Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote your business and increase sales. Especially for small businesses, it provides an excellent opportunity to establish and improve your connections with customers and clients. 

Learn why its important for small business owners to be good at email marketing, get tips on reducing costs in setting up an email marketing tool, and discover how technology can help you build an email list.

But first, lets look into the general idea of email marketing.

Email Marketing: What Is It?

Email marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses customized emails to inform your email list about your items or services. Plus, it can motivate your email list to carry out certain actions, such as:

• Making a purchase
• Scheduling a demo
• Signing up for a trial
• Enrolling in an event, etc.

Effective email marketing turns visitors into buyers and one-time consumers into loyal supporters and repeats purchases.

Almost everyone has an email account today. Without one, using an internet service is practically impossible. For this reason, businesses can reach nearly all consumers directly through it - assuming they know the email addresses.

Email marketing regularly outperforms all other marketing channels as the most direct and efficient way to engage with consumers, nurture them, and convert them into customers.

You can easily understand why its a desirable marketing channel when considering the relatively low cost of sending a few emails (or, usually, a few thousand emails).

Email Marketing Formats

It can be tricky to talk about how to organize and launch your emails because there are so many different approaches to email marketing. We typically divide it into different types for clarity:

Welcome Emails

This brief exchange with a customer can make or break your company. A welcome email is an introduction of your business to a new client and a pledge of a successful future collaboration.

Transactional Emails

Emails directly related to a transaction are known as transactional emails. For example, if you send the customers receipt through email after they make a purchase, thats a transactional email. Given the high open rate of these emails, it may help to include branding, sales information, and other information to encourage more transactions.

Relationship-Based / Email Newsletter Style Emails

When most consumers think of email marketing, they picture relationship-based communications. You gather email addresses from current customers who offered you their information or by using a form where people can sign up for campaigns and send them articles that help customers recognize you and your business.

Customer Acquisition Emails

These emails are meant to win over new subscribers who havent yet decided to become your clients. You can provide discounts and share information in these emails to make signing up for your mailing list more valuable.

Making customers feel good shouldnt stop with the first purchase. You want them to buy repeatedly.

Zappos is a fantastic example of a business that combines excellent email marketing in combination with amazing customer care to give customers something in return. Its well-known that Zappos will occasionally automatically upgrade clients to faster shipping as a courtesy.

Customer Retention Emails

Keeping your subscribers loyalty is vital once youve earned it. So you can send emails with special discounts, events, and other offers to your most devoted consumers. It may also help to politely request feedback.

Client involvement and happiness are key factors in determining customer retention. Any email sent to a current customer aiming to retain them as a loyal customer is referred to as a retention email. Retention emails exist in a wide variety of formats and are currently the most popular type of email marketing.

These emails aim to increase client happiness with your product or deepen their involvement, offering great customer service while enhancing customer experience and lowering consumer effort.

Promotional Emails

These emails clearly state what should be done next. They aim to publicize a new good or service and then sell it. This includes a lot of exclusive discounts.

Promotional emails have clear calls to action that nudge readers to make a purchase. Plus, you can use these emails to persuade clients to download, sign up for, or register for a service. When done properly, such marketing can help a company boost consumer engagement, retention, and revenue.

So the goal of a promotional emails content and layout is to persuade the receiver to act within a certain time frame.

Value of Email Marketing

Before diving headfirst into email marketing, ask yourself, Is it worth it? 

Email marketing has been around for almost as long as email itself. Youve probably heard someone say its no longer relevant. Well, thats far from the truth. Its super relevant, and even more now after Covid.

From the start of Covid in 2020 to the current forecasted revenue of 2022, we can see a 2 billion USD jump, and the survey portrays an even higher estimate in the coming years. So email marketing can skyrocket your revenue.

Here are the top 3 reasons why email marketing should be one of your top priorities:

• The most popular form of communication: Have you heard that 99% of consumers at least check their emails daily? No other channel is that active

• Your list is yours: Your social networking accounts, with all your followers and postings, may get suspended or terminated at any moment. For any reason and without warning. But nobody can take away your email list from you

• Email sells better: Spending on products purchased by email subscribers is 138% more than that of non-subscribers. Email marketing has a massive 4100% ROI (return on investment). Plus, the average order value of an email is at least three times larger than that of social media, so email converts much better

Stats on Email Marketing: Numbers Don’t Lie

Comprehensive data from multiple statistics and research groups prove that email marketing is necessary for small and big businesses.

• By the end of 2023, email marketing revenue is anticipated to be close to 11 billion (Statista, 2021)

• One in two media planners utilizes email marketing. With 22% intending to use it for the first time this year, itll continue to rise (HubSpot Blog Research, 2021)

• 4 billion people use email every day. By 2025, this figure is projected to increase to 4.6 billion (Statista, 2021)

• To reach clients, 64% of small businesses utilize email marketing (Campaign Monitor, 2021)

• Every day, over 306 billion emails are sent and received (Statista, 2021)
  
• Subscriber segmentation (78%), message personalization (72%), and email automation campaigns (71%) are the best methods for running email marketing campaigns (HubSpot Blog Research, 2021)

• Only 1.3% of brands are cutting down on their email spending, while 37% are growing it (Litmus, 2021)

• 26% of marketers send emails more than once each month, while 33% send emails once per week (Databox, 2022)

• According to their subscribers levels of engagement, 63% of firms cut back on how often they send out emails to them (Databox, 2022)

• Compared to 78% in 2020, 41.5% of brands feel email marketing is essential to their companys growth (Litmus, 2021)

• Over the past 12 months, 77% of marketers have noticed an increase in email interaction. (Not Another State of Marketing, 2021)

• In comparison to Saturday, which has the lowest open rates (17%), globally, Fridays have the greatest email open rates, which is almost 19% (Campaign Monitor, 2021) 

• Because of Apples Mail Privacy Protection, 43% of marketers are modifying how they gauge the effectiveness of their email campaigns, while 24% are holding still for the time being (Litmus, 2021)

• The best email subject lines pique interest, offer promotional incentives, and are tailored to the interests of each receiver (HubSpot Blog Research, 2021)

Emails are personal. Its that easy. Although your social media accounts are public, you dont distribute flyers with your personal email address, do you? You only voluntarily and selectively share this information. So does everyone else.

As a result, you can establish a close relationship with your customers if you have the correct email marketing plan. Email marketing is all about offering tailored experiences that no other channel can, from your initial welcome email through weekly / monthly newsletters to special offers.

Remember that the days of sending out random, generic cold emails to everyone available are long gone. So, avoid this if you dont want to lose clients and have a questionable reputation as an unreliable spammer.

What Benefits Does Email Marketing Offer to Small Businesses?

What justifies the importance of email marketing for small businesses? To address this question, lets dive a little more into the methodology and specifics of email marketing.

Large Returns On A Small Investment

Emails typically yield a high return on investment for a minimal outlay. Its a very economical marketing method for reaching out to potential customers.

Small firms typically have limited resources and marketing and growth options. They want to contact as many people as possible while spending little money.

Email marketing is a very common method of maintaining an internet presence in these conditions.

Learn About Your Customer

To expand your business and firmly establish yourself in the internet environment, understand your potential. For direct communication with your customers, use email marketing. The brand transmits its message, and the client responds appropriately since it is a two-way process.

To better understand your customer, the answer is then monitored, investigated, and measured. Email open, click, bounce, and engagement rates provide information.

So, email marketings goal is to aid small businesses.

Limitations of Email Marketing

Weve talked about the positive sides of email marketing so far. Are there any drawbacks to email marketing? The answer? It depends.

Some business owners naturally avoid using email marketing because they believe its spamming. Anyone reading this will have received lots of spam emails, so their reaction is understandable. 

If you speak with actual customers-not those on a list you purchased online-about a subject theyre enthusiastic about, theyll reply to it as it doesnt feel like spam. Email conversations are crucial for people. And you just have to qualify as one of those crucial ones.

For example, if you run a dentists office, an email with some homemade cures and a list of beneficial tips and techniques related to oral health is relevant and very likely to be well-received by your target audience. But if you start sending them constant adverts for your company, your clients might get irritated soon.

You wont go wrong if you make it engaging and relevant, and dont spam your email list. Plus, your consumers will unsubscribe if they no longer wish to receive your emails. All of this will be discussed in more detail in this post.

How to Begin with Email Marketing

Demographic, interest-based, and data-driven information may be included in some email marketing frameworks and used to increase traffic or sales.

An email system, for instance, can track which users are more likely to open and click on emails containing, say, dairy products. Your business can produce newsletters, trivia, and emails exclusively about dairy products to target that population.

According to research, up to 7 out of 10 consumers favor email marketing over other types of advertising. But itll be up to you to figure out how to effectively connect with your consumer base and understand the market.

You need next-level techniques if you want to advance your email marketing campaign. Youll start seeing significant gains with each email you send once you start incorporating these suggestions into your campaigns:

Have A Proper Subject Topic

Your audience will initially notice you through the subject line of an email. Its essential to any marketing strategy that you take the time to find the finest subject line, ensuring your audience opens and reads your emails.

You can approach this in a few different ways.

Create a variety of headlines for your email first. The initial concept you come up with, whether for an email subject line or a blog post headline, is typically not the greatest, as many content marketers will tell you. This activity will help eliminate subpar subject lines so you can select the best one.

Apply an email subject line analyzer to your chosen option or options. The analyzer will point out areas in your subject line that require improvement so you may make changes to produce a genuinely great one.

There are quite a few notable Subject Line Analyzers in the market. 

• Omnisend: Your newsletter headline receives a data-supported score (%) from the Omnisend tool. The tool scores your copy after evaluating it and makes suggestions for improvement.

The length and a breakdown of the words and characters are shown by the Omnisend headline analyzer. It offers options for safer words to use in place of spam-triggering phrases. Plus, it looks at how numerals and caps are used.

Similar to Omnisend, you can use this tool to check a preview of your newsletters subject line on both desktop and mobile devices.

• CoSchedule: Although its a content marketing software program, its renowned in the industry for having an email subject line tester. The main goal of the tool is to provide related subject lines to increase engagement.

• CoSchedule assigns a subject line score based on the terms that boost email open rates. It specifically encourages the use of uplifting words that may be quickly selected from its proprietary Word Bank. The email headline analyzer on CoSchedule advises getting rid of negative phrases.

The tool provides comments on the optimal use of the case for newsletter subject lines. Plus, you can get additional pertinent information like the number of characters, words, and emojis.

• Send Check It: This offers a comprehensive email subject tester tool. It analyzes your newsletters headline with those from more than 100,000 marketing emails. This comparison serves as the foundation for the tools scores. You get a result that has been confirmed to work.

Along with the score, it offers advice on strengthening your subject line. Your subject line receives a 16-point rating. The headlines length and readability are checked by Send Check It. The application also previews the email waiting for your intended audience in their inbox.

It describes how the email subject line and sender name look on desktop and mobile. You can also thoroughly analyze the subject line of your newsletter.

The tool helps you determine whether your subject line will make your readers feel positively, negatively, or neutrally. The tool runs a thorough investigation, looking for terms that spam filters might catch.

For instance, it checks whether your subject line contains a false RE: or FWD: that can momentarily increase your open rates.

The tool also discusses proper grammar, capitalization, emoji usage, and reading grade level. The technology, among other things, enables you to customize the newsletters content to increase open rates.

You may increase your open rate by testing several headlines on your list to determine which subject lines are most effective with your target audience.

Preview Text Makes A Similar Impact As Subject Line

The preview text, sometimes referred to as preheader text, gives you a second opportunity to pique subscribers interest and can be just as crucial as your email subject line. Ensure your preheader text enhances the appeal of your email by giving it some thought.

Due to the cleverness of this email preview content, your small business email marketing will see high open rates.

Your sample text should entice viewers just like your subject line did. Consequently, it should be succinct and direct. A sense of urgency in the preview text of your emails can also help them be opened more frequently.

Change the preview wording and resend your emails if some of them didnt receive the expected open rate. This modest adjustment often has the power to save a campaign. Moreover, you can use your preview text for some A/B testing.

Keep Tabs On Email Deliverability To Stay Away From The Spam Folder

Small businesses can benefit from using email marketing. However, you can feel as though your efforts were in vain if your emails land up in the spam folders.

Email clients take every precaution to prevent their users from receiving spam. Every day we check our email, and we all appreciate the efforts made. However, its different when youve put a lot of effort into creating a fantastic marketing email, and certain email clients put it in the spam folder.

Fortunately, you can take precautions to lessen the likelihood that email service providers will mark your email as junk.

• Avoid buying email lists. These lists may ruin your reputation

• Place any links you provide in your emails where theyre supposed to

• Send emails frequently. Spam filters are cautious of infrequent emails.

Develop An Email List

An email list is necessary before you can even consider emailing someone. If youve read any other articles on email marketing, you may have heard someone mention having many email addresses. This could sound a little overwhelming for a small business just starting. 

Email marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. It might not be the best marketing tool if you need instant results. Consider it a technique to frequently check in with your customers. As a method of letting them know you are there to establish confidence.

In other words, prepare for a lengthy journey. Nurturing is a popular sales phrase. Salespeople develop their customers. They dont anticipate them making an immediate purchase of a good or service. Instead, they make slow, steady progress toward the sale. The best method for this is email marketing.

In light of this, its quite acceptable if you dont have a bunch of email addresses, to begin with. But for the sake of your business, you must start gathering more. If you run an online business, this is extremely simple to do. You likely already have an email list of customers who purchased goods or services from you. If your company has a physical location, it can be a good way always to ask customers for their email when they make a purchase. Lets call it the organic approach! 

Now, gaining an organically sourced email list is the way to go if you want to connect to your target audience with a higher success rate. There are two ways to manage these.

• Gathering Customer Email Addresses Through Online Interaction: Collecting email addresses is vital. It doesnt matter if your business runs mostly online or just a showcase-type website that people visit to learn about your business.

In the end, your website serves as a revenue machine. Regardless of how you were able to bring visitors to your website, whether it be your goodwill, Ad placements, or even SEO tools, you need to provide them the value.

Then, how do you approach this? Short answer- Freemiums.

Customers rarely divulge their personal information for free. You must give them a compelling reason to give you their email address. Then youll have to give something back. Such as:

• Giving price cut for your service: If you own a barbershop, you might give someone a first-time shave with a 25% discount.

• Sending Ebooks: You can offer visitors a free eBook that your customer can read. Such as, A dentists chamber can send a guidebook on how to care for their oral health.

• Offering free goods: Since this is quite pricey for an average small business to pull off, you should only give away goods in exchange for purchases. But this kind of offer might be seductive for new customers.

You should always send emails relevant to the consumer. Of course, complimentary materials or services must also be useful. Freemium can serve as a starting point for subsequent emails. If your opt-In incentives are strong, readers will interact with information/products from you in the future.

Its in your best interest to consider what your customers really want and what would be valuable to them if you have to gain customer email addresses and encourage the client to buy your service or goods.

Also, there are traditional ways of gathering emails from visitors to your website. It may sometimes be a bit over the top nowadays as customer habits and user experience rely much on the website browsing experience. Here are some ways to implement it on your website to gather emails.

• Basic Popups: Pop-ups appearing on websites and requesting your email address are something weve all seen. They typically start by simply asking you to sign up for the companys email newsletter. Uninspiring, perhaps, but incredibly straightforward and far superior to nothing.

• Exit Intent Modules And Advanced Popups: Exit intent modules are a good example of how this feature works. A popup that displays an enticing offer in the hopes of keeping the visitor on the website is activated when the user moves their mouse to exit the website.

To make any offer more targeted, you can even set up more complex popups that appear only when a website visitor reaches a particular page (or even location) on your site. Its a clever tool that could quickly assist you in expanding your email list.

• Landing Pages

A landing page can be the best option if you have a fantastic lead magnet-a free gift like a PDF eBook or a money-off coupon-and you truly want to be able to promote it while also gathering email addresses.

Web pages that are entirely focused on one subject are called landing pages. They remove all the usual elements you may find on a website, like the navigation bar and cluttered footer. Your sales pitch is all the buyer needs to concentrate on, and hopefully, it will persuade them to fill out a form (including their email) to receive whatever it is youre providing.

• Gathering Customer Email Addresses Through Offline Interaction: If you have a physical retail store, its not wise to wait for customers to visit your website. You must train your employees to be prepared to collect email addresses. How do you do that? Simply by asking the customers!

For instance, when a consumer pays for a service after receiving it, ask them their email so you can add their emails to your mailing list. Assure they wont receive spam and let them know their first email will contain something useful. 

It would be embarrassing for your business if you sent a coupon for 20% off for the first purchase to an existing customer as theyve already made a transaction with you. Doing this will be an unfortunate event of giving your consumers low-quality marketing content. As a result, theyll quickly lose interest and probably unsubscribe. So provide them with an offer or service that is relevant.

Setting up and using a CRM can be a fantastic way to save emails if you havent previously. Customer Relationship Manager or, in short, CRM. It is essentially an easy-to-use management system that houses information on your customers. Customer interests, contact info, and any notes that can help you provide more individualized service, etc., can be utilized. It is far more advantageous to save email address data using CRM than on paper or in a spreadsheet.

Permissions For Email Marketing

The word permission will come up frequently while discussing email marketing. Or, to put it another way, are you granted their permission to send emails? Is it okay to contact them about your goods or offerings?

Failing to do so, your email would typically be considered spam even if it wasnt your intention.

The laws governing email spam differ greatly depending on where you and your customers are headquartered, making it very confusing.

For instance, a privacy law known as GDPR governs email marketing in the EU and the UK. According to this, email can only be delivered to recipients who have given their explicit approval. Before this law was enacted, marketers frequently included forms on websites with checkboxes that customers had to check carefully if they didnt want to receive marketing materials. Put another way, implicit authorization to get advertisements was not provided. Since GDPR came into effect, customers must now check the box if they desire to receive business emails.

This might look like a concern, especially if youre emailing current clients without their knowledge. But as a breath of relief, the GDPR regulations do provide businesses a little latitude by allowing them to communicate with current clients so far, the material is pertinent.

Generally speaking, only people who have given their consent may receive email marketing messages in the US. The regulation overseeing this is CAN-SPAM Act. Similar to GDPR, you might assume consent if you and your client already had a connection.

Clients MUST be allowed to opt-out of any email adverts, which is completely non-negotiable from a legal and business practice perspective. This calls for including an Unsubscribe button in all emails sent to them so they can opt out of further email marketing efforts.

The following additional requirements are shared by CAN-SPAM and GDPR:

• Each email must contain the name and address of your business
• The emails content must be stated in the subject line

• The From and Reply to fields must contain genuine email addresses

A large email marketing solution will also help you stay on the legal side if you use it. For example: Making it compulsory to add Opt-out Button in marketing emails.

Take Advantage of CRM Software

Platforms for Customer Relationship Management to come in a variety of ways. CRM software used to be aimed at businesses on the enterprise level. Thats not the situation anymore. Integrating CRM software with email marketing software gives a huge advantage in managing more customers and data rather than only relying on email marketing. 

Small businesses may now implement a CRM platform without costing them an arm and a leg. This is fantastic news: you can boost sales by double-digit percentage points by deploying a CRM solution.

Workflow simplification within a single app makes daily tasks easier and frees up resources for expansion. CRM offers a clearly defined set of procedures to increase transaction closure, complete duties promptly, and minimize misunderstandings.

You can improve your sales process using tools like lead management and sales funnels. You may optimize your productivity by creating a sales pipeline. Tools for opportunity management help you find potential future sales. Tools for customer care assist you in improving the customer experience, understanding your audience, and lowering attrition so your business can scale.

CRMs got a lot going for them as they have many advantages that small businesses can grab onto and push ahead of the competition. Here are a few key advantages:

• Usability: Its not exciting to take time off from running a small business or lean startup to learn a new, complicated platform. Simplicity and ease of use should be the decisive elements; the optimal platform seems intuitive and provides simple access to and understanding of information.

• Customization: As a small business, you generally dont follow a manual and instead choose to do things your way. In light of this, we advise searching for customization tools so you may adapt CRM software to your unique business requirements. If youre operating in a new region, having the ability to change contact and opportunity fields, among other components, is very useful.

• Automation: You can concentrate more on meaningful, mentally stimulating work by automating routine tasks. Data entry, client emails and follow-ups, and information field updating should all have automation options.

• Vendor Customer Service: Most likely, you dont have an IT department of your own. This calls for you to ensure that the CRM you select is supported by an excellent customer care team that will be available to reduce the systems learning curve, respond to any persistent inquiries, and swiftly fix technical issues.

• Reasonable prices: Cost clearly makes or breaks the deal for SMBs and startups looking for CRM systems. When there arent many people available to help, you want to be sure that every dollar you spend is worthwhile. You may wish to start with a free CRM if you have a tight budget or are unsure of the value of this type of software.

• Tools for social media: You can fully understand what people are saying about your company, your competitors, and general industry trends when you can monitor several social media networks. To increase brand awareness and attract more customers, interact with people directly on the social media platforms where they spend most of their time. You can also show transparency by openly resolving disputes.

There are many CRM choices available today that provide small businesses numerous benefits. Here are a few of the top CRM solutions for small businesses to get you started

• Salesforce: Although Salesforce is likely best known as the industry leader in CRM and is skilled at managing the operations of firms at the enterprise level, it also provides solutions for small enterprises.

With its Small Business Pricing Solutions, Salesforce provides an all-in-one answer to your sales, customer support, and marketing requirements. For just $25 per user each month, the Essentials plan offers sales and customer service in a single straightforward software. This implies that less expensive smaller enterprises can benefit from the strength of market-leading CRM.

The CRM also offers extra features to speed up your companys sales and operational procedures, such as internal communication tools like on-screen conversations, the simple construction of a client knowledge base, data export, email templates, and third-party tool interaction with programs like Slack

• Freshsales: With the help of a number of tools from Freshsales, small and mid-sized businesses can easily serve their customers, comprehend consumer intent, and effectively convert leads into sales.

The Freshsales suite, which combines the Freshworks automation program, is an all-in-one CRM program that combines sales and marketing.

Freshsales, which uses the clever Freddy AI assistant, offers transparent insights on customer involvement, assisting firms in finding leads, closing deals, and cultivating client relationships. Fast access to client records and communications is made possible by the softwares straightforward, user-friendly interface, which is available on PC and mobile devices.

• Bigin by Zoho CRM: Bigin is a CRM from Zoho focused on building pipelines and was created especially for small and micro businesses. Bigin is the cheapest CRM system on the market, costing $7 per user per month.

The developers of Bigin purposefully left out features that most small businesses will never use. Because of this, Bigin keeps its style simple and direct. However, Bigin does provide all the necessary features, like integrated phone and email, various pipelines, workflow automation, activity management, and a completely customized dashboard to monitor important company data.

You can tailor each stage of your pipeline in Bigins many pipelines for different types of operations. You can filter contact and company information and keep track of open negotiations by stage with a clear pipeline view. Bigin also uses the same pipeline view in their mobile apps, which is a significant advantage over the competition

Integrating The Double Opt-in Will Ensure Your Protection

When building their email lists, many marketers prefer the single opt-in option. They might feel irritated every time they subscribe to an email only to be informed they need to take one more step to confirm their subscription, or they might have heard that the double opt-in option results in fewer subscribers.

Whatever the reason, the truth is that skipping the double opt-in can put you in danger of getting phony subscribers who might be hackers or rivals. Your email list will grow, which is fantastic on paper, but your emails might not be being read in practice.

You can select quality over quantity with double opt-in. Even though you may not have a sizable email list, you will know that the recipients of your emails are people who genuinely value and want what you have to give.

Make Your Emails Mobile-Friendly

Were in the digital age, thus, your email should be mobile-friendly, especially if your target demographic is under 45. A smartphone is used by more than 90% of millennials, and nearly 30% of them only use their phone to access the internet.

Wherever individuals check their email, they must be able to access your emails for the best outcomes. To guarantee that your emails are mobile-friendly:

• For your emails to automatically resize themselves to fit smaller screens, be sure your email service provider enables responsive emails

• Utilize fewer, or smaller, images

• For greater readability, divide up your information and make use of white space

• Use buttons for your calls to action

The Importance Of Establishing A Sending Cycle 

Email marketing for small businesses is a challenge. If you send too many emails, you risk having a higher unsubscribe rate, and if you send too few emails, email clients may designate you as spam.

To fully benefit from email marketing, establish the proper email cadence. In the opinion of marketing experts, the optimum strategy is to send emails once a week. But if your business is a restaurant or a clothing line, your subscribers may want and expect to get daily emails informing them of your most recent promotions.

You shouldnt just wing it when choosing your send cycle. Its critical to learn your audiences preferences. To determine which send cadence best suits your audience, do A/B testing.

Utilize Email Marketing Segmentation To Personalize The Experience For Your Audience

You should have an email marketing strategy to build relationships with your list. Trust, respect and shared interests are necessary for a healthy partnership.

A percentage of your audience will quickly question why they should continue opening your emails if you send them emails that are uninteresting to them.

For your subscribers, email segmentation can personalize their email experience. You can segment your email list depending on various criteria and then send emails on subjects most appealing to your readers.

One advantage of email marketing is segmentation, which lowers your unsubscribe rate and has a favorable effect on your bottom line.

Which Industries Lead in Email Marketing?

Email marketing impacts most industries, be it big or small. As B2C (Business to Customer) relation is an utmost requirement for most businesses to stay afloat and ahead of the competition, email marketing makes up for its reliability and easy-to-grasp approach. Here are some top industries utilizing email marketing to their advantage:

• Retail: The benchmark shows that the retail sector performs best, with multiline and single-brand shops dominating. Companies like Best Buy, Target, and Nike took advantage of the vast informational resources to send crucial emails which were highly targeted. 

In light of everything, youre more likely to open an email limiting a pair of shoes you looked at last week than another email offering a limited-time discount on an ambiguous item. 

• Tourism and Hospitality: One of the pandemics hardest-hit businesses was travel and hospitality, but those who reacted right away had the chance to make some headway in email showcasing. The company has the second-highest number of fully opened messages, but it could not lead them to its website or other businesses. 

Top brands looked for practical or secure ways to provide customers with value, typically through free delivery or doorstep pickup. Excelsior, a leading hotel and resort brand, started sending follow-up messages to customers after every visit, rewarding them with a complimentary snack or dessert during their subsequent visit when people started eating in person more frequently.

• Financial Services: Financial agencies outperformed retail and occupied five of the top ten slots in our image rankings. Additionally, financial services had increased email traffic and benefited from having the highest open rates among all businesses. Financial administration advertisers can distribute relevant, targeted email content using their extensive client account data.

For instance, Bank of America, the featured brand in this article, uses its application to compile detailed customer data. Through an AI device integrated into its application, Bank of America collects data on reserve funds plan preferences and directly refers to those findings in email subject lines. 

• An email containing a Life Plan will be sent to a millennial who wants to save money for a home to pursue that goal.
• Natural Resources and Construction: Acquiring the required client information might be difficult for assembling regular assets brands, but sector leaders have adopted certain B2C peers techniques. Top businesses used the data they had to target precise customers and achieved email open rates comparable to their movement and neighborliness competitors. The leading brand in the industry

Milwaukee Tools uses an information collection structure on its image site to target explicit exchanges of its messaging and increase visitors to its site.

• Medical Services: Medical services are generally listed last. Despite being commonplace among organizations, brands in this sector had the lowest portable streamlining rate. While email marketing for medical services was typically ineffective, top businesses had the opportunity to send targeted, educational information that resonated with consumers during the pandemic

All About Email Marketing Software

Emailing is a skill that we all have. Its easy. Open your email program (maybe Gmail or a separate corporate email account), enter the recipients email address, type your message, and click the Send button.

These email solutions are undoubtedly fantastic for regular email tasks. Conversing with relatives and friends. Making contact with suppliers, etc. They are, however, categorically not appropriate for marketing emails. You might be wondering why? Here are a few reasons:

• Sending rich emails that include graphics, video, attractive formatting, and other elements is challenging with regular email systems

• There wont be a simple unsubscribe option on them

• Even though you can theoretically use BCC to hide your mailing list, its quite easy for that mailing list to get exposed. This would not only greatly worry the clients, but it may also lead you to get charged for carelessly handling sensitive data

• Since there are no reports or analytics on board, you wont know if your emails were delivered to all of your clients. Its also impossible to know if your client opened your mail or not

So what is the alternative? 

Use email marketing platforms. And there are a lot of solutions to pick from.

You can send emails using email marketing software that resembles those youve likely gotten from merchants and other companies from whom youve explicitly authorized to receive marketing materials. Usually, in almost all cases, they include these features:

• Regulatory Management: Email marketing companies dont intend to break the rules and regulations. Plus, allowing you to distribute spam emails via their platforms is not in their long-term interest. Thats why they require you to include your companys contact information in the email footer and, probably most crucially, a link to unsubscribe in every email sent through their system.
  
  When the recipient hits the unsubscribe link, this integrates with their software and instantly removes the email address from the list.

• Tools for Designing Emails: We know that using a normal email system makes it difficult to create an attractive email. Email marketing software has this aspect of it under control. They offer a versatile editor which lets you add content to the page to make beautiful emails. Plus, theyll ensure that it looks nice on desktop and mobile screens.

• Strong Database Management: This contains all the client data you need, including their identity, email, location, and possibly some other information like their sexuality, nationality, date of birth, etc.

The Best Email Marketing Softwares For Your Small Business

As we said before, there are loads of options in the email marketing sector. You might even recognize a few of them. Such as:

• MailiGen
• ConvertKit
• GetResponse
• HubSpot
• SendX
• Automizy
• MailJet
• SendinBlue
• MailChimp
• Campaign Monitor

Whats the best part? To start your email marketing campaigns, almost all of them provide a trial period, so you dont have to spend any money to experience their platform.

Try a few software at first. Experiment with it by using their trial offer. Before choosing your favorite, browse over the features offered and get some expert opinions. It must be a good choice because youll spend time with their software and company. That said, dont be concerned if you decide to switch later on. Almost all software makes it simple for you to import and export email lists.

Need expert opinions? We got you covered. Here are the top 10 email marketing software currently on the market.

ConvertKit Review

ConvertKit is an effective email marketing software even though being new in this sector. Its a wonderful option for small businesses and content creators since it offers a free trial period for you to experience.

With control over email content, order, and delivery schedule, vendors can set up and manage personalized drip email marketing cycles. Emails can be customized with subscriber information by utilizing template tags to have the customizable fields filled in automatically.

Users can create fluid opt-in/opt-out forms to embed on their websites. These forms automatically resize to fit the space available, whether at the top of the side of the post or beneath the footer.

Its also possible to create an infinite amount of forms with various gifts for signing up. Users can also set up particular opt-in forms for each post, enabling them to include instructions for specific posts. 

Best For: All sorts of businesses and needs. From freelancers to large enterprises. Small businesses can take advantage of this.

Pros:

• Provides a free plan to manage up to 1000 contacts
• Easy to use for first-time users
• Includes free migrations from other email marketing providers
• Highest mail delivery rate (99% accuracy according to ConvertKit)
• Only charges for unique customers

Cons:

• Integration with Google Analytics isnt smooth
• Quite expensive comparing other competitors
• Design and Template options are quite limited
• Lack of in-depth reports

Price:

The number of email subscribers determines the price.

ConvertKit has a new FREE plan where you can manage up to 1000 email subscribers for no cost, which is a plus. However, it wouldnt include any sort of automation or reports.

So, you can check their free plan if youre just starting with ConvertKit as a small business owner or a new blogger.

Theres a 30-day refund policy for ConvertKit. You may easily contact their customer support team via live chat or email and cancel your account within 30 days of the purchase to receive a refund if youre disappointed with their services or email software.

SendinBlue Review

Sendinblue is an email marketing service geared primarily at small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The most recent version has improved and consolidated some features, making it more capable of acting as a comprehensive digital marketing hub. Beefier automation, baked-in customer relationship management (CRM), and a new expert template design service are among the new and noteworthy features.

Select from a library of email template styles, or start from scratch to create a brand-new design! Add the desired blocks and styles using the straightforward drag-and-drop builder to fit your brand and wow your audience perfectly.

Decide who to address. With Sendinblues limitless lists and connections, your creativity is only limited by your imagination! Group connections, whatever you see fit, and hone your plan for a more concentrated approach by deciding on even smaller groupings following your chosen standards such as geography, purchase history, gender, etc.

Best For: Small businesses who require sophisticated marketing automation on a budget

Pros:

• Dependable email automation
• Affordable plans
• Marketing tool for transactional emails and SMS
• A wide variety of automation and integration
• Sendinblue plugin for WordPress
• Free CRM software

Cons:

• Sending cap on the unrestricted plan
• Sometimes the system feels a little slow
• Initial account setup might be time-consuming.
• Database import can be challenging
• Additional fee for creating advanced templates

Price:

Sendinblue provides a Free plan with 300 emails each day. There are a few restrictions on the $25 Lite plan, which includes a cap of up to 20k emails per month. One million emails each month are the cap for the all-access Premium plan, which starts at $65 per month for 20k emails but is much more expensive at $599.

Sendinblue also offers prepaid credits on their pay-as-you-go plan, which dont expire if youd rather just pay for what you use. A little further down, we discuss the various packs that are available.

From February 2022, Sendinblue did something that no firm ever does: they lowered their costs and increased the number of emails included in the basic Lite plan from 10,000 to 100,000! And the price cut will significantly benefit small businesses; customers will now pay $32 per month for 40,000 emails instead of $54 per month, and those on the 60,000 email tier will now pay $45 instead of $69 per month.

MailChimp Review

Mailchimp is a web-based email marketing service used by millions of people worldwide. The tool allows users to track customer engagement and share newsletters across various social networks. The software has many useful features, such as creating customized emails, running Facebook ad campaigns, automating follow-ups, and monitoring campaign progress.

Mailchimp lets users collect and analyze their email responses. The software offers various a wide variety of forms for user interactions and data presentations. Users of Mailchimp may publish, share, and subscribe to email newsletters from any location. 

An interactive drag-and-drop interface allows users to create and share eye-catching email campaigns. Marketers may monitor customer behavior or produce ad hoc reports using the built-in reporting and analytics features.

A mobile app for iOS and Android is also available for Mailchimp. The application is a shortcut to users email marketing accounts, enabling subscribers to be added, receive campaign updates, and monitor social media activity.

The service is available monthly and serves a wide range of businesses, from small e-commerce sites to major online retailers.

Best For: A versatile platform for all types of businesses. Widely recommended for small businesses. 

Pros:

• Very user-friendly interface
• The free plan offers great value for small businesses
• Easy to design emails
• Efficient at managing users
• Multi-channel Email Marketing system
• CRM integrations abound

Cons:

• Certain functions (tables) being HTML
• Limited amounts of templates
• Price is quite steep at a professional level
• Sending newsletters not available on the Free plan
• The inability to have multiple users in an account

Price:

Up to 2,000 contacts and 10,000 emails can be sent monthly with MailChimps free plan (with ads). Starting at $9.99 per month, the Essentials plan includes 500 contacts and 500k emails. Starting at $14.99/month, the Standard plan provides sophisticated automation, while the Premium plan gives you access to all regions starting at $299 / month.

The monthly plans for Mailchimp are adjusted according to the size of your audience. However, each plan has additional restrictions, including a monthly email sending cap and a limitation on the variety of audiences you can have.

It should be noted that effective since May 2019, all users (including new ones and those switching from free or pay-as-you-go plans to monthly ones) are charged per contact rather than simply subscribers (which was previously the case). So new users start paying for unsubscribed contacts who havent verified their opt-in. Depending on the percentage of your contacts who unsubscribe, this could dramatically increase your costs.

Plus, MailChimp offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model where you just pay for the number of emails you send. The features included in this package match those in the MailChimp monthly plans.

SendPulse Review

SendPulse also offers SMS, web push alerts, and Facebook chatbots as additional channels. With a simple drag-and-drop editor, create emails that are responsive to mobile devices. 

You can set up autoresponders and send marketing campaigns or emails based on triggers. Every package from SendPulse includes unlimited email sending, live chat support around-the-clock, excellent deliverability, and thorough reporting. 

With the SendPulse push notification technology, users can promptly and privately alert consumers devices. The text messaging service provided by SendPulse allows users to send texts to more than 200 countries. The messaging service can use a user-defined schedule to distribute SMS automatically. Predictive analytics tools can be used to determine when to communicate with clients.

Support is available over the phone, via email, and online knowledge base. SendPulse also offers pay-as-you-go and monthly subscription plans. The monthly limit for the free plan is 15,000 emails, while the price for the premium plan is simply $9.85.

Best For: Small businesses looking for an overall minimalist yet convenient email marketing approach.

Pros:

• Easy setup procedures 
• Excellent form-building skills
• Very specific segmentation selections
• Ideal for general email marketing
• Inexpensive for small businesses

Cons:

• The user interface is overly complicated 
• No email scheduling options
• Limited price variation
• Very few integrations with other software
• Quite basic designs and personalization of emails

Price: 

The free plan allows you to send up to 15,000 emails to 500 people. It lacks dynamic segmentation and bears the SendPulse branding.

Each level of SendPulses premium pricing plans offers the same capability, but you can charge more to send emails to even more subscribers. 

A 10% discount is given if you regularly pay six months in advance, and a 30% discount is given if you pay all at once. There is also a pay-per-email option where you pay a predetermined amount for each email you send.

Theres also a VIP plan for businesses with over 5 million subscribers.

Campaign Monitor Review

Campaign Monitor is a cloud-based email campaigns solution that helps businesses manage new subscriptions, deliver email newsletters, and generate reports. It provides services to businesses of all sizes across numerous industries.

The solution comes with a drag-and-drop email builder that enables users to select from expertly designed templates and modify them for their own labeled and unique emails. It also comes with a number of tools, including customer experiences, targeted segments, and much more, those help businesses carry out email marketing campaigns.

Customers can expand and customize their email lists using the capabilities offered by Campaign Monitor. Allowing them to target the relevant contacts with the correct messages. The technology also provides real-time information on the performance of emails and campaign activities.

Users can keep track of consumer opinions and participation via emails, content sharing, and practical action items. Campaign Monitor may be integrated with various third-party applications, including Shopify, SalesForce, Facebook, Magneto, and WordPress.

Services come with email and online knowledge base support and are offered on a subscription basis.

Best For Small businesses and new marketers looking for easy-to-use and versatile email marketing software.

Pros:

• Flexible email templates
• User-friendly WYSIWYG interface
• Convenient automation tool
• Reliable SMB analytics

Con:

• Problematic way of importing contacts while using custom fields
• Unavailability of SMS channels
• No availability of direct online help through phone or chat

Price:

Although Campaign Monitor is quite expensive for what it does, the firm makes it relatively simple to determine your ideal price range. You can indicate how many contacts you expect to have using a slider on the companys website. When you move the slider over to the relevant number, you will automatically see the necessary pricing and plan.

The Unlimited subscription includes unlimited spam testing and unlimited automation. Plus, it eliminates email limitations and bases pricing on the number of contacts. Youll pay $29 monthly for the first 500 subscribers, and the price increases based on your contact list.

Campaign Monitors premium features, such as pre-built engagement segments to determine subscribers activity, email optimization, etc., are included in the Premier plan, with a monthly price starting at $149.

The pricing of Premier is entirely based on your subscriber list, just like the Unlimited plan. This grade also gives you the option of a digital marketing strategy where you dont send emails frequently. If it suits your requirements, you will pay $5 for each campaign and one cent for every recipient through Campaign Monitor.

Also, there are no free plans.

SendX Review

SendX is a feature-rich, affordable, and simple-to-use email marketing software for marketers and business owners. 

It enables users to create email lists, create emails using a drag-and-drop editor, automate emails, and send email campaigns indefinitely. Additionally, SendX provides 500,000 stock-free pictures, free ESP migration, responsive email templates, and 24-7 Live Support for your email campaigns.

The availability of pricing plans on a monthly and annual basis. Theres phone, email, and online chat help available.

SendX focuses on plain email marketing in general. So, see it as a straightforward SaaS service created for users who want the most effective email marketing possible.

Best For: When it comes to basic email marketing, SendX is excelling. Its curated towards new users who only need the basic functionality with ease.

Pros:

• Can send unlimited emails
• An intuitive user interface that simplifies email marketing
• Over 500,000 royalty-free images to use on emails, landing pages, and forms
• Affordable email marketing solution
• Compatible with any website

Cons:

• Not flexible enough for dynamically complex automation sequences
• Contacts can only be imported using a CSV file
• The level of customization and targeting available is fairly low
• The maximum subscriber capacity for the SendX Business Plan is 15,000
• Doesnt provide a free package

Price:

Even though SendX doesnt provide a free option, its starting prices for its plans are among the most affordable available. If you pay annually, the cost of SendX might be as low as $7.49 per month, which is significantly less expensive than its rivals.

SendX only provides two plans, in contrast to other email marketing platforms that provide a range of options: one regular plan (Business), created to satisfy the needs of the majority of customers, and one custom plan (Enterprise), created for marketers with bigger lists.

GetResponse Review

GetResponse is a dependable email marketing service for small to midsize businesses with some marketing automation features (SMBs). It has a reasonable price tag and many alluring third-party integrations. 

GetResponse has improved quite a bit since our last test, adding features like email chat and web push alerts. Additionally, it has extended SMS text marketing and enhanced automation procedures. Further, interacting with outside e-commerce platforms is now being stressed more than ever.

It provides technology to satisfy enterprise marketing needs, including autofunnels, landing pages, marketing automation, webinars, and autoresponders. Its primary email marketing capabilities enable users to send email newsletters, campaigns, online surveys, and follow-up autoresponders.

Best For: Small to mid-sized businesses with a good budget. 

Pros:

• Expanded features, including email chat and SMS
• Options for effective auto-responders
• Simple email marketing tools
• Enhanced integration of online commerce
• Website creation and AI design software
• Conversion funnel feature

Cons:

• Building forms are constrained and less fluid
• Only Max plan users get access to dedicated customer service
• Analytics are insufficient

Price:

When you consider that GetResponse doesnt impose any email sending limits-a technique increasingly adopted by rival email marketing services-it becomes an even better offer.

The availability of each plan is on a month-to-month basis. The price decreases by 18% for all tiers if you commit to an annual contract. You receive a 30% discount if you prepay for two years.

AutoPilot Review

With Autopilot, you can generate fresh leads from your website, app, or blog, which you can then nurture with relevant messages. Automate time-consuming tasks, including appointment scheduling, onboarding new team members, lead assignment, and sales lead follow-up.

By interacting on the right channel and at the right time, you can use this technology to establish a personal connection with every customer.

Gain committed fans by making every client interaction unique without using manual work. Automated engagements can be used to send charming mailings, provide quick service, ask customers for product feedback, decrease churn, and recover abandoned carts.

Plus, using autopilot makes boring and repeated tasks unnecessary. You can save time and remain connected with your clients with marketing automation. The marketing automation software from Autopilot is the simplest way to automate and customize your marketing throughout the whole client experience.

Best For: All types of businesses - small or large scale. Very versatile.

Pros:

• Incredible automation capabilities
• Quite a user-friendly interface
• Simple Collaboration
• Automate operations across applications 
• Options for strong integration 
• Supported via AP

Cons:

• No integrated CRM
• Less scope for additional analytics and reporting
• Quite overpriced comparing other competitors
• Falls short when compared to full-service CRM

Price:

Although Autopilot isnt the most affordable solution, it makes up for it by providing a quality experience.

Every plan includes unlimited email sending and access to all of Autopilots features. Unlike most software vendors, the company doesnt restrict access to its more sophisticated capabilities on less expensive plans.

As you expand, AutoPilots price scales with you. By signing a one-year contract and paying for the entire year in advance, you can reduce the cost of your plan.

Theres also a 14-day trial if you want to try it out first.

MailJet Review

You can quickly produce eye-catching, responsive emails using Mailjet Email Marketing.

Select one of the many pre-made templates, or begin from scratch. You may add content for your business, such as photographs, links, and videos, using Mailjets flexible drag-and-drop Email Editor. You can be confident the emails you create always appear flawless since Mailjets templates are responsive and optimized across all email clients and devices.

Thanks to its efficient collaboration capabilities, you can create emails with your team directly in Mailjets Email Editor. Similar to Google Docs, you can evaluate, comment on, and update email templates in real-time.

To protect your brand assets and keep your brand consistent, set user permissions and lock specific regions in your templates.

Best For: Small businesses looking for affordable email marketing software with good deliverability.

Pros:

• Suitable for small businesses because of the reasonable prices
• The free lifetime offer includes 200 emails each day
• User-friendly email design software
• Ability to send a large number of emails rapidly
• Easy to track emails
• Outstanding customer service

Cons:

• The selection of templates is limited
• From time to time, SMTP fails
• Campaign tests can take a little longer than anticipated
• List Management Problems
• Contacts cannot be deleted from the main list

Price:

With a free plan that allows for up to 200 emails per day and no contact restrictions, Mailjet also has some of the most reasonable subscription plans.

Send up to 15,000 emails monthly to an unlimited number of contacts with its Essential plan, which costs $15 per month. A/B testing and marketing automation are two additional elements of the $25 per month Premium plan.

Transactional SMS can also be sent using Mailjet. Prices vary depending on the recipient nation and the number of messages you send; the more messages you send, the less each SMS costs.

All plans have unlimited contacts, so choosing one will depend on the required features. To be honest, most people will likely find the Essential plan to be a tad too basic.

Automizy Review

With its various capabilities, Automizy helps marketers boost open rates. Without knowing how to code, you can apply changes to make your emails more visually appealing.

Plus, it offers a clever email automation builder that lets you create campaigns and email sequences, so emails are sent automatically based on how recipients respond to your messages. To increase your email open rate, test emails, and subject lines and see what works and doesnt.

Since Automizy does most of the tasks youd anticipate for an email automation tool, it can take the place of all your email marketing products.

Best For: Small businesses. It also offers support for startups, SMEs, agencies, and corporations.

Pros:

• The user interface is straightforward for general users 
• Strong automation with an excellent visual automation builder
• Ability to resend emails
• Affordable pricing
• AB test automated emails

Cons:

• The user interface is straightforward for general users 
• Strong automation with an excellent visual automation builder
• Ability to resend emails
• Affordable pricing
• AB test automated emails

Price:

The price is very reasonable. Because with Automizy, your payment will be based on the number of active subscribers you have. 

Theres a free trial available if youre not convinced about Automizy and want to see if its the correct choice. The 14-day free trial is available. Even entering your payment card details is optional.

Plus, theres a 60-day money-back guarantee. You can request a money-back guarantee from Automizy if youre unhappy with the service, no questions asked.

Closing Thoughts

Email is a powerful behavioral marketing tool. And with the right technology in place, it can completely change the connection between a business and its customers. A customers brief interaction with a brand might develop into a lucrative, long-term purchasing trend with the help of personalized recommendations and other automation.

Email marketing is economical and efficient. Also, getting started with it is quite simple. By employing all the free resources at your disposal, you may launch your business email marketing with nothing more than your time as an investment. Paying for premium tools now may make a lot of sense if you decide you like what you see and want to move things further.

You have very little to lose and a lot to gain by joining the 64% of small businesses that currently make the most of this dominant marketing channel.

So, what are you waiting for?