Our top picks:
Having a great email marketing software can make a huge difference for your business. Did you know that email marketing can have a ROI of up to 4400%? Social media marketing is booming right now, but in order to reach people, you are always at the mercy of their algorithm. However, everybody checks email! There are far greater odds that your audience will notice something you send them by email, and the more frequently you are in front of them, the more likely it is that they will remember you and never forget you, which translates to more sales and a stronger relationship with them!
Why email marketing?
The best part is that email advertising is free or really one of the cheapest methods of marketing! Now, I strongly advise against using your personal email address for email marketing. Why? Since you won’t reap the advantages of marketing, automation, and workflows. By allowing you to design unique workflows for your potential consumers, current customers, or loyal customers, email marketing software helps you step up your marketing efforts.
Instead of sending a generic message to all your consumers, you can interact with diverse audiences by sending personalized messages based on factors such as an event, their purchasing patterns, etc. If someone regularly buys soap from you, for example, you will have better success convincing them to try a new scent of soap than a new shampoo. Yes, you can suggest the shampoo to them as a “similar” product in an entirely separate workflow. There are several ways to test and discover what works for your customers, but they are only available if you have a robust email marketing tool.
Best Email Marketing Tools Available
Let’s talk about some great and powerful marketing software that you can start with. Most of these allow you to start for free until you hit a certain limit of subscribers so if you’re new to email marketing, you can start with the free ones and switch in future which is as easy as importing / exporting your subscribers. The majority of these allow you to start for free up until you reach a particular threshold of subscribers.
GetResponse
GetResponse is one of the most widely used email marketing software for small businesses especially e-commerce. The reason that it’s so widely used is due to their ease of use. They make complicated things simple for their users so if you are new to email marketing or don’t want to spend a lot of time “figuring” things out, GetResponse is the easiest to begin with. Also, it is very competitively priced – one of the cheapest options out there. They do have FREE plan for up to 500 subscribers so it’s a good option to begin with. I’d also call it value for money for the vast amount of features they provide you with at a great price.
They use a simple drag and drop feature that is easy to use. The workflows are extremely easy to create as well. Even their free plan offer has 1 website builder if you’d like to create a lead magnet. Other great features include: webinars, paid ads, sales funnels, live chat. Automations and workflows, however, are not included in the free option.
Below are some screenshots of a workflow that I created for this website and also some amazing easy to use templates available:
Flodesk
Flodesk is increasingly becoming the most popular options in email marketing for small businesses. And, for a really good reason. Although they don’t have a free plan option, they are cheapest, have the most beautiful templates you’ll find and have the easiest to navigate user interface. It’s one of the 2 that I personally use : I use Flodesk for this website and then Aweber for my e-commerce business.
Best part — they don’t have pricing options based on the number of subscribers that you have. You pay one price for unlimited number of subscribers unlike other platforms where your cost might increase with the number of subscribers.
They will also give you the option to have your own landing pages and create your own forms that you can plug into your website for the same price. Again, these forms are customizable and they have absolutely gorgeous templates available.
You also get option to create your workflows based on the audience segment that you can customize. Below I’ve shared a few template designs they have:
How gorgeous! Beautiful emails do catch attention especially when they are surrounded with some simple to understand information for your consumers.
Lastly, they have an upgraded option of their Checkout feature now, at an additional cost. It is also completely customizable and will allow you to sell your products and services through their feature, without any additional sites or setup. The transaction fee is the 3% Stripe fee + $0.30 for each transaction. Also, the custom builder is the same as the email one so you can use various designs available to customize your page.
Moosend
Moosend is another great email software that stands out amongst the rest due to its ease of use as well as it really is packed with almost every feature that you can think of for your email marketing needs. There are bunch of email templates to craft your custom campaign, with drag and drop builder. They also have various opt-in forms and page builder options available with a FREE trial for you to start with.
Their FREE trial allows you to use their platform without inputting any payment information. You get to send unlimited emails, automate workflows and use 1 landing page or form. This way you can test it all before you decide if you’d like to go ahead with them. Then, their paid plans start at $10/month for up to 500 subscribers and then $16/month for up to 1000 and so on. Just like GetResponse, their pricing increases with number of subscribers but Moosend’s price is really competitive in comparison to GetResponse’s $19/month.
For custom campaigns, they have various options available such as A/B testing, automation and workflows, and more.
Compared to GetResponse though, they do not have ads option, if that is important for you.
Templates available are simple and professional designs. Below is a screenshot of a few designs available:
Aweber
I personally use Aweber as the key email marketing software for my e-commerce business. Main reason is it’s integration with Etsy which is vital for me. I’ve mentioned in one of my post on How To Increase Your Sales on Etsy, that a lot of people miss out on collecting emails from their customers on Etsy when it can really benefit their sales. I’ve found Aweber to be really helpful here as it integrates easily with my Etsy shop and then I’m able to collect their emails and use it to direct my customers to my main e-commerce website as well. It allows me to use the platform to perform email marketing which was almost impossible before as Etsy didn’t allow you to do it directly so a lot of creativity went into collecting emails.
Anyway, so Aweber is definitely another great option especially if you are in e-commerce. They have around 700+ templates to use from, offer split testing, audience segmentation, and drag and drop email builder. They do not have lead scoring or Google Analytics integration like GetResponse though.
They do have a simpler pricing in comparison too, as they only increase pricing based on number of subscribers while all their features remain the same.
However, the templates that they have are a little outdated as compared to other email marketing platforms on this list. So if you’re looking for a simple to use software, with good integration across 800+ connecting apps and services like Etsy, tracking and features, Aweber is a great option. They also have amazing deliverability rates and you due to the integrations you will find yourself spending less time crafting emails. But, if you are looking for fancy or modern templates and advanced workflow creations then this option may not be for you.
Omnisend
Omnisend is a great option for e-commerce as that what it’s primarily built for. Their emails and signup forms are completely customizable and mobile-friendly. They also have options to build signup boxes, welcome and exit popups, wheel of fortune and landing pages as well. Their FREE plan allows you to explore all of their features and send up to 500 emails and push notifications at no additional cost. Then, their paid plans start at $16 per month.
You can integrate with Woocommerce, OpenCart, and other custom e-commerce platforms. Shopify has automatic integration with Omnisend making it easier to use it on that platform. You can easily send emails with new products and bestseller or any other products using it on Shopify with a quick click, drag and drops.
Their templates are also beautiful, modern and simple to use:
