marketing and advertising campaigns and help you get in touch with customers and potential customers directly. Writing E-mails is quite tasking as time has become a very valuable resource when it comes to businesses and enterprises. E-mail Marketing Software tools help integrate all E-mail functions in one place along with automation of the mail sending process as well as responses for common replies and queries from customers and subscribers. E-mail Marketing Software also helps create and manage campaigns and events based on the mail platform which might involve advertisements, products and even direct sales of your products and services. E-mail is a direct form of communication with people and even organizations which makes it extremely vital for businesses to have a huge ecosystem on the mail platform. E-mail Marketing tools help manage this ecosystem, keeping all vital elements under constant supervision and trying to improve the output as much as it can.
Mautic
(Source: Mautic)
Features
- Automated E-mail Responses
- Personalized E-mails
- Mobile Optimized
- Search Tracking and Optimization
- Automated Alerts and Tasks
- Budgeting
- Ad Management
- Analytics
Mautic is one of the most advanced E-mail marketing software tools available on the Internet today. It has a wide range of features that automate almost all advanced functions and enable seamless functioning. The response system and task management systems are completely automated. All the searches can be tracked and Mautic even optimizes searches for future uses. Mautic is integrated across almost all major platforms and is even mobile friendly which makes it extremely convenient. Mautic helps you manage Ads over Google and Facebook as well. Mautic also uses Google Analytics and give use daily and weekly reports regarding responses and alerts you about irregularities. Mautic is extremely customizable and is a complete package when it comes to E-mail marketing. If you have a small to medium enterprise, Mautic is a great option to have at hand.
Dada Mail
Dada Mail is self-hosted, it is installs with minimal dependencies on email marketing. It is licensed under the GPL license and works on all three major operating systems (Windows, macOS, and Linux). Dada Mail written in Perl.
Among Dada mail features we can manage an email mailing list, which would save a lot of time and work, it supports archiving, viewing, searching, resending, Amazon SES, SMTP, and many other features. It comes with a web-based installer and supports click through tracking, mass mail scheduling. It also supports multiple SQL backend flavors. Dada Mail bundles all of its CPAN Perl module dependencies.
Dada Mail provides a lot of documents about how to use the software on their official website.
You can download it from the official website, or access the source code on GitHub.
Piler (Linux)
“Piler” is an email archiver as Docker image and initialized in 2012 as proprietary software, this program became open source in 2017 and licensed under the MIT License.
You’ll find all the basic features in any email software available in Piler as well; support archiving and retention rules, digital fingerprinting and verification, deduplication, Office 365 and has a nice GUI. It is written in PHP. However, what makes Piler special is supporting several authentication methods (AD/LDAP, SSO, Google OAuth, 2 FA, IMAP, POP3). finally, there’s a demo which allows you easily to try.
Unfortunately, one of the cons of Piler is that it does not provide binaries for Windows and macOS, but just for Linux distributions.
MailWizz
MailWizz is a self hosted email marketing software which is written in PHP and MySQL. This application is suitable for both beginners and experts. It provides a detailed overview dashboard that enables you to manage your mails with ease. MailWizz enables you to create an unlimited separate customer account. It allows you to send mass emails to clients with no hassle.
Features:
- Create autoresponders, recurring campaigns, or regular campaigns.
- You can send campaigns based on JSON feeds or external RSS.
- Get detailed reports according to your campaigns and share it with anyone.
- Send your emails with any SMTP server, SparkPost, Amazon SES, MailGun, and more.
- It enables you to import your subscribers from a text file, external database, or CSV file.
- You can create custom fields required for your subscribers.
- This application enables you to manage all your surveys created throughout the system.
Campaigns
Campaigns is email marketing software that helps you to increase your sales with no hassle. It enables you to quickly create mail using ready-made templates. This tool allows you to make a personal connection with personalized email campaigns.
Features:
- This software provides you analytics in real time.
- It is integrated with Zoho CRM.
- Enables you to automate your email marketing.
- Offers drag and drop editor.
- Share your campaigns on social media.
List Messenger
(Source: List Messenger)
Features
- Automated Subscribing/Unsubscribing
- Message Archive System
- Integrated Subscriber History
- Spell Check
- Automated responses
- Analytics
- Database Management
List Messenger is one of the most basic E-mail marketing software tools out there. It has a simple and extremely customizable UI. But being simple does not make it devoid of an array of features. It has a completely automated subscriber management system. Along with this it has a vast message archive system which makes it easy to manage similar response and alerts. Subscriber history enables tracking of vital information and helps you manage messages and campaigns accordingly. It also has a very convenient spell check feature which keeps your e-mails precise and error-free. List Messenger is integrated with Google Analytics which helps keep track of important information regarding subscribers and important alerts and responses on a daily and weekly basis.
pHpList
(Source: pHpList)
Features
- Personalization
- Extremely Scalable
- Automated E-mail responses
- Subscriber Management
- Analytics
- Bounce Processing
- Campaign Scheduling
pHpList is a great E-mail Marketing software tool that enables seamless integration over a range of platforms. It is very scalable and can be used from the smallest of businesses to even large enterprises. The response and alert systems are automated which make it very time-saving. It has an excellent subscriber management system which helps sort them, and adapt and respond according to their activity. It is fully integrated with Google Analytics, keeping you in the loop with overall activity on a daily basis. Bounce processing and management another very important feature which helps avoid delivery errors and keeping check on invalid E-mail IDs and accounts. pHpList helps in creating and managing campaigns as well, from scheduling them to planning them. pHpList is a complete package when it comes to E-mail marketing and can be used by small and medium enterprises.
OpenEMM
(Source: OpenEMM)
Features
- Fluid and Simple UI
- Bounce Management
- Mail and Link Tracking
- Automated data import and export
- Scripting and personalized E-mails
- Target Group management
- Analytics
OpenEMM is a very simple and customizable E-mail management system. The UI is very fluid and user-friendly. It has a great bounce management system which helps avoid delivery errors. E-mail and link tracking help keep track of regular responses and alerts from subscribers. OpenEMM can import and export data and manage a huge database regarding users and subscribers. OpenEMM can help you script and personalize E-mails in context with the user’s needs. OpenEMM can also keep track of your target groups, segregate them and automate your responses regarding those target groups. It is integrated with Google Analytics which helps keep track of responses and alerts on a daily basis.
Features of an E-mail Marketing Software Tool
- E-Mail Automation: An E-mail Marketing Software tool will automate and simplify the whole mail sending and receiving process. Mails can be scheduled and categorically sorted. An E-mail Marketing Software tool can also respond to certain queries and mails from customers. The user can set template response to similar mails and queries using the software, and from there on, it will respond to E-mails of such profiles automatically.
- Analytics and Metrics: An E-mail Marketing Software is in most cases integrated with Google Analytics or some other Analytics platform. Analytics is a very important part of business metrics and statistics these days. Analytics help you to keep a check on responses and alerts and keep track of daily activity on your mail platform. Analytics will help you judge the execution and success of your advertising and marketing campaigns and also how the future campaigns should be carried out. Having statistics and figures at your disposal will always make your job easier running any business.
- Social Media Management and Integration: E-mail is the stepping stone to a social media connect. E-mail Marketing Software tools integrate the power of mails with social media marketing. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are very vital tools if you want to promote your brand or service in today’s world. E-mail Marketing Software tools integrate the power of direct E-mails to social media platforms and create a proper webbed ecosystem for your product to be viewed and advertised over multiple platforms.
- WYSIWYG: WYSIWYG stands for ‘what you see is what you get’. This is a very important factor when it comes to E-mail marketing, especially in the region of direct sales. While marketing and advertising your product or service through mail servers or even social media, you need to be absolutely transparent about what you offer. E-mail Marketing Software tools make this simple by providing direct access to customers with queries and suggestions regarding your products and services. Mail is a very closed and personal point-of-contact for the customer and they prefer contacting over E-mail rather than social media in most cases if they have grievances and queries about products. This has changed with the younger generation a bit, but still mail is very important.
Conclusion
Email marketing automation has become an essential part of each email marketing campaign, with smart devices increasingly gaining in popularity. Before you close this report and open your inbox, I want to draw your attention to the fact that there is no dearth of options when it comes to choosing an email marketing software or automation tool. You could choose one based on your budget, or on its automation capabilities, or because it’s being used by your competitor — whatever makes sense.
Open source email marketing tools have been in use for more than a decade now. Many businesses has used them in their campaigns and subscribed many open source email marketing software providers. Open source software has been extremely beneficial to business that don’t want to go into the expense of purchasing licensed software or paying for services in order to get their campaigns started.