Email Marketing Tools are one the best ways to reach the customers and make them notice you. Sometimes the free email marketing tools may seem to be effective in reaching your target but there are some of the segmentation and targeting faults which should be considered.
In the beginning, the power of email marketing was not exploited and it took a lot of time to get those first customers. Today, with proper strategies and tools, there are more chances of your email getting read and less chances that it gets deleted. There are many tools available which make it easier for users to reach out to their target audience without much effort. This is why they have become very popular among companies who want to connect with their target customer base.
Free and paid email marketing tools exist for every budget and needs. Best Of Email Marketing Tools make it easy to create, send and track emails, but finding the perfect one for your business is important. First, you need to consider what you need from the service in regards to how many contacts you’ll have and the type of content you’re planning on sending them – newsletters, promotions, announcements or other marketing materials. We’ve created a shortlist of free email marketing tools that are sure to suit any business.
Email marketing tools are only useful if they help you reach and connect with your audience. In today’s article, we’ll show you the best email marketing tools available in 2021, so you can level up your email marketing strategy.
How Can Email Marketing Tools be Used to Engage Your Audience?
Email marketing can do the following:
- Educate consumers on new products and services
- Share industry events and business news
- Alert consumers of contests and promotions
- Promote blog content
- Guide consumers down the sales funnel
Seeking the best email marketing tools for your business? Harnessing the power of email marketing and determining the best software to support your business’ needs is no easy feat.
AWeber
AWeber is a great email marketing platform for teams, small businesses, and entrepreneurs. It includes a drag-and-drop email editor, templates, automation and workflows, A/B testing, segmentation, autoresponders, and tons of integrations. Like others on our list, AWeber offers a landing page builder. It’s clean and drag-and-drop-based, making it easy to use for anyone who needs to quickly build and deploy a landing page along with an email campaign.
Key Features:
- AI-powered email template designer so you can create stunning branded emails quickly.
- Automate email content creation by broadcasting the latest posts from your blogs.
- Direct campaigns to the right people using tagging and dynamic content.
- Drag and drop landing page builder.
Pricing:
AWeber is free for up to 500 subscribers. Pricing starts at $16.15/month.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is an affordable email marketing platform, making it great for small marketing teams and creators. It includes all the features you’d expect like automation, segmentation, triggered emails, email funnels, autoresponders, A/B testing, and scheduling. It also includes more advanced features like conditional content, geotracking, managed deliverability, and multi-user editing. Geotracking shows you where your subscribers are from, and you also get managed deliverability, and multi-user editing (update multiple fields in an email with subscriber information).
Key Features:
- Segmentation and dynamic content make it easy to customize your message and send targeted emails to the right contact.
- Personalize your emails based on any contact information you have.
- A/B testing to find the best-converting emails.
- Use simple split testing to make your emails get more opens, clicks, and buys.
- Built-in landing page builder.
Pricing:
Pricing starts at $9/month.
Drip
Drip is one of the more advanced email marketing platforms on our list and is the perfect option for eCommerce businesses because of its seamless integration with eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento. You can use eCommerce CRM data to create personalized marketing, segmenting your email list based on any number of criteria like clicks, purchase history, email opens, and more.
Drip also integrates SMS marketing, elevating it into a sphere few email marketing platforms play. SMSs can be sent for a range of engagements, from abandoned cart reminders to promotional deals.
Key Features:
- Ecommerce CRM lets you learn more about your customers so you can create targeted and personalized email marketing campaigns.
- Communicate with your customers no matter where they are, from email to SMS to social and beyond.
- Connect your eCommerce store to Drip to collect revenue-attribution data so you can make better marketing decisions.
- SMS automation to drive engagement with buyers.
- Segmentation and reporting on email campaigns.
Pricing:
Drip offers a free trial. Pricing starts at $19/month.
Mailchimp – Easy for Beginners
Payment Plans: Based on the Number of Contacts
Pricing: Starting From $11
Ease of Use: 5/5 – Very Easy
Free Version: Yes
Drag & Drop Editor: Available
Mobile-Friendly Editor: Yes, app
Ease of Use
Here’s what our testers thought about Mailchimp: “The whole usability of Mailchimp feels very smooth and natural. It’s also a great fit for beginners as you get guidance throughout the process. A major perk is the built-in image editor that adds so much to the overall experience.”
After you have your account set up, Mailchimp’s dashboard prompts you to import email contacts either from a file or by copy-pasting it. You then organize your contacts’ statuses, add tags, insert additional information, and review the outcome. When you need to add or remove information or contacts, you can easily do that from the Audience Dashboard.
Before you can start building your email, you need to set up a campaign. Again, the entire process is so smooth and guided all the way.
You can build your email in plain text, custom HTML code, or choose a template or pre-built layouts. The latter opens up the Mailchimp’s drag and drop design tool. The structure is quite solid; however, we found that accessing a block’s additional options covers the entire toolbar, which is a bit annoying. One of the best features of Mailchimp’s email builder is the integrated image editor. You can build your full email without ever leaving the site.
During the email building phase, you can always preview the message in desktop, mobile, or inbox view. However, the latter didn’t seem to work for us when we reviewed this tool.
Once you’re done, you are directed to the summary page to double-check everything, and then you can send your campaign out. Since you’ve already created an email list and added details of your campaign, there are no extra steps at this point.
Mobile Editor
Mailchimp has a dedicated mobile application. You can access performance data, add email contacts, and create landing pages and emails. The mobile email editor itself is fully-functional and looks great. We especially like that the main screen is focused on the email itself and isn’t cluttered with editing options.
Features
Mailchimp has all the modern features that are necessary for running a successful email campaign.
The main features of Mailchimp’s email marketing tools are the drag and drop design tools, customer segmentation options, dynamic content, email automation, sign-up forms, and 200+ integrations with social media and other applications.
Mailchimp’s 24/7 email and live chat support is available with the paid plans, and you get additional phone support with the highest-tier plan. However, when signing up with either the free plan or any paid plans, you get a 30-days email support perk. They also have a substantial knowledge base with useful articles and guides.
Pricing & Plans
Mailchimp’s pricing is based on the number of contacts you are planning to have. Apart from the monthly subscription plans, they also offer a flexible payment option called Pay As You Go. This plan gives you the Essential plan’s features, but you only pre-pay for Mailchimp Credits, which you can then use to send your messages.
The cheapest paid plan starts at $11/month with 500 contacts ($0.022/contact)
Other than the free plan, Mailchimp doesn’t offer a free trial for any of their paid plans. There also isn’t any money-back guarantee.
SendGrid (sendgrid.com)
Some of the tools we’ve introduced so far focus on making email marketing a streamlined and simple process.
SendGrid, on the other hand, is ideal if you’re looking to get as much control over the process as possible. It permits a lot of customization and tweaking, both in your individual emails and your campaigns as a whole.
Key features
- Create emails using a drag-and-drop email editor, pure HTML, or a combination of the two
- Select from a library of responsive email templates
- Build customized campaigns and workflows, and use it as your marketing automation tool
- Segment your list, personalize emails, and do your list management effectively
- Send your ecommerce emails through SendGrid (WooCommerce, Shopify, Salesforce, etc.)
- Perform tests and measure analytics, in order to perfect your future campaigns
SendGrid pricing
If you just want to give SendGrid a try, there’s a free plan that includes most of the primary features. However, this plan is a bit limited when it comes to the sending allowance of 100 emails per day. The next tier pro plan is $14.95 per month, plus $10 per for every 10,000 contacts you maintain. On the far end of the spectrum there are also enterprise plans available (if you’re looking for those, you can also check out Mailjet).
SendGrid is a good option if…
While SendGrid is one of the cheapest email marketing software tools, it can still get pricey if you have a lot of contacts.
However, it’s ideal for smaller businesses and startups that don’t need to send a lot of emails but do want access to a ton of features and customization options. SendGrid also offers a custom API and good customer support, making it a solid choice for developers.
Sendy (sendy.co)
Last but not least, let’s look at an option that’s quite different from our previous email marketing service providers. Most email marketing solutions, including all four on this list so far, are “software as a service” (SaaS) tools that require you to pay a monthly fee for as long as you want to use the service.
Sendy, on the other hand, is a self-hosted application that you can install on your own server (much like WordPress). It then lets you send emails using Amazon’s cloud-based Simple Email Service (SES).
Key features
- Send unlimited emails through Amazon SES
- Set up automated emails, which will send in response to specific triggers
- Segment your subscriber list, and send targeted emails to particular audiences
- Store custom information about your subscribers, and use it to personalize messages as needed
- View detailed analytics reports on your campaign metrics
Sendy pricing
To purchase the Sendy software, you’ll pay a one-time price of $59. After that, there are no ongoing fees to use the Sendy software.
However, to deliver the emails from Sendy, you’ll also need to sign up for the Amazon SES service. This service is still quite cheap, costing just $1 per 10,000 emails that you send.
Sendy is a good option if…
Over the long term, Sendy is the cheapest email marketing software on our list, which makes it the best budget-conscious choice, especially if you need to send bulk emails.
It also offers a great deal of control and flexibility, since you can use the software however you like, and you aren’t beholden to a particular service.
However, this is the least beginner-friendly option and can take a little work to get up and running. Therefore, you may need someone on hand with the technical skills to get Sendy off the ground.
Harness the Power of Email Marketing Today
Companies are looking for professionals with a complete skillset that cuts across subdomains such as PPC, social, email marketing, and more. Candidates are prioritized if they have exposure to many of the leading marTech vendors and are current with the latest digital marketing best practices.
Conclusion
In the world of marketing, when it comes to sending promotional content via email, there are many different things you should consider. In order to make sure that your email marketing campaign is a success you need to know which platforms will help you deliver customers to your business and make your email more personalized.
Email marketing is still one of the best ways to establish and build a relationship with potential and existing customers. This is because it offers an opportunity for marketers to directly reach the audience and make them feel special. While the primary benefit of email marketing tools is that they automate your tasks and make you more efficient, they also help you personalize emails, test different aspects of campaigns, generate reports, analyze campaign results, send emails at the best time, A/B test email copy, interact with subscribers via Live chat,CRM tool integration etc. Some marketers use one tool for all these requirements while others prefer using multiple email marketing platforms based on their need