How To Choose The Best Email Marketing Service

Updated: May 11, 2022

How To Choose The Best Email Marketing Service

Quite often, we are asked how to choose the best email marketing service. It’s a fair question. Of course, we are a bit biased so we thought we’d put together a guide that shows you exactly what to look for to help you make the right decision.

Having made the decision to get started with email marketing, the task becomes figuring out how to choose the best email marketing service for your business. There are eight key features that you should consider when making your decision. They are:

1. Automation

The goal is to get more done in less time. When looking at options for email marketing, make sure you can quickly add subscribers to your list by adding a capture form to your website or blog. If you don’t have a website, you will want a way to create and use capture pages effectively.

You will also want to make sure you have a way to follow up with potential customers that fail to complete a purchase.

From there, when customers begin to show you their buying patterns, you want to make sure you can make sure you send them content and offers relevant to those buying patterns.

You will be spending some time initially creating the content that gets sent out to each type of customer but once it’s done, the email service you choose will be running automatically in the background.

You want to be able to create content that matches your branding and message. The ability to create templates that can be saved for future newsletters, offers, etc… is an important thing to look for. Once you’ve designed your header, footer, and overall layout, you want to be able to quickly select that template and reuse it for future marketing pieces.

3. Subscriber Management

Any email marketing service provider will allow you to store your subscribers’ details to make sending your newsletters easy. There are other features that a good email marketing tool can offer to make it more attractive to a business owner.

From time to time, a user’s email may be temporarily unavailable but not closed permanently. In the email tech world, this is referred to as a “soft bounce”. A good system will be able to identify soft bounces from hard bounces. If an email becomes permanently unavailable, it should be flagged as a “hard bounce” and ultimately removed without requiring any manual intervention from you.

Similarly, users may simply decide that they no longer want to receive marketing emails from you. A good email marketing service will make it easy for subscribers to unsubscribe or update their preferences.

You also want to be able to segment your subscribers based on actions taken or skipped so you can target your followup messages to for maximum impact

4. Compliance With Regulations

Compliance with regulations is a big factor to consider. You will want to be sure the email marketing service you select operates in compliance with GDPR and the CAN-SPAM Act.

Taking on these hugely important considerations to your growing list of responsibilities as a business owner can be frustrating. Finding an email marketing service provider that manages compliance from their end can be of great help.

5. Integration

The automation section above describes some of the ways in which marketing emails can be automatically sent to potential customers. Integrating email marketing tools with your website is just the beginning. Further integration with service providers such as forms providers, CRM’s, calendaring/scheduling systems, etc… can make a huge difference as your business and marketing needs begin to scale.

Much of this integration is done through API and/or Zapier integration. Use of Zapier means that virtually anybody can set up a wide range of integrations without the need for technical expertise or coding of any kind.

6. Analytics

Whether you connect to an external analytics service such as the method used above, use an in-house number-crunching tool, or a combination of the two, analytics have become more important than ever.

You want to be able to know where your subscribers come from. You want to know your open rate. You want to know your click-through rate. Make sure the email marketing service you choose has this information available to you.

7. Scalability

No two businesses are identical. There is no “one size fits all” approach to email marketing. The basics of email marketing are fairly universal. Your use of email marketing will vary based on your industry, your goals, and your results. Rest assured your needs will change as you learn and your business grows.

You want to be sure you find an email marketing provider that can take care of your business, both now and in the future.

8. Pricing

Once you’ve found an email marketing service that provides the above features, your next consideration will be price. How much will you be paying? Many service providers charge you more as your list grows. TrafficWave.net follows a flat rate pricing model that stays level regardless of the size of your list. We even offer you a Free 30 Day Trial so you can test out all these powerful features before making any financial commitment.

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