How to Choose an Email Marketing Platform
Email marketing is one of the fastest growing trends on the planet, and it’s no surprise. Last year, the number of email users clocked in at 3.9 billion, and that number is projected to rise to 4.3 billion within a couple of years. Anyone can see email as the marketing goldmine that it is, but it takes a smart marketer to take advantage of this opportunity to reach their target audience, leads, and customers faster, more efficiently, and more effectively than ever before.
The trouble is that when it comes to email marketing software, there are enough choices to keep your head spinning indefinitely. And there is a boatload of features that you can get from each of the various services. Regardless of the size of your business, which industry, and who your target audience is, there are a few features that you just can’t (or shouldn’t) do without. Check out these 3 necessary email marketing features.
Integration
Manual data input and actions are so 2010. Today’s digital society runs at breakneck speed, and that means your marketing campaigns need to run even faster just to stay ahead of the competition. This is why integration is so important. You need to make sure your email marketing platform can converse easily, seamlessly, and automatically with your customer relationship management software (CRM for short). You obviously wouldn’t have an office where team members weren’t able to communicate with one another about projects, assignments, and resources. In the same vein, you need to ensure that all of your “team members”, e.g., CRM, email marketing, analytics, and any other business management tools you use, can all communicate effortlessly with one another at all times.
Automation
Next up on your shopping list for top email marketing platform features is automation, and here’s why. People are uber busy these days. Nobody wants to wait around for a response, and nobody will wait around to be sold to. When a lead takes the initial clickbait, shows interest in a product, and takes the first step into the sales funnel, a market has to work fast if they want to gain that lead’s business.
But you’ve got hundreds of other tasks on your to-do list and (hopefully) thousands of leads to nurture. How is any marketing team supposed to juggle all of that simultaneously without missing a beat? Automation, baby. Automation means you never miss the opportunity to nurture the lead. The system will automatically send out the right message at precisely the right moment and with exactly the right content for gently nudging the lead along to the next stage. From aggregated customer responses to a well-timed discount code, automated emails help you close the deal like nobody’s business.
But in case you weren’t convinced, here are a few automated email marketing stats that ought to convince you of its importance.
- Automated email messages have 70.5% higher open rates and 152% higher click-thru rates than standard email messages
- Automated email campaigns are responsible for 21% of all email marketing revenue
- Brands that use automated messaging send more messages that are relevant and reflect the client’s current position in the purchasing funnel 133% of the time
Now do you believe us? Great email marketing platforms like GetResponse and Constant Contact will offer automation templates as well as customization options. So you can send out beautiful, relevant, and enticing emails that hit the mark.
Responsive Designs and Layouts
It’s no surprise that so many marketers are tailoring their campaigns to fit with the mobile trend. Mobile is quickly becoming king of content consumption. Today 4 out of 5 Americans do their shopping online, 60% of consumers use their mobile devices to do online research, and most relevant to our conversation, close to 50% of email users open those messages on their mobile devices. And best of all, email brings in 40x more new customers for businesses versus Facebook or Twitter.
Bottom line, if you want consumers to relate to your product or services, you had better be mobile-friendly. Of course, your email marketing platform needs to accommodate this ever-growing need. Check that your emails look good on the various mobile devices out there, your images load properly, layout isn’t cut off or reduced, and elements are not misplaced when being viewed on smartphones or tablets.
Additional features always sweeten the pot. Top name email marketing services offer excellent feature toolkits that will only add to your email campaign efficacy like SendinBlue’s targeted SMS messages.
Email Marketing Software Pricing: What to Expect
Like all things, email marketing platforms come in a range of pricing options. There are basic plans and premium ones that will come with a wider range of features and services. You can find a basic plan from Constant Contact that lets you send unlimited emails and provides basic Ecommerce tools for just $20 a month. Meanwhile, a premium plan from SendinBlue will cost you $66 a month, and prices can climb even higher.
You can go really big and splurge for the Max plan from GetResponse. That’ll cost you $165/month and includes multiple users, campaign consultants, and great reporting tools. Or you can opt for a company like Fiverr to get email marketing services starting at just $5 a pop.
Email Marketing Software: The Game Changer You’ve Been Waiting For
It really just depends on your budget and what you want to get out of your email campaign service. The best rule of thumb is to find a platform that has a decent amount of features to fit your needs while still working within the price range you can comfortably afford. Email marketing is a big priority, and marketing experts the world over will tell you that a good platform is worth investing in. So bear that in mind when making your calculations.
