Email
marketing software is one of the easiest and most effective ways to
obtain, retain, and maintain your customer base. You can create and send your
very own marketing materials, newsletters, and send out correspondence and
reply letters to your customers.
Not
all email marketing software is created equal, however. There
are some basic elements that you should be looking for when you do choose an
email marketing software program, such as:
·
It should be easy for you to set up email lists
·
Creating and sending marketing emails should not be difficult
·
You should be able to send emails in bulk
·
The installation and setup of the software should not be complex
and confusing
·
A comprehensive interface should be included so that you will be
able to easily navigate through the software and feel confident in what you’re
doing
·
Creating professional and attractive emails should be a cinch
·
It should provide statistical information to you, such as how many
people have unsubscribed, how many of the emails are actually opened, and how
many “click-throughs” your emails generate.
Don’t
know where to get started? Don’t worry. We’ll tell you exactly which email
marketing programs are the best so that you can have the best and most
effective marketing campaign.
1. Aweber
Aweber is
perhaps the best know email software out there. It’s one of the oldest
marketing tools, and for years it was the number one choice of everyone when it
came to email marketing software. And we’ll tell you why.
The
emails that you can create with Aweber are easy to make, and they come out
looking so professional no one would suspect that you are using a fairly
low-cost marketing software program. It’s also easy to enter in a lot of
different information, like video and audio clips. The scheduling and
sequencing feature is intuitive, and you can organize and launch
your emailing campaigns in advance. You can choose to send out emails:
·
Daily
·
Weekly
·
Monthly
·
Every other day, or in a different “day” sequence
I guess
what we’re trying to say here is that Aweber is almost fully customizable.
Aweber also really shines when it comes to the tools that they offer for
tracking and monitoring the success of your email marketing campaigns.
You can easily see who has opened their emails, who has subscribed, who has
unsubscribed, and more.
The main
pain point that some have with this software is that it is more costly than
other options, such as GetResponse (which we’ll talk about below). Some also
argue that Aweber is “less robust” when it comes to importing any emailing
lists.
2. GetResponse
Just as
with Aweber, GetResponse is almost completely customizable,
perhaps even moreso than Aweber. You can easily insert media into your emails,
like video, audio and PDFs with GetResponse’s easy to navigate interface. It’s
also incredibly easy to copy dozens and dozens of messages for other emails or
even other mailing lists, something that will save you tons of time.
GetResponse
also has a wide range of scheduling options available to you. You can send
emails out to your customers immediately, or you can preschedule any emails to
go out on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, or within any other timeframe of your
choosing.
The
tracking software that comes along with GetResponse is also easy to understand
and follow. If you have used the Google Analytics tool, then you will see that
GetResponse has a very similar feel. All of the basic information is covered,
as well as a lot of other information that may confuse some first-time users.
If when
using GetResponse at first you feel overwhelmed by their tracking information,
don’t worry. There are a lot of tutorials and information provided which tells
you exactly what the statistical information is telling you, and how you can
interpret that information to help improve your business.
GetResponse
is less expensive than Aweber, but there is something that they do not do as
well in: customer support. You may find that their live customer support is a
bit lacking, so if you are having a problem with GetResponse, you’ll have to
suck up a bit of patience and bear with their customer support representatives.
3. Email Marketing Director
We’ll
start off with a warning: this email marketing stuff isn’t
cheap. At almost $500 for the whole set, you will be paying a lot more than you
would if you were to choose most other ones out there. But if you’re serious
about having a fantastic and flawless email marketing campaign, then this is
for you.
The
feature set that comes along with this software is pretty good, though the one
drawback is that you can’t add any audio files to your emails. The program also
won’t instantly correct any email address errors, so you do have to be careful
when imputing email addresses. But as for the emails, you can add a ton of great
features such as anchors, images, subscripts, hyperlinks, and there are a ton
of other formatting options. You can display your email in three different
modes, and HTML can easily be imported so that you have clean, polished looking
emails.
The
layout for creating emails is painless and very user-friendly.
The creation process is separated into three steps on three separate tabs: the
contact list, the message, and how you want to deliver your email. No matter
what your experience is with running an email marketing program, you can do it
easily with this software.
The
reporting features are helpful and will allow you to tailor your campaign,
offering up almost any statistic that you could possibly want so that you can
run a successful campaign. Some of their stats include:
·
How many empty or bad email addresses there are
·
How many duplicate emails
·
The number of emails the program attempted to send
…and
more.
You can
send out an unlimited amount of emails when you like and however you like.
