When it comes to your business, you are forgettable.  Nobody wants to hear that but it is true.  That’s why it is important to stay in front of your customers as much as possible.

When it comes to keeping in touch with your customers, promoting new products and services, offering specials, following up on purchases, and just generally staying visible, email marketing is the easiest and usually the most efficient way to go. 

But not all email marketing services are created the same. When choosing the email marketing service that’s the right fit for your business, you have to consider your specific needs and which service fits those needs best.

Which Email Marketing Service Is Right For You?

Email marketing is such a popular option because, compared with television or print ads, it tends to be faster to put together, more personalized and easier to track.

Before you start shopping around for an email marketing service, decide what you want:

• Do you want plenty of templates to choose from?

• Do you want to be able to maintain a list of thousands of contacts?

• Do you want to tailor your marketing plan to each contact you have, right down to whether they opened your most recent email or not?

• Finally, do you feel comfortable navigating the email marketing service on your own, or do you feel more comfortable knowing that great customer service is available when you run into hiccups?

Prioritizing these aspects will help you as you compare email marketing services and find the right one for you. 

Four Services We Love: 

AWeber 

Aweber is one of the original email marketing services and has built not only a reputation but also a customer base of about 115,000. When compared with other services, it’s basic but easy to use. It has more than 150 customizable templates for creating your emails, with options of multicolumn designs, and different color schemes. You can create a customized template as well.

However, what you’re able to include in your emails to subscribers is a bit limited. For example, you can’t embed a video — instead, you’ll have to upload the video to your blog or YouTube channel and embed a link. You also might be frustrated that you can’t import an existing email list from an outside address book, such as the one linked to your Gmail account.

There’s no free plan available for AWeber as there are with other services, but there are reasonable pricing options. All the plans offer the same features, and you’re charged based on the number of contacts you have.

Robly 

Robly is an email marketing service that’s best known for being user friendly. It’s easy to create an email campaign and find which of the 100 flexible templates is right for your needs. It also features artificial intelligence that’s great for automating your emails to send them out when you want — you can send specific emails to specific groups of people at specific times, or you can opt to have an email sent at a time when a contact is most likely to open it. You also have the option of having emails re-sent up to 10 days later with a different subject line to give a subscriber a second chance to open it.

Not all is perfect with the Robly templates though. Some users find that copying and pasting text into the templates doesn’t retain the formatting that’s been applied, and certain Robly templates don’t look great when they’re read on phone screens.  This can be a huge drawback when you consider how many of your subscribers will be getting your emails on their smartphones.

A big plus of Robly is its in-depth reports for tracking the success of your email marketing. You can see what devices the emails were read on, what time of day they were opened, whether the emails got stuck in junk or went unread, and even what subject lines and types of content had the most success.

Finally, for those who count on stellar customer service, there might be better options than Robly — although Robly has an extensive blog and FAQ section on its website, customer service is available only from 9:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M.

MailChimp

MailChimp has gained ubiquity by being a longstanding email marketing service, but compared with others, it has not progressed quite as much over the years. The good news is that it does offer a free plan that can accommodate up to 2,000 contacts and send up to 12,000 emails, which should be plenty for most small businesses. You can pay for premium plans that accommodate unlimited subscribers and send unlimited emails.

If you just want to send emails to your subscribers, MailChimp will get the job done. However, its templates are basic and often not aesthetically impressive, and its automation options are lacking compared with others, so it isn’t great for businesses that need to implement sophisticated email marketing strategies. For example, on the free plan, you can’t set emails to go out at certain times. You also can’t segment your contacts based on who opens your emails, who clicks on links or who deletes the emails without reading.

Like other email marketing services, MailChimp provides you with metrics to see how your emails are performing, and you can even see how your metrics rank among other MailChimp users, giving you a better idea of how your strategy is working compared with other businesses using a similar service.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is a great option for small businesses that need to create email marketing campaigns but aren’t especially savvy with tech. Its user interface makes it easy to customize emails with features like images, links, videos, or coupons, and you can even set up event registration, polls and surveys. It’s also easy to integrate Constant Contact with other platforms you’re using for your business, like Gmail, Eventbrite, Salesforce, or WordPress.

The deliverability of Constant Contact is good, with more than 90 percent of emails making it to a contact’s email inbox (rather than their junk folder). While you can track campaign results in real-time, keeping a watchful eye on things like open and click-through rates, the analytics you get are not as in-depth as they are with other services.

As for customer service, a support line and online chat are available 8:00 A.M. until 10:00 P.M. on weekdays, but weekend support is limited to advice from the service’s FAQs, blog and message board.

 

If you are tired of being forgotten by your customers, email marketing is the way to go.  If you find that you don’t have the time or the skills to implement an email marketing campaign, contact ASMM Digital to learn how we can help you.