With what seems like a dictionary of online marketing buzz words flying around from CRO to SEO you may wish to shift your efforts into different avenues; but good old fashioned email marketing shouldn’t be forgotten about. Tried and tested, email still stands as one of the best ways to reach your current customers and entice potential leads to start their journey through your sales funnel.
If you intend on managing your email efforts in-house, you are in luck; a whole host of services each with user friendly functionality allows you to easily do so, but with a wealth of platforms on offer, deciding which one to choose can be difficult.
We’ve reviewed three of the best and most commonly used platforms out there.
MailChimp is one of the best known platforms around due to its ingenious marketing and simple yet smart interface- the ideal choice for those wanting to experiment with email marketing, start-ups and small businesses alike. Surely 5 million users can’t be wrong?
MailChimp isn’t just for smaller campaigns however, huge corporations are avid Mail Chimpers too. The platform is free for lists of up to 2,000 subscribers and offers an affordable payment system depending on the number of subscribers which exceed this number. The company prides itself as being hugely flexible and scales with you as your business grows.
You can segment your list based on purchase history, subscriber engagement, geolocation, and more. If HTML isn’t your strong point, a free gallery of HTML email templates exists and for those who like to keep things on brand, you can flexibly build your own templates, key for consistency.
One of the strongest points is its open API, allowing easy integration of other useful tools such as PayPal and Survey Monkey, strengthening your email efforts even further.
Pure360 means business and has the client base and results to prove it. UK based Pure360 has over 1200 customers to include Innocent Drinks, Right Move and NHS with an impressive one billion email addresses in their system. Should you be sending more than 50,000 per month, this platform provides options for SMEs and larger companies wishing to run trigger-based personalised email marketing campaigns.
SMS marketing runs alongside email efforts, making this an ideal choice should you wish to reach your audience beyond email. As email efforts with Pure360 will be of a considerable size, you simply won’t be left to it. Each account managed client has a dedicated team who are on hand to provide consultancy on email and SMS strategy.
As a member of the Direct Marketing Association, and having worked with leading banks, Pure360 takes data protection very seriously and abides by the Direct Marketing Code of Practice. Combined with salesforce.com, SugarCRM and Google Analytics amongst others, integration at Pure360 is hard to beat.
If you are a design led company, then Get Response might be the right choice for you. If you’re looking for beautifully designed email newsletters that stand out and are remembered but don’t have the graphic design skills yourself to produce the results you would like, then Get Response is definitely worth consideration.
A key feature is the autoresponder which creates timely and relevant message cycles that create higher open and click rates which will hopefully lead to more conversions. Email analytics are also very strong meaning that you have more control over your campaigns.
Get Response may be one of the more pricey options available, but they do offer a 30 day free trial so you really can try before you buy- without sharing any credit card details.
Which platforms have you experienced email success with?