How to choose the right email marketing service for small businesses
Choosing the right software and tools for any kind of marketing is always challenging, as you need to consider and analyze a lot of details, from price to service functionality. The challenge doubles when you don’t have a team of marketing consultants at your service, which is often the case with small businesses.
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However, this doesn’t mean you need to give up on using email – the main customer communication channel as for today – in your marketing strategy. What you need to do is to run a smart research, study social proof and testimonials, and give a test try to the services you feel most secure about.
At the start, the info may look too abundant for those new to email marketing, but don’t hand over. Take a look at the below positions to understand what issues you need to primarily clarify when choosing an email marketing automation service (email service provider/ESP).
- Clear and flexible pricing plans.
As a small business, you may not have that big budget, meaning your first task is to allocate the funds properly. So the questions you need to be asking are:
- Does the particular ESP have flexible pricing plans?
- Are they customizable?
- Are there any hidden or extra payments?
- What do you pay for (the number of contacts with unlimited emails, per one email regardless of the contacts, etc.)?
- Can you switch to another plan or buy extra features if needed?
- Is tech support free?
- Are support articles/resources/educational materials free to use for all users?
Having studied the available website information, contact the sales team to clarify unclear moments if you have any. Don’t be afraid of putting “silly” questions or asking for explanations of seemingly obvious things. It’s always better to get everything straight at the very beginning to avoid further confusion.
Available trial period and demo.
The best way to see how the system works is to put it into practice by yourself. Most professional ESPs offer a trial period, and your task is to find out on what conditions.
A trial is typically from 7 to 30 days long, and the more the better. Several days may be not enough to test all features and conclude how well the given service fits your particular needs. Moreover, many systems have limited functionality within a trial period, so find out if the features of your interest are available.
Functionality that fits your needs.
Email marketing is a large industry that offers numerous solutions depending on the business type and needs. At your current stage, you may not need such advanced tools as, for example, web tracking or advanced segmentation, but you do need basic features to get started with campaigns:
- email template builder;
- workflow builder;
- contact base import and management;
- segment creation;
- reports.
Whatever features and tools, the interface should be intuitive and easy to use. Nowadays, most professional ESPs offer drag-and-drop editors that are user-friendly and don’t require specific tech knowledge. However, the range of functions differ, so watch how fast you’ve managed to operate with simple processes.
If almost each step causes confusion, you need to regularly contact support for guidelines, and each process requires a lot of manual management, look for another service. The benefit of automated email marketing is actually automation: the email marketing service’s main job is to save your time and simplify marketing routine, not the opposite.
- Available ready-to-use email templates and workflows.
Small businesses typically don’t have in-house designers and marketers, and the freelance service of such type can be expensive as well. That’s why it’s important to have ready-made templates that don’t require additional HTML knowledge to be handled.
With time, your team may grow, or you’ll learn coding by yourself and will be able to create custom templates based on your corporate style. But for the beginning, you need a simple template which you only have to fill with your own content.
The same approach applies to workflows as well. Learning all the pitfalls is a long-term process, but the ready basic workflows will give a hand of help. Whatever your email marketing strategy, you need these automated workflows: welcome, event, abandoned cart,
reactivation, and post-purchase. And it’s better when the ESP offers them ready-made.
- Clear and understandable instructions and resources.
You’ll have to learn a lot of things to do the email marketing right. Even the best and most user-friendly system is a complex tool with its own characteristics and peculiarities. The more diverse educational resources and guidelines the email marketing service provides, the faster you’ll master the system.
Find out what other materials aside support instructions will be at your disposal (and whether they are available in your language):
- blog articles;
- YouTube videos;
- podcasts;
- webinars;
- marketing glossary;
- email gallery;
- eBooks;
- reports and benchmarks, etc.
All information should be well-structured, supported with visuals where applicable, and provided in clear simple language without too sophisticated professional terms. Many ESPs run corporate training so learn if yours does it as well and on what conditions.
Support work.
Contact import, campaign launch or reports, technical issues and mistakes will happen one way or another. It’s a normal part of life. But you need to be sure that whenever they happen, you’ll get qualified and fast help.
During the trial period, test both the system and the work of technical staff. If your questions remain unanswered for more than five minutes, the answers aren’t informative and the conversation is going in an inappropriate manner, consider opting for another provider.
Choosing the right email marketing service may take time and effort. For better results, compare several options taking into account the above information. Study reviews and testimonials by clients to see how other people see the service. But it’s only your own impression and experience that matters when making a final decision.
Author’s Bio
Iuliia Nesterenko is a technical writer at eSputnik. Her focus is on exploring current digital marketing trends and describing new strategies for email marketers.
Source: Iuliia Nesterenko
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