Email marketing still works and is as important now as it ever was. There is no faster, more cost effective way to get your message out there. That does not mean it is easy. It has to be strategically planned, engaging, professional, well targeted and perfectly executed.
Long gone are the days where you could get away with conducting a manual email marketing campaign. Fortunately, there are many great services that will enhance and automate the process for you making it more professional and more effective as well as saving you a huge amount of time.
The right platform will manage your lists and emails and analyze the performance of the campaign. It also helps prevent your emails from going into the spam folder.
The choice of which service to use is an important one. You want to be sure it has all the necessary features you require, without you having to pay for additional features you do not need. With so many options, the choice can be quite daunting. We have done all the hard work for you and studied all the top email automation platforms.
GetResponse
One of the biggest players in email marketing is GetResponse. It is incredibly user-friendly and makes your email marketing campaign simple, easy and effective. It provides numerous useful tools to help you manage and track your email marketing efforts. Despite all the features, it is so easy; even a beginner will pick it up right away.
The drag and drop feature will allow you to create effective emails effortlessly. The platform will allow you to segment, customize and automate the entire process for fast, tangible results and will give you a good return on your investment.
It is an affordable option considering all the features, and they offer a free 30-day trial.
Other features include autoresponders, tracking, testing and landing pages. It is designed to seamlessly integrate with your lead generation and other marketing platforms such as ZenDesk, SalesForce, OptinMonster, Google Docs and many others.
Another very important aspect is support, and here, GetResponse really shines with email, live chat or phone support as well as a host of free instructional material including videos, user guides, and webinars.
MailChimp
An extremely popular and highly rated platform is MailChimp. One of the main features is a great user interface that is powerful yet easy to use. It will simplify the process of creating effective emails, segmenting and grouping your contacts, automating the process and tracking and analyzing the results. It also has an autoresponder and provides merge tags.
It will integrate perfectly with WordPress as well as platforms such as Shopify, Magneto, and others.
Their support is top notch with options for email or live chat as well as a host of information online with how-to information, tutorials and videos.
The pricing is also reasonable with a great free option for smaller usage and cost-effective plans as the campaign grows.
Constant Contact
Already very popular and expanding rapidly is Constant Contact. It is a great, user-friendly platform that has a host of features. It simplifies the management, sorting, automating and tracking of your emails while also providing templates, social media integration tools, an image collection and 1GB storage for your data.
They offer great support through live chat or email as well as many online resources.
They offer a 60-day free trial and reasonable options after that.
ActiveCampaign
Although a slightly more expensive option, ActiveCampaign will integrate your email campaign perfectly with your CRM. This ensures a perfect flow of information, greater effectiveness, and more powerful analytics.
It has a template editor to simplify the process and will integrate with WordPress as well as many other platforms. The benefit of this platform is that it is smarter and more responsive. It can segment your contacts according to behavior, actions, social information and geographical location. It even sources additional relevant information based on the email address.
It has a host of other powerful features, great reporting, and very good support. Price plans are very competitive, and there is a limited free trial should you need.
That is an overview of some of the most popular and widely used platforms. There are many more if you are looking for something specific or additional features or integration, but you cannot go wrong with any of the above for an easy to setup, effective email marketing campaign.
