Email marketing is one of the best ways to promote your business. But not all tools are created equal. The wrong tool could sink your campaigns. In this article, we’ve listed the best email marketing tools for large businesses.
As you begin your e-commerce journey, there are many different services to choose from. While some may have a bigger market share in one specific niche, it doesn’t mean they’re the best email marketing tool for you. It’s challenging to pick which one will fit your business needs, but we’ve got the answer.
ConvertKit – Best for Influencers, Bloggers, and Creators
- PRICE STARTS AT $29/MO
- EXCELLENT FOR INDEPENDENT CREATORS
- CUSTOM FORMS & REPORTING
- EASY TAGGING AND SEGMENTING
ConvertKit is one of my favorite email marketing services.
It’s a perfect choice for creators of all stripes. That includes influencers, bloggers, video producers, musicians, artists, and more. That’s because their platform focuses more on engaging your audience and nurturing them with landing pages, ecommerce platforms, and membership sites.
You’ll be able to create leads out of casual visitors to your social media accounts, blogs, YouTube videos, Facebook pages, and more.
For those of you who want to build automated email funnels at an affordable price, ConvertKit will be a top option for you to consider.
To set up automated emails, you’ll be guided through a simple visual flow chart.
Instead of having multiple lists of contacts, ConvertKit groups all of your subscribers into one list. But you’ll still be able to tag them manually for segmentation purposes or with auto tags based on their behavior to improve the personalization of your campaigns. That’s great for creators with big audiences.
ConvertKit is best for sending quick emails with clean formatting. There are no complex designs or distracting elements here.
Like most email marketing software, ConvertKit pricing is based on the number of subscribers you have.
- 0 – 1,000 Subscribers — $29 per month
- 1,000 – 3,000 Subscribers — $49 per month
- 3,000 – 5,000 Subscribers — $79 per month
If you switch to ConvertKit with more than 5,000 subscribers, you’ll benefit from their free concierge migration service. You can save some money and get two months for free if you sign up for an annual plan.
ConvertKit has more than 70 third-party direct integrations, customizable forms, and custom reporting. Email and live chat are available for 12 hours per day, Monday through Friday, with limited support on nights and weekends.
Still not sold? Take advantage of ConvertKit’s free 14-day trial to test it out on your own.
Omnisend – Best Omnichannel Email Marketing Platform
- PRICE STARTS AT $0
- TAILOR-MADE FOR ECOMMERCE BUSINESSES
- PRE-BUILT AUTOMATIONS
- CROSS-CHANNEL SALES TRACKING
Omnisend is an easy-to-use email marketing solution that’s tailor-made for ecommerce sites. They offer multiple features such as automated email and SMS messaging in order to convert leads into customers.
They do this by going a step further than most, combining text messages, web browser push notifications, email marketing, Google Customer Match, and Facebook ad retargeting to ensure your connect with the most customers as possible.
All of their channels allow for segmented campaigns. That means you’ll be able to target exactly the customer you need to for your product or services.
They also have pre-built automations for actions your customer might take such as cart abandonment emails/messages, along with welcome emails/messages.
Their library of themed drag-and-drop templates makes creating gorgeous, on-brand emails simple.
Their annual plans and prices are based on how many contacts you have. Below are what it’ll look like based on 500 contacts:
Free — $0
- Up to 15,000 emails / month
- Omnisend-branded email campaigns
- Signup forms, boxes, and pop ups
- Reports
Standard — $16 per month
- Up to 15,000 emails / month
- Email campaigns
- Signup forms, boxes, and pop ups
- Reports
- SMS campaigns and automation
- Audience segmentation
- 24/7 email and chat support
Pro — $99 per month
- Up to 15,000 emails / month
- $80 in free SMS credits / month
- Email campaigns
- Signup forms, boxes, and pop ups
- Reports
- SMS campaigns and automation
- Audience segmentation
- 24/7 email and chat support
- Web push notifications
- Facebook custom audiences
- Google Customer Match
- Priority support
- Advanced reporting
Enterprise — Custom pricing
- Unlimited emails
- Free SMS credits
- Email campaigns
- Signup forms, boxes, and pop ups
- Reports
- SMS campaigns and automation
- Audience segmentation
- 24/7 email and chat support
- Web push notifications
- Facebook custom audiences
- Google Customer Match
- Priority support
- Advanced reporting
- Email migration
- Dedicated account manager
- Deliverability support
- Custom IP address
Remember: This is based on a contact list of 500. If you have more, the prices will go up.
I highly recommend at least the Standard plan. Having unbranded emails alone is worth the cost and you’ll also get access to their email and SMS automation tools. The 24/7 email and chat support is a must-have too.
Learn more and signup now at Omnisend.
GetResponse – Best For Automated Lead Generation
- PRICE STARTS AT $15/MO
- AUTOMATED SALES FUNNELS
- 200+ EMAIL TEMPLATES
- 24/7 LIVE CHAT SUPPORT
GetResponse is a bit more than a basic email marketing service. It’s more of an all-in-one solution that specializes in automation.
And when we say all-in-one, we mean it.
With tools and features such as audience segmentation, autoresponders, landing page builders, automated emails, advanced analytics, and even a webinar software, you’ll be able to collect beaucoup leads, put them in the right workflows, and turn them into returning customers.
One standout tool that GetResponse offers is called Autofunnel. It can be used to create funnels for sales, leads, webinars, and more. It’s fully automated and very easy to use.
Funnels include things like emails, landing pages, exit popups, marketing automation, Facebook ads, and ecommerce integration. It all depends on your goals and how you want to set it up. But GetResponse provides all the tools you need to grow your subscriber list and monetize those contacts.
Once a user enters your funnel, everything is fully automated by GetResponse. It’s the perfect way to guide customers through the conversion process with multiple digital touchpoints.
Let’s take a closer look at GetResponse’s plans and pricing.
Basic — Starting at $15 per month
- Autoresponders
- Unlimited landing pages
- 1 sales funnel
- Unlimited lead funnels
- Sell e-products
Plus — Starting at $49 per month
- Automation builder with 5 workflows
- 5 sales funnels
- Contact scoring capability
- Webinars with up to 100 attendees
- CRM software
Professional — Starting at $99 per month
- Automation builder with unlimited workflows
- Paid webinars with up to 300 attendees
- Unlimited sales funnels
- Unlimited webinar funnels
Max (enterprise tier) — Custom pricing
- Transactional emails
- Dedicated IP
- Webinars with up to 500 attendees
- Consulting services for email campaigns
- Dedicated account manager
These prices are all based on 1,000 subscribers. The rate will increase as your list grows. As you can see, even the entry-level plan offered by GetRetresponse comes with advanced features like autoresponders, lead funnels, and sales funnels.
All plans come with 220 email templates, 180 landing page templates, 700 form templates, 40 autofunnel templates, 150 integrations, and 24/7 live chat support.
But to really get the most out of this software, I’d recommend the Plus plan, especially if you don’t already have CRM software. The base rate is definitely higher compared to the other services we’ve seen. However, the plan just comes with so much more.
Instead of just getting email software, you’re benefiting from building automated lead funnels, landing pages, webinars, and lots of other extras that just aren’t included from other providers.
GetResponse offers discounts for annual and 24-month contracts if you pay in advance. At the very least, you can try GetResponse free for 30 days.
MailChimp
Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing service providers in the world primarily because they offer a forever free email marketing service plan.
Mailchimp comes with an easy drag-and-drop email builder, autoresponders, segmenting contacts into groups, and simple tracking for analytics. It also allows you to setup delivery times based on user’s timezones, and you can setup segmenting based on geolocation.
You can easily integrate MailChimp with WordPress, Magento, Shopify, and many other platforms. If you are using WordPress, then see our ultimate guide to using Mailchimp and WordPress for detailed instructions.
When it comes to marketing automation features, Mailchimp platform is quite limited when compared to other providers in our list such as HubSpot, Drip or ConvertKit.
In the recent years, Mailchimp has attempted to add many of the “advanced” features, but having tested many of these, they’re not truly advanced.
Mailchimp support is offered by email, live chat, and a large tutorials knowledge-base. However their support is often slow and no match to the quality of service that you get from Constant Contact.
Mailchimp offers a forever free plan which allows you to send 12,000 emails for up to 2,000 subscribers. This plan is fairly limited because you don’t get features like send-time optimization, advanced segmentation, multi-variate testing, etc. You are also required to display their branding in your email. Last but not least, support is restricted to email only which is fine if you’re a hobbyist but as a serious business, you need reliable support that you can count on.
Their paid plans start from $10/month for up to 500 subscribers, and the pricing increases in the increment of 500 subscribers.
However if you want unlimited audiences, advanced audience segmentation, multivariate testing, and comparative reporting, then you’d have to move to their $299 per month plan.
EmailOctopus
Best for developers
There’s long been a notion in email marketing that the most affordable way to send emails is using Amazon’s Simple Email Service (SES). Yet, the UI just isn’t built for marketing teams to create campaigns.
Many email marketing services have tried to bridge this gap – from Sendy to Moonmail, but they’ve often ended up either falling short on features or gravitating towards being more developer-centric.
EmailOctopus have nailed this balance.
Conclusion
Email marketing is the best way to keep your business top of mind with both past and new customers. There are a lot of options out there, so we made it our goal to sort through them and find the very best that help you succeed.