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Email Marketing Software Buyer's Guide
Table of Contents
- » What is the definition of email marketing?
- » What is Email Marketing Software?
- » What are the benefits of Email Marketing Software?
- » What are the features of Email Marketing Software?
- » Before you Choose Email Marketing Software
- » How to choose good Email Marketing Software?
- » Questions to ask a vendor when buying the best Email Marketing Software?
- » Is it worth investing money in Email Marketing Software?
- » How much does Email Marketing Software cost?
- » Conclusion
Every industry or business wants to emerge as the leader in the industry by providing its customers with top-rated products and delivering better services. However, the steep increase in the number of companies has resulted in a much more competitive environment for others. At such a time, implementing revolutionary and innovative marketing ideas to enhance productivity and reduce time wastage can prove beneficial to the operating companies. Hence, many of the big, as well as small companies, have started using creative solutions such as Email marketing software to deliver their company ideals and products to a broader audience.
The email marketing software has gained considerable administration from reputed companies as well as individuals in recent years thanks to its myriad of facilities and benefits, which we will learn later. But, before going any further, let’s start with understanding the basics of E-mail marketing software.
» What is the definition of email marketing?
Email marketing definition, in general, showcases it as a way in which an organization uses emails to promote their services or products and connect with their consumers. Emails sent to your potential customers with an aim of conversion also comes under the email marketing category. These are commercial email messages sent to a group of people at the same time.
» What is Email Marketing Software?
As the name describes, e-mail marketing software is a solution which when implemented helps in the efficient organization of marketing emails of a business or a company. With the software, one can plan, execute, and track the productivity of the marketing campaigns. The email tracking software facilitates tracking the results of the email marketing campaigns by providing real-time availability feature, automatic linking to Google Analytics, and many more. No wonder, the popularity of the small yet powerful software has been watching a steady increase over the years.
Now, let’s study the reasons pertaining to the email tracking software’s popularity among its users.
» What are the benefits of Email Marketing Software?
Marketing strategies are many, but no one can deny that the most befitting one is email marketing campaigns. This is because the best email marketing software can provide reduced risks while ensuring maximized profit to the company. In this list, we have hand-listed some of the significant benefits of the email marketing software which outpaces other marketing strategies in terms of excellence. So, let’s have a look over them.
› Improves Marketing Strategies
As the email campaign software comes with various pre-installed benefits like real-time availability and linked with Google Analytics, it helps in better understanding of the user. This can assist in understanding the needs of the user and what things to avoid, which helps out by creating customer-specific marketing strategies. When proper measures are taken to ensure better marketing outcomes, the company or business also becomes successful in getting profits.
› Reduces Time and Use of Resources
The best email marketing software also allows users to create, customize, edit and send bulk emails targeted at a specific group. When bulk emails are sent, it not only saves a lot of time but also reduces the need for user interference and financial resources. Thereby helps in cutting down the burden on the company’s expenditure. One needs to set the details of the targeted group and click on the ‘Send’ option.
› Good for Customer Retention
Email marketing software can also be used to send emails to the partners, stakeholders, or customers to intimate them regarding the launch of new products and services. This can result in achieving a better and enhanced customer interaction platform, thereby, creating a pathway for increased click-through-rates of their products.
› Expands Reach
Using email marketing campaigns can also result in expanding the business’s reach in the market as it enables more and more people to know about the company. Hence, a company can also target another group to find more active participants by sending them emails based on their products.
» What are the features of Email Marketing Software?
The facilities and tools provided in email tracking software are many. And hence, understanding them, in brief, can help achieve the desired results within a short time. So, let’s start with understanding how the numerous features of the email campaign software can help in the growth of a business.
› Mail Editor
Email Marketing Software comes with editing tools, such as drag and drop functionality, pre-designed templates, photo editing and more. This allows an individual to create good professional emails and also enables preview to check how the email will be displayed.
› Managing Mailing List
Various software also provides users with specific metrics to place their customers in different groups based on certain factors. These factors include geolocation, demographics, feedback history, and more.
› Testing Tool
Almost all the best email software comes with testing tools which can be used to verify any potential demerits when bulk emails are sent to a group. This is done by adding a testing tool to the software where the bulk email function is tested before sending it to the actual public.
› Merging Tags
Merging tags increase the number of click-through-rates by replacing variable figures with the recipient’s name. These are usually used in coupon code-specific emails as studies have stated that the amount of clicks on an email increases if the recipient’s name is provided.
› Analytics and Metrics
Understanding the need for companies to track their success, the best email software companies have also implemented analytics and reports options. Using this one can easily understand customer retention and behaviour.
› Auto-responding Tools
Numerous email campaign software applications also come with auto-responding tools which automatically send an email whenever a customer subscribes or asks for technical help.
› Integration with Social Media Platforms
Many email tracking software applications come with in-built social media integration. This can help expand the reach to a much wider audience with just a few clicks while enhancing the brand’s popularity simultaneously.
» Before you Choose Email Marketing Software
There are some things which one should always remember before choosing email marketing software. These small ideas can save you from any future headache by giving you the required ideas on how to efficiently manage your company’s operations.
› Understanding the Traffic
Getting a detailed understanding of one’s traffic helps the company to make customer-specific products and services. Hence, this can enable better engagement of the customers by tailoring services as per their need to make the products more alluring.
› Choosing the Group
Choosing the group your company makes products for, is also as essential as searching for the email marketing software for small businesses. For example- If your company expertise in IT related products then choosing a group which focuses on IT-related products or news can enhance the subscriber counts as well as increase the product purchases. However, if you send product-based emails to other groups, they might not be proactive in subscribing to your activities and trying out your products and services.
› Analyzing Budget
One of the essential aspects of being successful in choosing email marketing software is when it does not put a dent in your pocket. The price of email marketing software differs from one to another, hence analyzing the budget, streamlines the process of hiring the best email software from the heaps of many.
› Taking Help
In case you are relatively new to the field and do not want to take any risk, then seeking help from experienced and professional people is the best option. This is because less information can result in the jeopardizing of your company, which is a certain scary situation for any business person. So, taking help from the experts can help you cut-out the most tedious and intimidating part of going through the funnel of choosing the best email marketing software.
» How to choose good Email Marketing Software?
The facilities and tools provided in each email marketing software for small business differ from software to software. This situation can quickly intimidate a beginner and sometimes professionals too due to their complexity. To help you recover from such circumstances, we have created a list which perfectly fits as an answer to your doubts and confusions. Check them out.
› User-Friendly Interface
It will be a waste of finances if the email marketing software you have subscribed to has a very complicated design. This can lead to doubts and confusions while working on it. Hence, one should always prefer email campaign software which provides a user-friendly interface. Similarly, a responsive display is a must for maintaining good marketing results.
› CAN-SPAM Availability
Many nations like the U.S. and EU prohibit companies from sending spam emails to the public, which when violated can lead to hefty fines or ultimately closure of the company. So, it is wise to hire an email software which complies to the laws and notifies in case of any legal breaches beforehand.
› Available Tools
The best email marketing software comes with a myriad of pre-installed and built-in facilities which helps achieve operational efficiency without the need for spending more finances. Apart from this, a good email tracking software must have an efficient email builder, linked with analytics and reports, provide real-time availability, auto-responding, tag-mergers, and many more.
› Emailing Capacity
Many free email marketing software have limited mailing capacity on a daily or monthly basis. This can result in frustration as an individual may not be able to complete sending intimations to a target group within the stipulated time due to the expiry of the emailing capacity. This can be avoided by choosing other free email marketing software providers offering unlimited emailing ability or picking a premium one.
› CRM Integration
The most basic function every email software must have is CRM integration. This is because integrating with CRM helps in transferring customer data for sales, marketing, partnership, and business which can then be used for conversions or expanding the company's reach. Moreover, the software should also support importing and exporting different file formats as used in sales.
› Real-time Availability
The feature helps to track the click-on rates of the emails sent to the recipients by showing the real-time data to the companies. This can then be used to understand the customer orientation and calculate the probability of the possible conversions.
» Questions to ask a vendor when buying the best Email Marketing Software?
1. Would the email marketing software be easy to use by everyone on the team?
2. Do the product’s features cover all my requirements?
3. How does the software help in enhancing my email campaigns?
4. Can I create separate email campaigns for different target groups?
5. Does the system offer team collaboration and sharing?
6. Will the emails appear properly across devices - desktops, mobiles and tablets?
7. Does the tool let me integrate my social media channels into the emails?
8. What level of automation would it bring to my email marketing processes?
9. What is the pricing structure of your software?
10. What kind of metrics, analysis, and tracking does the system offer?
11. Does the software comply with email marketing laws and guidelines?
12. Does the system contain features to manage bounce rates?
13. Does the software offer an easy option to unsubscribe from the mailing list?
14. Does the system include email templates? Can I customize them?
15. Do you offer training for a smoother transition to the system?
16. What services are included in your after-sales support?
» Is it worth investing money in Email Marketing Software?
This may be a tricky question as it depends upon the company and its targeted users. Although many experts and recent surveys have stated the positive impact of implementing email tracking software, one must carefully analyze every aspect so as to make a good choice. No wonder using email marketing software can increase the company’s results in a short time; however, using the software is not advised for companies with a smaller audience.
For companies where implementing the software makes sense, email software can help achieve faster positive results. The software helps create, collect, customize, edit and send bulk emails to specific groups all within a single software. But if it is done by assigning employees, then it will inevitably result in a 30-50% increase in the total expenditure of the company.
» How much does Email Marketing Software cost?
The pricing plan of the email software varies from one to another as it is mostly dependent on the facilities and tools provided as well as the emailing capacity of the software. However, the average price of the software starts from as low as $7, which can also reach a high of $99 as per its usage. Some software companies also allow users to receive maximum benefits by offering them pay-as-you-go packs, allowing users to install more software as desired by paying for them afterward. Despite that, it is highly advised to choose a free version of the software you want to subscribe to so as to check if all the services are provided or not. Afterward, you can easily subscribe to the premium version of the software or just change to another free email marketing software.
» Conclusion
It is always better to take prevention rather than suffering after paying a hefty amount as the subscription charges for email marketing software. One must be extra careful and explore as much information as possible about the software beforehand to be on the safe side. This is because email marketing campaigns may seem easy, but this is not always the case. A simple mistake can cause your empire to come crashing down while destroying the brand name as well. Hence, before stepping on the field be prepared and list out all the points and services you want the software to have to streamline the choosing process and enjoy better results.