In 2023, email marketing will still be highly effective in helping businesses attract targeted leads, interact with their audience, and engage them in communication. Today, this area has a wide range of email services that make it possible to speed up and simplify the preparation, execution, and analysis of the results of mailings of various types. Understanding their features, advantages, and disadvantages can be difficult, especially for those who have never used them before. Therefore, we decided to help our readers make the right choice and compiled a list of the top 5 best email newsletter services.
Benefits of Email Marketing
It is not for nothing that mailing lists are considered one of the most promising formats of Internet marketing. They are especially in demand among small businesses, as they allow entrepreneurs and marketers to quickly and efficiently convey information to the widest possible audience. The most important advantage of this method is its versatility. Newsletters are successfully used in many areas and business formats. They can be used as an independent tool as well as with other promotion methods. In addition, this method is highly cost-effective. According to statistics, the ROI of email marketing in the US is $42 for every dollar spent.
Other benefits of email newsletter software include:
- Audience retention. By compiling a database of your customers' email addresses and sending mailings to it, you effectively remind them of your brand and product, as well as encourage them to visit the site again and make a purchase.
- Loyalty promotion. High-quality marketing and information mailings help to make the audience more loyal, increasing their level of trust and affection for your brand and its products.
- Income increasing. Well-designed email campaigns significantly increase sales. According to statistics, the average number of buyers attracted through mailing lists is higher than that of those who came to your site through search engines or social networks.
How to Choose the Best Mailing Service
The main criteria for choosing the best platform for email newsletter are:
- Ease of use. A good mailing service should have a simple, clear, and functional interface that can be understood by a wide audience of users without special skills or tools. The most suitable option is the drag-and-drop constructor, which allows you to create and edit newsletters using a block method.
- Automation. Most email marketing platforms offer a set of tools to automate certain stages of a campaign. Most often among them, there are services for automatic personalization and targeting of mass mailings. Explore their options and choose the one that best suits your goals and objectives. Also pay attention to our SaveMyLeads service, which allows you to configure integrations in no-code mode. For example, you can get an automated process for adding contacts to mailing lists.
- Specialization. Some mailing list providers target specific business sectors. There are specialized solutions for e-commerce, information products, and others. There are also universal systems designed for companies with different specializations. This aspect should also be considered when choosing a service.
- Price. An equally important criterion for choosing an email marketing provider is the cost of its services. Compare plans from different providers to find the best option that suits your needs and budget.
Next, we invite you to familiarize yourself with the functionality and cost of the five most popular email marketing platforms in 2023.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is rightfully considered one of the most famous email newsletter services, providing users with a range of services for organizing mailing lists. Among similar platforms, it stands out for its advanced reporting and campaign analytics capabilities. An extensive library of newsletter templates with an original modern design is available here. In addition, the service offers over 300 integrations with third-party systems.
Key features:
- More than 100 pre-installed professional templates with distribution by thematic categories. It is possible to choose the appropriate layout for different types of mailings: marketing, informational, transactional, autoresponders, and so on. A wide range of landing page templates allows you to quickly and easily create an optimized one-page site in a few minutes.
- Users can customize templates by adding and changing texts and graphics, as well as independently develop mailings from scratch and evaluate the effectiveness of several options using A/B testing.
- Mailchimp is not only software for email newsletter. There are also SMM tools here. The platform allows you to create posts, design them, schedule publications, and manage marketing campaigns on different social networks through a single interface.
- The service interface makes it possible to develop mailings manually, using a drag-and-drop constructor, without programming skills. There is also an HTML editor that allows you to design campaigns with a unique design.
- Over 20 AI tools for insight preparation and data processing. They can be used to create original content, design customization, campaign performance analysis, and more.
- Reporting and analytics features help generate clear, visualized reports on a range of metrics, including open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, and so on. Features for evaluating the effectiveness of landing pages and advertising campaigns are also useful and in demand by users.
On the free plan, you can send up to 1,000 emails per month to a base of 500 subscribers. Paid plans start at $6.5 per month (the Essentials plan) with an annual subscription. For this money, you can send out up to 5,000 letters per month to a database of 500 addresses.
MailerLite
The MailerLite platform is one of the best email marketing services for small businesses. Like the previous service in our review, it has a wide range of tools for online marketing. These include not only the preparation and management of email newsletters, but also the ability to create websites and functionality for lead generation and e-commerce. Among the main advantages of this service are an intuitive and user-friendly interface for beginners, as well as great potential for customizing campaigns.
Key features:
- Three separate editors for self-development and customization of newsletters: block drag-and-drop for simple and fast customization; rich-text editor to add links, images, videos, tables, and other content; and an HTML editor for even more flexible personalization of emails through HTML or CSS code.
- An extensive database of newsletter templates, one-page and multipage sites, as well as pop-ups. It is possible to customize each of the templates presented in the catalog.
- Automation. Here you can set up automatic email sending for a number of triggers: when a subscriber joins a group, fills out a form, updates personal information, and so on. In addition, it is possible to automate mailings on a specific date, for example, a birthday or a subscriber's registration on the site. You can add multiple triggers to one campaign. Continuing the topic of automation, if you use Facebook Lead Ads, then you can set up an automatic transfer of contacts from your ad account to MailerLite.
- An extensive analytics and reporting system includes a survey system, sales performance tracking, a visual click map, and a number of other useful tools. With it, you can collect and process information such as the number of new subscribers and the total number of active audience members, unsubscribes, spam complaints, bounces, and so on.
MailerLite offers a free plan that allows you to send up to 12,000 emails per month to a database of up to 1,000 subscribers. Growing Business's basic paid plan (from $9 per month for 1,000 subscribers) offers unlimited emails, unlimited templates, dynamic campaigns, and more.
AWeber
AWeber is one of the oldest services. This email marketing platform, which appeared back in 1998, is still very much in demand. It provides users with a basic set of internet marketing tools, including email creation and personalization, email automation, e-commerce and landing page development, and web push notifications.
- Automate the work with leads from the Facebook advertising account
- Empower with integrations and instant transfer of leads
- Don't spend money on developers or integrators
- Save time by automating routine tasks
Key features:
- The intuitive drag-and-drop interface allows you to create and customize mailing lists from scratch without any special skills or tools. The service's library offers a wide range of newsletter design templates and thousands of high-quality stock images.
- Users can independently create email templates based on a link to a website or Facebook page. In addition, here, you can add or "draw" original images through the Canva editor right on the platform.
- The automation tools included in the best email newsletter software allow you to automate the process of adding new subscribers to the database, as well as sending emails to new or existing subscribers based on triggers (greeting, abandoned cart, order confirmation, and so on).
- It is possible to segment subscribers and mailings according to a number of criteria (opens, transitions, purchases, and other targeted actions). Dynamic content is available to personalize mailings.
- Flexible tracking and A/B testing tools.
- A wide range of pre-installed report templates for different purposes.
The free plan allows you to send letters to a database of up to 500 subscribers, create 1 mailing list, 1 landing page, and 1 automation. The basic paid tariff (from $12.5 per month, subject to payment for the year at once) makes it possible to launch mailings to an unlimited audience. It also includes 1 mailing list, 3 landing pages, and 3 automations.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is a relatively new player in the email newsletter platforms market. The service offers a range of internet marketing tools for bloggers, content writers, coaches, musicians, and podcasters. Its functionality includes four main categories:
- Grow your audience (tools for developing landing pages and forms; networking module Creator Network).
- Connect with fans (features for writing letters, email marketing, and analysis of mailing results).
- Automate your marketing (visual campaign automation and many integrations with external systems, divided into thematic categories).
- Earn an income (tools for content monetization, including its sale, sponsorship network, and paid recommendations).
Key features:
- ConvertKit's advanced automation tools allow you to create automated email sales funnels for your target audience.
- Segmentation and tagging functions are available for different categories of subscribers. Thanks to them, the user does not need to create a separate mailing list for each new product or project.
- An simple interface with a step-by-step mailing setup allows you to significantly simplify and speed up the preparation of campaigns. All you have to do is choose the right template, add images, and CTA.
- The ability to customize the design of templates and conduct A/B testing of several mailing options.
- Free migration of campaigns with databases of 5000+ subscribers from other email platforms to ConvertKit.
The free plan is available for bases up to 1000 subscribers. It offers unlimited landing pages, forms, broadcasts, audience segmentation, and more. The basic paid Creator plan with full functionality will cost $25 per month for a base of 1,000 subscribers if purchased for a year.
Constant Contact
Our review of the best email marketing services for small and other businesses is completed by Constant Contact, a service with a long history (since 1995). Its functionality consists of two blocks of tools:
- Email and digital marketing.
- Lead Gen and CRM.
The first one allows you to interact with the audience not only through email newsletters, but also through SMS, SMM, and SEO tools. The second block includes a set of solutions for lead generation and lead scoring, and also provides a built-in CRM system, online analytics functions, and flexible automation options.
Key features:
- The interface of the platform is simple and convenient for both beginners and experienced users.
- A wide range of marketing campaign types, including standard email and SMS campaigns, automated email campaigns, social media posts and advertising campaigns, events, and research. In addition, here you can create a landing page, a multipage site, and an online store.
- Audience segmentation features allow you to manually or automatically distribute subscribers into several segments depending on their degree of engagement: most, partially, least engaged, and all others.
- Constant Contact offers hundreds of customizable templates for email newsletters and other types of campaigns. Users can filter templates by keywords, and automatically create branded templates with corporate colors and logos using the Brand Email tool.
The cost of the basic tariff plan for the service starts at $12 per month (for a base of up to 500 contacts). It includes standard functionality for email newsletters, access to a catalog of templates, SMM, and event management tools, as well as AI recommendations for content selection.
Conclusion
As you can see, the email marketing services presented in our rating have a very versatile set of tools, among which are not only email newsletters but also other areas of Internet marketing. Almost all of these platforms are universal and are optimally suited for small, medium, and large businesses in various fields. The only exception is ConvertKit which is intended for creators and sellers of digital content. In terms of pricing, every service except Constant Contact offers a free plan with limited features.
What do you do with the data you get from Facebook lead forms? Do you send them to the manager, add them to mailing services, transfer them to the CRM system, use them to implement feedback? Automate all of these processes with the SaveMyLeads online connector. Create integrations so that new Facebook leads are automatically transferred to instant messengers, mailing services, task managers and other tools. Save yourself and your company's employees from routine work.