As per usual, we’re looking for the best email marketing software for YOU. Most reviews are pointless – the best email marketing software for them, may not be the best for you. It’s why I wrote Simplify Online and why I advocate for advisory before development and why I offer virtual CTO and business coaching services.
Email Marketing Software – What You Need to Know
We’re going to look at the best email marketing services for different business situations to give you some insight on what may be best for you.
If you would like a personal recommendation then you can book a web advisory session.
The Best Email Marketing Software for New & Growing Businesses
When you’re starting off you usually fall into one of two categories…
1. You are running your business as a side business and looking to bootstrap everything as much as possible. In this case my main recommendation would be MailerLite. It has fewer free subscribers than other options, but once you grow over 1000 the price is one of the lowest out there and it’s always easier to not have to make a switch when you grow over the next limit.
2. If you are growing quick or plan to grow quickly, then you want a tool that is helping you to understand and segment your subscribers better. This means grouping your subscribers by interest, action, or answers. To best do that my recommendation is the same system I use for my own email marketing lists: ActiveCampaign.
Here’s an overview of some of the popular email marketing software and their pricing.
MailerLite *: Free to 1,000 subscribers, 10k subscribers = $50 / month
MailChimp *: Free to 2,000 subscribers, 10k subscribers = $75 / month
GetResponse **: No free level, 10k subscribers = $75 / month
ConvertKit **: No free level, 10k subscribers = $119 / month
Drip **: No free level, 10k subscribers = $184 / month
ActiveCampaign ***: No free level, 10k subscribers = $199 / month with full CRM (Plus)
Keap ***: No free level, 10k subscribers = $399 / month
Hubspot ***: Some free tools, 10k subscribers = $1390 / month
* = Generally basic email marketing.
** = More advanced features for building your list and targeting specific segments (groups).
*** = All-in-one full CRM software like Infusionsoft, Ontraport, and Hubspot
The Best Email Marketing Software for E-commerce Businesses
When it comes to e-Commerce it’s more important to start working with email marketing software that both more advanced features as well as deep integration with your e-commerce provider. You need to have e-commerce focused features, like emails being sent to people who leave their cart without completing a purchase.
Here I would go right to ActiveCampaign which has powerful e-commerce features. You do want to first check which native integrations your e-commerce provider has. That is the most important step, but from my experience ActiveCampaign is well supported by almost every e-commerce platform out there. That’s one of the reasons I often point customers to ActiveCampaign and why I use it myself.
The Best Email Marketing Software for Larger Businesses
There is really only one thing to consider with larger businesses and email marketing – the customer journey.
As a business grows in both income and size there are two main branches that will start to form. One with fewer high-value customers the other with larger numbers and lower revenue per customers.
With very high-value per customer customers you want to be able to personalize their journey with very fine grain control. This is where all-in-one CRM systems like Infusionsoft, and Hubspot come into play.
With mid to lower revenue customers the fine-grain insight and analytics can actually be overwhelming and it’s best to try to separate the customers into groups to best serve and personalize their experience. ActiveCampaign is my choice here as it has powerful CRM features while still being a bulk email provider.
Either way, my recommendation for larger businesses is to have some level of advisory when selecting and implementing an email marketing system as there are a huge number of variables that come into play when looking at the why, how, what, and who’s of using email marketing to have the conversation you want to have with your subscribers and clients.
What do I use for my email marketing software?
I’ve used most of them. For where my business is now I find that ActiveCampaign gives the most value and ability to grow (and scale) without limitation.
