What is the best email marketing software and why do you need email marketing software? Let’s look at some of the answers to the above question.
If you do any sort of online, affiliate, or internet marketing, it is necessary to have a good autoresponder or email marketing software for your business.
Without a good autoresponder service, it will be a nightmare to follow up with all your leads manually, and if you are serious about building your lists, the price of the autoresponder will pay for itself after a couple of weeks, providing you are building your list in the correct way.
What Should I Look For In A Good Autoresponder or Email Software Service?
Although it is a personal choice as to what the best email marketing software is for you, here is what to look for and questions you need to ask yourselves when choosing a good one.
Is The Email Marketing Software Reliable In Its Deliverability Of Emails?
Many of the cheaper or free autoresponders will have your mail delivered to your subscriber’s spam box, or not at all, instead of into their inboxes where they will see it.
Does Your Autoresponder Or Software Have Tracking?
You need to have tracking, and most good autoresponders will supply this.
The reason for this is so that you can track how many of your emails were opened, how many bounced and which links were clicked on, and thus learn what sort of headlines will work for your future campaigns.
Can You Set Up Squeeze Pages?
This is a very useful feature to have so that you can set up all your squeeze pages with ease and you can get all your subscribers to sign up into the proper lists.
This will save you hours of time, as you would normally have to go out and design your own squeeze page otherwise.
Does Your Autoresponder Offer Double Opt-In?
This is a personal choice for each individual marketer, but it is a good option to have if you don’t want to get accused of spamming.
If your subscribers are asked to confirm that they asked for information from you, there is less chance that they will lay a complaint against you for sending them an email without their permission. The double opt-in should be in place to protect both parties.
Does Your Autoresponder Have Automations Rules?
This is a very useful feature, as you can set your prospects to go into another list if they become buyers. This will prevent them from getting the same sales letters from you again and again once they have bought something that you are promoting.
Also, a buyers list can be a very valuable commodity for you to have.
Can Your Email Software Export Your Subscribers?
This is also very important because if you need to move or change your autoresponder, you must be able to take your list with you.
How Long Has Your Autoresponder Been In Business?
How long the company has been in business is a HUGE factor to take into account.
The longer the company has been in business the better rapport they have built with ESPs like Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo. That means that your email has less likelihood of being marked as spam.
Go for the 7 years or more rule here.
Does The Price Increase When You Get More Subscribers?
This is another thing you need to watch out for, as it can get pretty expensive with some of these autoresponders. And unless your list is very responsive, you could end up losing money.
Ease of Use
Is the platform easy to use? If it is complicated, you will lose interest in expanding this part of your business very quickly.
Can You Do Split Testing?
This is an important feature that not all the platforms offer. It is important if you run a lot of campaigns to see which ones do better with a few teaks.
Is There Support And Training Available?
There is nothing worse than joining a platform only to be left in the dark. There should be training in place and a support team that is available to answer any questions that you may have.
What is the Best Email Marketing Software?
Here are a few examples of some of the best autoresponders and email marketing software providers out there. This is my personal opinion after reading reviews and checking out some of the criteria above, as well as trying them out for myself.
Most marketers have heard of Aweber and GetResponse already as they have made names for themselves over the years, but did you know there are others that may suit you better in terms of price and also ease of use.
I have used both in the past and although they are good, there are other options that seem to fit my checklist above a lot better.
Whichever service you choose, it will depend a lot on what sort of online business you are running. I do affiliate marketing, so for me, it is definitely a choice between Active Campaign, Convertkit, and Mailerlite.
Here is a list of some of the best names out there.
Active Campaign
This is known as one of the top services and they do offer a 14-day free trial.
Once an underdog, Active Campaign now has over 90 000 members. It is easy to use and one of the more affordable services.
Flodesk
Flodesk is easy to use and they basically take you through everything when it comes to setting up your email and opt-in forms. I am trying them out at the moment, and so far I am impressed.
If you join here, you can get the first month free, and then only pay $19 a month for unlimited subscribers and unlimited emails.
This is definitely one of the most cost-effective email marketing software services that I have come across.
If you want to read my Flodesk review, click here.
Omnisend
Omnisend is relatively new, but they are quickly becoming the known brand for eCommerce. Omnisend has built innovative email templates designed to reduce cart abandonment and drive repeat buyers.
It is not the cheapest platform by far, nor is it easy to use, but a good one nevertheless.
Convertkit
This platform is a relatively simple email marketing tool used almost exclusively by bloggers and online course instructors to develop their personal brands.
Although there are no bells and whistles here, if you’re a creator that just needs a simple tool to serve your audience with regular content, there’s no better tool.
Pricing goes from free to $29 a month for 1000 subscribers.
To join free, click here.
Mailerlite
At the opposite end of the price spectrum, we have the Mailerlite platform, which few have heard about, but it is one of the best value for money tools out there. (it’s free for sending up to 12,000 emails/month to less than 1,000 contacts).
Your email marketing tool is something that you don’t want to change often, therefore it pays to choose a tool that offers not only what you need today, but what you’ll need for the next few years.
Above all, choose the tool that gives you the best opportunity to grow your business.
This is the Autoresponder that I have been using on and off for the past few years. They might not be the best choice at the moment as they are going through ownership changes, but the price is great for a beginner. You can read my review here.
If you want to have your autoresponder and funnel builder set up for you and thus skip the learning curve and start earning straight away, you may want to check this out. This is the best way to earn affiliate commissions without having a website in place.