Email marketing is one of the most important tools in your arsenal as a small business. It remains one of the most effective marketing channels to reach your customers.
But when you start looking at the different services available to manage your email marketing, it can be overwhelming. There are dozens of different email service providers to choose from.
Having managed email marketing campaigns for 12, I’ve worked with many popular email marketing platforms.
In this article, I’m going to look at six of the best email marketing solutions that are ideal for small businesses.
Aweber
If your business is just starting out, Aweber is a great choice.
If you don’t mind a bit of Aweber branding at the bottom of your emails, you can actually use Aweber for free for up to 500 subscribers (and 3000 emails per month).
It has existing email templates for you to use, and a really nice ‘drag and drop’ email builder, so you don’t need advanced design skills to build effective emails.
The platform also has the ability to create email sign up forms and landing pages, for you to easily embed into your website and capture new email subscribers.
Some advanced is reserved for those who choose to ‘go pro’. If you don’t mind paying a small monthly fee for the premium version of Aweber, you can access features like advanced segmentation of your audience, email split testing, cart abandonment and click tracking.
Find out more: https://www.aweber.com/
Free version: Up to 500 subscribers, and 3000 emails per month
Paid version: Starting at $19.99/month
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is probably the best known solution in this list, and the most popular with small businesses.
Like Aweber, Mailchimp also has a valuable ‘always free’ plan, making it ideal for any businesses that are just starting out.
Within the free plan you’re able to build a subscriber list of up to 2000 contacts, and the free functionality includes a marketing CRM, an interesting creative assistant that brings in your business colours and fonts through automatically, a website builder and a landing page creator.
If you want to access automated email workflows (such as an effective email welcome series) or be able to A/B test your emails, then the “Essentials” package allows access to this.
There are also “Standard” and “Premium” options that unlock advanced features like the ability to optimise the time that you send your emails based on previous engagement, multi-variate testing, and advanced audience segmentation.
Find out more: https://mailchimp.com/
Free version: Up to 2000 subscribers, and 10,000 emails per month
Paid version: Essentials starting at $11/month.
Sendinblue
For businesses that are interested in running SMS campaigns alongside their emails, Sendinblue is a great option. The platform also allows businesses to implement chat bots on their site.
Sendinblue is ideal for beginners, and allows you create professional looking email campaigns even if you have limited design experience.
What is great about Sendinblue is that the free version allows functionality like automated workflows, which are often paywalled in other email solutions. You also get access to a nice email template library and email designer.
The only drawback to the free version of Sendinblue is that email volumes are capped at 300 per day.
Upgrading to the ‘Lite’ package removes the sending limits, but doesn’t add too much additional functionality.
To access the more powerful features like send-time optimisation, and A/B testing, you’ll need to upgrade to the more expensive ‘Premium’ version.
Find out more: https://www.sendinblue.com/
Free version: Up to 2000 subscribers, and 300 emails per day
Paid version: Starting at £16.50/month
Constant Contact
There is no ‘free’ plan for Constant Contact, but if you’re interested in trialling their services you can get your first month on their platform without charge.
Their tiered pricing scales as your business and subscriber list grows, and I personally quite like the transparency of their fee structure.
The ‘Core Plan’ on Constant Contact has all the functionality that a small business should need, including email templates, A/B testing, automated email flows, and an impressive email builder.
Some of the additional functionality that I love within Constant Contact are the Canva integrations (helps to bring through Canva designs more easily) and the ability to post on social channels from within the platform.
Find out more: https://www.constantcontact.com/
Free version: No free version. 30-day trial available.
Paid version: Starting at £8/month
Drip
This email marketing platform is ideal for e-commerce businesses that rely on advanced segmentation and email automation.
There’s no free plan for Drip, and it’s a little more expensive than some of the other solutions on this list. But if you’re an e-commerce business looking to improve your email marketing with advanced drip campaigns, it’s worth taking advantage of their 14-day free trial.
There’s so much you can do with the hyper-personalisation and automation on Drip, and it has some impressive insights and analytics to help with your email strategy.
Find out more: https://www.drip.com/
Free version: No free version. 14-day trial available.
Paid version: Starting at $39/month
MailerLite
I’ve saved the best for last — in my opinion anyway!
MailerLite is the solution I often recommend to clients that are just getting started with email. It’s probably the most user-friendly solution in this list. Clients with no previous email experience have been able to set up professional automated email sequences after only a couple of training sessions.
I’ve also found that the deliverability of emails from MailerLite is impressive, with emails less likely to end up in the spam folders of your subscribers.
You can access a lot of email functionality on MailerLite in their free plan, which allows up to 1000 subscribers. To access the full range of email templates and unlock features like dynamic content, you’re best signing up to their ‘growing business’ plan.
Find out more: https://www.mailerlite.com/
Free version: Up to 1000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month.
Paid version: Growing Business starting from $10/month
If you’re thinking about getting started with email marketing, or looking to switch up your email marketing platform — take your time to do your research. I’m personally a huge fan of MailerLite for businesses that are just getting started, but there are pros and cons for each platform and it’s important to find the platform that is right for you.
If you’d like a quick chat to help weigh up your options, get in touch.
