Finding the best email marketing software can initially seem impossible because there are so many providers to choose from.
I have been working with email marketing software for several years, and I can confidently say that it has become one of the most essential tools in the industry.
As a small business owner, I understand the importance of using quality software to reach out to my customers and potential leads.
After researching several different types of software, I have compiled a list of the best email marketing solutions for small businesses.
What’s the Best Email Marketing Software for Small Businesses?
Email marketing solutions are essential for growing businesses. Business owners must focus on expanding their business and running email campaigns to build brand loyalty.
Some email marketing software for small business owners to consider include:
- ActiveCampaign
- Constant Contact
- MailChimp
- AWeber
- ConvertKit
- Sendinblue
- HubSpot
- Mossend
- Mailerlite
- Omnisend
- Mailjet
In this article, I review what the best email marketing software for small businesses offers and how you can decide which marketing campaigns are best for your business!
ActiveCampaign provides comprehensive email marketing services, especially if your focus is customer experience.
One of the most helpful features included in ActiveCampaign is Predictive Actions.
The Predictive Actions feature identifies aspects of your customers and then conducts automation workflows to improve sales.
Therefore, you and your team can save time and focus on other areas of your business.
Key Features
- You can integrate over 800 apps (Facebook, Shopify, and WordPress)
- Automated list segments
- East to manage email workflows
- Built-in CRM
- Drop email builder
- Site tracking shows you how website visitors interact with your site.
Pricing
- Lite: $29 a month per year
- Plus: $49 a month per year
- Professional: $149 a month per year
- Enterprise: Customizable pricing
ActiveCampaign also offers monthly plans for CRM, sales engagement, marketing automation, API, SMTP, and sales CRM.
Therefore, ActiveCampaign has everything you need to reach customers and increase sales.
Pros
- The interface is easy to use, even for beginners
- Helpful guidance and training tutorials
- Automated emails
Cons
- Integrations are sometimes hard to understand
- Using tags can be challenging to keep track of
Constant Contact is an all-in-one email marketing service for growing businesses.
Constant Contact is one of the best email marketing tools that also makes it easy to expand your contact list, social media reach, and automation.
Additionally, the paid plans are affordable at Constant Contact, considering all the powerful features included.
Constant Contact is perfect if you have an extensive list of emails or contacts and want to encourage repeat sales.
Key Features
- Event management system
- Ability to manage invites, registrations, and tickets
- Over 100 templates
- Real-time reporting and analytics
- Bonus features (polls, events, coupons, and more)
- List growth
Pricing
- Core: $9.99 a month
- Plus: $45 a month
Also, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee for Constant Contact plans.
So, if you’re unsatisfied with Constant Contact’s services, you can get your money back!
Pros
- Landing pages (drive more traffic and increase conversions)
- A/B Testing
- Social media posting (Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
- Easy to create an appealing email marketing strategy
Cons
- Support is rather slow
- Sometimes the changes made to content don't save
- Lack of reports to understand email marketing performance
Email marketing beginners love MailChimp because the interface is easy to use, and a free plan is available.
As one of the leading email providers, MailChimp continuously proves why it is the best choice to start an email campaign.
MailChimp’s free version includes several helpful email marketing tools, such as third-party integrations, automatic responses, and analytics.
As your email list grows, MailChimp’s subscription plans grow with you, making it one of the best email marketing services!
Key Features
- Marketing automation
- Easy integrations
- Sales and campaign performance reports
- A/B testing
- Surveys
- Content optimizer
- Email automation
- Online store builder
Pricing
MailChimp’s pricing fluctuates based on the number of contacts on your email list.
500 contacts cost the following through MailChimp:
- Free: $0
- Essentials: $13 a month
- Standard: $20 a month
- Premium: $350 a month
There are overage charges if you exceed the email send limits on your plan.
Fortunately, there isn’t much price difference between MailChimp’s Essentials and Standard plans.
Pros
- In-depth reports (geo-tracking, social media analytics, and more)
- Email templates are easy to edit
- Over 500 integration and add-on options
- Appointment scheduling software
Cons
- Subscription plans get costly.
- There isn't email scheduling included in the free version.
AWeber provides advanced features that growing businesses can utilize to expand their customer base.
AWeber offers several time-saving tools and comprehensive reports showing how your campaigns perform and ways to improve your content.
In addition to effective email campaigns, AWeber offers helpful phone support and online tutorials.
Therefore, you have access to professionals that can answer all your questions.
Key Features
- Drag and drop email builders
- List management tools
- Analytics reports
- Supports file types like XLS, TXT, CSV, and more
- Marketing automation tools
- Hundreds of design templates
Pricing
Plans at AWeber vary based on the number of subscribers your website has and works on a sliding scale.
For 0-500 subscribers, AWeber costs start at:
- Free: $0
- Pro: $19.99 a month
Pros
- 24/7 customer support
- Affordable email marketing tool
- Autoresponder workflow that's based on opened emails, site visits, purchases, and more
Cons
- Some automations are very basic.
- You cannot exclude or include multiple segments at once
- No A/B testing
ConvertKit helps you create professional emails in just a few steps.
Because this email service provider is tailored toward bloggers, the emails are text-based.
Also, ConvertKit’s email designs look like they’re coming directly from Gmail, assisting in customer retention and trust.
Key Features
- Advanced email sequences
- Segmentation options
- Personalized email funnels
- Tag-based subscriber system
- Excellent support channels
Pricing
Pricing plans at ConvertKit are based on your website’s subscribers.
For 300 subscribers, ConvertKit charges the following amount for each plan:
- Free: $0
- Creator: $15 a month
- Creator Pro: $29 a month
Pros
- Easy to create dynamic emails with merge tags
- Landing page builder
- Simple and effective visual automation builder
Cons
- Limited A/B testing
- Few customization options for email and form templates
- Reporting data is limited
Sendinblue is the best email marketing tool for businesses that need to communicate with their audience over multiple platforms.
For example, Sendinblue makes it easy to contact your clients via email, chat, or SMS marketing.
So, you can reach various customers across various platforms, making sure you connect with everyone on your list.
Also, Sendinblue offers free email marketing tools that allow unlimited contacts and hundreds of daily email newsletters.
Key Features
- Real-time statistics with helpful data (click-through rates, heat maps, open rates, and more)
- SMS marketing
- Chat feature (allows you to communicate with contacts in real-time)
- Transactional emails
- Ads for Facebook custom audiences
- A/B testing
Pricing
- Free: $0
- Starter: $25 a month
- Business: $65 a month
- Enterprise: $1,000 a month
Sendinblue also allows you to customize your plan based on the number of emails you send each month if you exceed plan limits.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Machines and AI provide recommended times to send emails
- Email automation workflows
Cons
- The search function doesn't work sometimes
- The free plan can feel insufficient for testing
HubSpot offers much more than email marketing platforms.
Instead, HubSpot provides different hubs for sales, operations, and marketing.
Therefore, HubSpot has all the digital marketing services you need for your small business.
Also, HubSpot ensures the technology protects your customer’s data and personal information.
Key Features
- Drag and drop builder for emails
- A/B testing
- Ability to schedule emails in advance
- Customer data protection
- Task management (provides updates on tasks)
Pricing
- Starter: $50 a month
- Professional: $890 a month
- Enterprise: $3,600 a month
Each plan has a specified number of users who can access the HubSpot services.
If you want to add more users, the monthly rate increases.
Pros
- Easy-to-understand user experience
- The workflow tool allows you to easily automate email marketing services
- Helpful customer support team
Cons
- A little bit of a learning curve
- Sometimes the onboarding training is too long
- There isn't a free plan
Moosend is an all-inclusive email marketing service that makes it simpler to expand your email list, personalize messages, and automate tasks.
Small businesses love using Moosend because it’s affordable and easy to use!
Lastly, Moosend offers an in-depth library with responsive layouts that look great on a mobile phone or a desktop.
Key Features
- Drag and drop email templates
- Several email templates
- Automation features
- Landing page builder tools
- Customer opt-in forms
- List segmentation
- Ability to view the results of each campaign
Pricing
Moosend offers users a free 30-day trial and two pricing plans:
- Pro: $9 a month for 500 subscribers
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for a personalized experience
Pros
- Affordable email campaign creation plans
- User-friendly interface
- Performance reports make it easy to optimize your campaigns.
Cons
- Importing CSV files is difficult and hard to follow
- The landing page interface can be confusing to use initially
Mailerlite is the perfect email marketing service for business owners who want less time learning a new software program.
Mailer lite’s flexible, tiered pricing plans are perfect no matter how big or small your contact list is.
If you need help figuring out where to start, sign up for the accessible version of Mailerlite (if you have less than 1,000 email subscribers).
Key Features
- Easy to integrate eCommerce platforms
- Wide template gallery
- Email surveys
- Ability to track your email marketing results
- Location reports
- Flexible pricing
Pricing
Pricing at Mailerlite is based on the number of email subscribers you have.
For 1k subscribers or less, plans at Mailerlite adhere to the following pricing guidelines:
- Free: $0
- Growing Business: $10 a month
- Advanced: $21 a month
- Enterprise: Customized pricing
Pros
- Easy-to-use interface
- 24/7 email and phone support
- Easy to use and powerful landing page builder
Cons
- Unable to send postcards
- Lack of ad functionality within the platform
Omnisend is one of the top email service providers for eCommerce businesses.
With Omnisend, you can take your email marketing further by unifying campaigns across all platforms, such as Whatsapp, push notifications, text, and social media.
Additionally, Omnisend allows eCommerce brands to send customers relevant messages across various platforms.
Key Features
- Ability to track user actions (abandoned cart, pos-purchase message, and welcome messages)
- Integration with all the top eCommerce platforms
- Interactive signup forms
- SMS marketing
- Multi-channel marketing campaigns
- Email marketing app
Pricing
Omnisend alters pricing plans based on the number of emails you plan to send.
For example, Omnisend charges the following rates for 251-500 messages sent:
- Free (up to 250 messages): $0 a month
- Standard: $16 a month
- Pro: $59 a month
Omnisend also builds custom rates if you need to send hundreds of thousands of messages each month.
Pros
- Product Picker (allows you to choose a product from your store and place it in your newsletter)
- User-friendly
- Excellent customer service
Cons
- Email design options are limited
- No customizable themes for holiday marketing
- You must input new data every time you launch a new social media campaign.
Mailjet is a newer email marketing platform that offers several helpful features even with the free plan.
However, Mailjet’s free version is more limited compared to other services and doesn’t include as many traditional features.
Therefore, Mailjet is best designed for more extensive email lists and businesses that need to send an extensive list of messages.
Key Features
- A/B testing
- Email editor (create email campaigns, newsletters, and automated emails)
- Email automation
- Real-time campaign performance statistics
- Email API
- Collaborative tools
- Several templates
Pricing
Like other email marketing service providers, Mailjet’s prices depend on how many emails you wish to send in a month.
For 15,000 messages sent in a month, Mailjet’s paid plans are as follows:
- Essential: $15 a month
- Premium: $25 a month
- Custom: Price varies based on individual customer needs
Mailjet also offers a free plan with 6,000 emails per month.
Pros
- Option for transactional emails and associated emails
- Collaborative email editing
- The set-up guide is easy to follow and helpful when getting started.
Cons
- Lacks segmentation options
- No phone or live chat support option
- Limited autoresponder functionality
What are Email Marketing Services?
Email marketing consists of online tools that help you create, manage, and deliver emails to an audience of potential customers.
These services make it easy for small businesses to send newsletters, promotional offers, discounts, and other notifications with a few clicks.
Depending on the service provider, you can also find features like a drag-and-drop builder and SMS marketing.
Email marketing options are ideal for businesses of any size that want to reach out to potential customers without creating a website or using expensive advertising.
Using an email marketing service, you can send messages tailored to each audience segment at the exact time they need them.
It’s a quick, convenient, and cost-effective way for businesses to connect with customers and build relationships.
So if you’re looking for a way to promote your business without breaking the bank, then email marketing providers are worth considering.
With the right provider, you’ll be able to create powerful email campaigns that will reach more people and get better sales results!
What To Look For In An Email Marketing Service
There are a lot of factors to look for in the best email marketing service for your business.
Of course, free trials, unlimited emails, and a helpful website builder are great extras to look for in a provider.
However, the most important factors include the following:
- Marketing automation
- Customizable templates
- Creating dynamic content
- List segmentation and contact management
- Analytics dashboard
Automation
Automated email messages are one of the essential features of email marketing services.
Automation helps you create messages tailored to each audience segment and send them at precisely the right time.
Marketing automation ensures that your customers receive relevant and personalized messages whenever they need them.
Also, marketing automation is a factor the best email marketing platforms offer that saves you and your team a lot of time.
Therefore, you can spend more time designing landing pages, advertising, and expanding your business.
Custom Templates
Custom templates are also an essential factor to consider when choosing an email marketing service.
Customizing the look and feel of your emails will help ensure that they stand out from the crowd and grab your customers’ attention.
You should look for a provider that offers a wide range of customizable templates so you can create unique messages for each of your customers.
Further, a drag-and-drop editor is something email marketing service providers offer, making it easier to form email marketing and other infographics.
Drag-and-drop custom templates are usually exclusively available in paid plans.
However, some providers offer it in a free plan.
Dynamic Content
Dynamic content is a must-have for any email marketing service.
This feature allows you to create emails explicitly tailored to each customer by automatically generating unique content based on the user’s preferences and behavior.
By leveraging dynamic content, you’ll be able to send more personalized emails that will resonate with your customers and increase your chances of generating conversions.
With dynamic content, you’ll be able to send relevant emails that resonate with your customers and increase your chances of getting better results!
Again, a drag-and-drop editor helps immensely when creating dynamic content like landing pages, signup forms, transactional emails, and more.
Fortunately, you can create eye-catching content even with a free plan.
List Segmentation & Management
List segmentation and management are also essential features to look for in an email marketing service.
Segmenting your audience into smaller groups of customers makes it easier to target them with personalized messages that will encourage them to take action to buy things from your website.
For instance, with permission-based email marketing, you can send web push notifications that encourage customers to visit your website.
Managing your list easily and quickly will help you stay organized, so make sure you find a provider that offers this feature.
These advanced features usually come with a price tag.
However, email marketing providers are very affordable.
Analytics Dashboard
Finally, remember to look for an analytics dashboard when selecting an email marketing service.
An analytics dashboard is essential for monitoring campaign performance and making data-driven decisions.
With a comprehensive dashboard, you’ll be able to track important metrics like open rate, click-through rate, conversion rate, and more so you can optimize your campaigns for maximum impact.
A campaign monitor is effective whether you send 200 or unlimited monthly emails.
Email Marketing Software Benefits
Cost-Effective Way to Reach Thousands
The best thing about email marketing providers is that they are one of the most cost-effective ways to reach thousands of people.
With an email marketing service, you can send customized messages to a large audience without creating a website or using expensive advertising.
Plus, you’ll be able to track important metrics and make data-driven decisions to ensure your campaigns are successful.
With tools like web push notifications, you can reach a potential customer across the country without leaving your house!
Emails, texts, and other messaging platforms are more cost and time-effective than trying to meet all your customers in person.
Easy-to-Use Email Marketing Tools
Email marketing companies offer easy-to-use marketing tools that make it simple to create powerful campaigns and track their performance.
With a few clicks of the mouse, you’ll be able to craft compelling emails that will draw your customers in and encourage them to take action.
Plus, by using automated features, you’ll be able to schedule messages and send them at the perfect time for maximum impact.
For instance, providers make it easy to create landing pages that connect customers to all your various platforms.
Also, with a drag and drop email features, you can create a compelling message with just a few clicks.
Multi-Channel Marketing
Email marketing services are an effective multi-channel marketing strategy.
By leveraging this service, you’ll be able to reach customers through multiple channels and ensure that your messages get seen.
For example, you can send messages via social media, text messages, email, and more.
Similar to landing pages, email services can bring all your essential information to a single place.
Plus, with powerful analytics tools, you can track the performance of each channel and make data-driven decisions to optimize your campaigns for maximum return on investment.
Less Work on Your Team
Regarding email marketing, services are a great way to make things easier for team-building.
With an automated system, you’ll be able to streamline your campaigns and reduce the amount of work needed by a significant margin.
Plus, with powerful analytics tools and dynamic content features, you can quickly optimize your campaigns for better results with minimal effort.
These services allow you to send unlimited emails, use a drag-and-drop editor to create compelling content, and create eye-catching landing pages that lead people to your website or social media platforms.
So, if you’re looking for a way to save time and money while still being able to reach thousands of customers, then email marketing services are the perfect solution.
Summary
Email marketing services are a practical and cost-effective way to reach thousands of customers.
With automated tools, you can easily create powerful campaigns that draw your customers in and encourage them to take action.
Plus, with list segmentation and management, analytics dashboard, dynamic content features, and multi-channel marketing capabilities, you’ll be able to streamline your campaigns and reduce the amount of work on your team.
So, if you’re looking for a way to reach more customers in less time, then email marketing services are an ideal solution.
Take some time and find the best email marketing service for your growing business to expand your customer base!
Email Marketing Software FAQ
The best email marketing service for a small business will depend on the size and needs of your company. Some popular options include MailChimp, Constant Contact, ActiveCampaign, and Sendinblue. Each service offers powerful features such as automated email campaigns, list segmentation, email management, dynamic content features, and an analytics dashboard. Evaluating each platform based on your specific needs and budget is essential. Additionally, it’s helpful to look at customer reviews to ensure you choose the right email marketing service for your business.
When it comes to email marketing software, there are many options available. Popular services include MailChimp, Constant Contact, ActiveCampaign, and Omnisend. Each offers powerful features such as automated email campaigns, list segmentation and management, customizable landing pages, dynamic content features, and an analytics dashboard. Ultimately, the best email marketing software for you will depend on your specific needs and budget. It’s essential to evaluate each platform carefully to ensure you choose the right one for your business. Additionally, it’s helpful to consider customer service, price, and the number of emails you can send each month.
Yes! Email marketing is a time-saving and cost-effective way for small businesses to reach many customers. With automated tools, you can easily create powerful campaigns that draw your customers in and encourage them to take action. Plus, with list segmentation and management, analytics dashboard features, dynamic content features, and multi-channel marketing capabilities, you’ll be able to streamline your campaigns and reduce the amount of work on your team. So if you’re looking for a way to reach more customers in less time, then email marketing services are an ideal solution.
Setting up an email marketing campaign for a small business involves a few steps. First, you’ll need to decide which email marketing platform best suits your needs. Popular services include MailChimp, Constant Contact, Omnisend, and Mailjet. Each offers powerful features such as automated email campaigns, list segmentation and management, dynamic content features, and an analytics dashboard. Some platforms even provide free features if you’re unsure where to start. Once you’ve chosen a platform, you’ll need to set up your email list by importing contacts from existing databases or adding new ones manually. Then, you can start creating campaigns and sending emails to reach your target audience. Finally, it’s crucial to track the results of your campaigns using the analytics dashboard provided by your chosen platform. By analyzing these results, you can make informed decisions about how to optimize your campaigns for better performance.
Yes! Automation is one of the key features offered by most email marketing platforms. With automated tools, you can easily create powerful campaigns to draw your customers in and encourage them to take action, like buying products or services. Automation also helps you save time on mundane tasks such as list segmentation, content creation, and scheduling emails so that you can focus on more critical areas of your business. So if you’re looking for a way to reach more customers in less time, then email marketing software is an ideal solution for your small business.