Businesses these days are more focused on the different forms of digital marketing than on the traditional means of marketing. This is because they realize the value and cost-effectiveness of using the internet for promoting their products.
One of the most commonly used forms of digital marketing is email marketing, whereby customers or prospects are sent regular emails to keep them reminded about your brand. These emails may be in the form of a newsletter, a downloadable ebook, or simply a combination of text, images, embedded videos, and links to update the brand’s customers.
As email marketing gets more in demand, businesses need to use tools or software to save their time generating and sending emails. These email marketing tools help them to automate the email marketing process and make it more efficient.
Different tools for email marketing have various features, and you need to choose the one that suits your requirements the most. You also need to keep your budget in mind. Most online tools nowadays offer a free or trial version, but sometimes there is a dire need to upgrade to the paid version to suit your needs.
Just like any other kind of software or tool, email campaign tools have also evolved over time. The new ones come up with more features, making them more user-friendly and cost-effective.
Today, we will be discussing the latest and best email marketing tools that you can use for your business in 2021 and beyond. But before that, let’s talk a bit about the importance of using such tools.
Importance of Email Marketing Tools For Small Businesses
Since email marketing is relatively cost-effective, it can be done by startup firms and other small businesses that have just started off. It does not require a big budget to send regular emails to your subscribers or customers.
Even when these startups or small businesses use tools for email marketing, the amount that they spend on paying the monthly subscription for these tools is quite low. It saves them a lot of time that they would otherwise consume in managing their emails manually.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
Here are 5 key benefits of using email marketing tools.
1. Send Targeted and Personalized Emails
An email campaign tool will allow you to send personalized emails, as opposed to generic emails, to each of your subscribers. There is usually an option in such tools to key in the subscriber’s name to appear in the opening statement of your email body. This has a special effect on the reader. They feel like the email was generated especially for them, and thus they feel interested to read it, or at least skim through it until the end.
2. Build Credibility and Brand Recognition
Using email marketing tools makes the delivery of your newsletters and emails efficient. This, in turn, creates a good impression of your brand on your audience. For instance, if someone is interested in your emails, they will be looking forward to receiving one from you every week. Without an email marketing tool, you might actually forget to send out emails in a particular week, ending in disappointment from such loyal subscribers.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
3. Boost Your Sales
Email marketing tools keep your email marketing strategy running at its fullest. According to a study done by the Direct Marketing Association, 66% of customers make an online purchase due to a message they received about the product via email. An email campaign tool would typically provide you with ready-to-use templates that allow you to include call-to-action buttons and links in your emails. These give a chance to the readers to make a purchase directly from their phone and on the spot if they feel interested in buying a product right after reading the email.
4. Develop Strong Customer Relationships
Email marketing is also considered a way of providing customer service by keeping your customers informed and updated about your products. If you use email marketing tools, you can further amplify this benefit by automating the whole process of sending newsletters and other emails to respond to queries. When your customers receive quick responses from you, they feel satisfied and can make their buying decisions faster. In other words, using tools for email marketing can help you build strong customer relationships.
5. Optimize Your Time and Budget
Small businesses often have time and budget constraints. Most of the top email marketing tools do not cost much. But instead, they help businesses save a lot of time. Thus they are a good option for any business looking to impact its audience with a low cost and time-saving strategy.
Now that we know the benefits of using email marketing tools, let’s look at the features of the best tools for email marketing in 2021 and beyond.
5 Top Email Marketing Tools
Here are the 5 best email marketing tools that you can use for your business.
1. Constant Contact
Image taken from Constant Contact
This is among the fastest-growing email marketing tools. Its ease of use and beginner friendliness has made it popular among small businesses. Emails can be managed easily using Constant Contact. It includes a marketing calendar and several email templates.
You get access to unlimited emails per account. Tracking and reporting emails is done through a simple process. Emails can be shared on social media, too, using the software’s sharing tools.
Other features of Constant Contact include the following.
- Free images library
- Facebook ads integration
- List segmentation
- Online donations
- A/B testing for the subject line
2. SendinBlue
Image taken from Sendinblue
This is among those email marketing tools that offer complete SMS and email marketing services. It is one of the fastest-growing email management platforms in Europe. It has excellent features that allow you to create highly engaging and appealing emails. The editor uses a drag-and-drop feature, which is perfect for beginners and time-savers.
With SendinBlue, you can do the following unique activities.
- Create workflows for sending follow-up emails automatically.
- Send transactional emails.
- Do user segmentation.
- Send bulk emails at optimum timings using the AI algorithms of this email campaign tool.
The free version of this email campaign tool allows you to send emails to unlimited contacts, with a quota of 300 emails a day. The only limitation is that your emails will include their branding. The paid plans start from only $25 a month.
3. Drip
Image taken from Drip
This one is particularly for small enterprises. It is commonly used by ecommerce website owners, digital marketers and bloggers. It allows personalization of emails and generation of sales funnels in a smooth manner. It offers seamless integration with the popular website building platforms, such as Wordpress and WooCommerce. This means using Drip, you can add opt-in sign-up forms and other pop-ups to your website.
The following features make Drip stand out from the other email marketing tools.
- Smart email segmentation
- Intelligent marketing automation
- Split testing
- Visual automation workflow creator
- Listing of groups
These features make your emails customized and attractive, increasing your chances of getting more sales. Their customer support includes webinars, detailed online courses, thorough documentation, free guides, and most importantly, live chat support.
4. HubSpot
Image taken from HubSpot
This is one of the most well-known email marketing tools in this day and age. It is free to start and comes with numerous features that are specially designed to grow your business.
It has a drag-and-drop email editor and a lot of email templates to select from. You can create totally custom newsletters using Hubspot - one that goes well with your brand personality and theme.
Personalization of emails can be done based on the following.
- Country
- List membership
- Device type
- Any other custom information recorded in the subscriber’s profile
Some of the main features of this email campaign tool are listed below.
- Time optimization
- A/B testing
Marketing automation - High-end email deliverability
- Detailed performance analytics
- Special campaigns
5. ConvertKit
Image taken from ConvertKit
This is a robust email campaign tool used mainly by professional bloggers, marketers, and book authors. One of its unique features is the content upgrades it offers. It provides auto-responders that are easy to manage, even if you have no prior experience in email marketing.
Subscribers can be segmented into two groups: those who have shown interest and those who have already made a purchase. This segmentation can be used to send more personalized automated emails to increase your conversion rate and sales. These kinds of email marketing tools are great for targeted email marketing.
Some of the key features of ConvertKit are as follows.
- Landing page builder
- Attractive email templates
- A/B testing
- Smart workflows
Using Strikingly as an Email Campaign Tool
If you build a website on Strikingly, you can use our newsletter feature to send emails to your subscribers. You can also add recipients of your emails manually.
Image taken from Strikingly Product
The default email or newsletter template is straightforward, using minimal text. But you can add different elements to customize it and make it more appealing and thorough.
Image taken from Strikingly
You can also create a website on Strikingly and use our newsletter feature to run your email marketing campaigns. It is good to have everything managed from a single platform online and save the remaining energy to focus on the physical operations of your business.
Many of our users use our platform to conduct email marketing and other forms of digital marketing for their business. You can also join the group by signing up for a free account with us!
