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At upto 30% off
Updated: Jul 26, 2023
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Email is alive and well in 2023. Email marketing remains one of the most effective tools for any company to reach engaged customers—as long as you do it well. That’s why there is no shortage of email marketing services to choose from. To help you sort through the noise, our team evaluated some of the most popular platforms. Here is the best email marketing software available today.
1
GetResponse
Starting Price
$15.58 (INR 1,200) per month
Key email features
AI email generator, Autoresponders, SMS marketing, segmentation
Additional features
Website and landing page builders, Signup forms and popups
At upto 30% off
Free
$13 (INR 1,000) per month, (for up to 500 contacts)
Beginner-friendly email builder, segmentation, automation
Websites, landing pages, social ads, postcards
Free
$13 (INR 1,000) per month, (for up to 500 contacts)
Beginner-friendly email builder, segmentation, automation
Websites, landing pages, social ads, postcards
Mailchimp is one of the most well-known marketing platforms. It’s known best for its flagship email marketing service, which pioneered the forever free plan for users with less than 2,000 subscribers.
Mailchimp offers a standard-setting drag-and-drop editor and email templates designed to meet a variety of business goals for publishers, e-commerce businesses, coaches, service providers and more. The platform’s modern design makes it easy to use, from creation to analytics.
Along with email marketing, Mailchimp offers a suite of products to help you build and market your business online, all in one platform, including a free website builder, online stores, appointment scheduling, domains, landing pages, social media ads and even a full mailing service for postcards.
Who should use it:
Mailchimp is a go-to platform for brand-new businesses and digital creators because of its robust free offerings. If you want to experiment with email marketing techniques, such as segmentation, landing pages and autoresponders, while you have a small audience, this platform is a good place to start and grow.
Free
$3 (INR 245) per month, (for up to 500 contacts)
Unlimited emails, dynamic content, A/B testing
All-in-one business platform
Free
$3 (INR 245) per month, (for up to 500 contacts)
Unlimited emails, dynamic content, A/B testing
All-in-one business platform
Zoho Campaigns is one sliver of the comprehensive suite of cloud software Zoho offers. From team email, CRM and bookkeeping to docs, spreadsheets and HR management, Zoho powers small businesses from the ground up—at competitive prices.
Campaigns offers a drag-and-drop email editor with personalized, dynamic designs. You can create workflows to automate communications with customers and track information directly into an integrated Zoho or third-party CRM.
Zoho falls a bit flat in its design—both on the back end and customer-facing sides—compared with competitors. Its style is sufficient, but lacks some of the clean, modern feel you’ll find with Mailchimp or Moosend.
Who should use it:
Zoho is headquartered in Chennai, India, with offices in nine countries around the world. It’s popular with India-based companies but it’s been expanding rapidly into the other countries as well. It could make a viable competitor for Google Workspace and other mainstays here.
Free
$39 (INR 3,100) per month (for up to 500 contacts)
Email and SMS marketing
Pre-built series for e-commerce behaviors and Facebook Custom Audiences integration
Free
$39 (INR 3,100) per month (for up to 500 contacts)
Email and SMS marketing
Pre-built series for e-commerce behaviors and Facebook Custom Audiences integration
Drip offers email and SMS marketing for e-commerce brands. It includes pre-built automated series optimized for driving purchases through abandoned cart reminders, post-purchase campaigns, product discounts and more.
Drip integrates with major e-commerce platforms including WooCommerce, Shopify and BigCommerce, so you can target your marketing campaigns to customers based on what they buy and where they browse on your site.
There’s no free version, but you can start with a 14-day free trial to try out the service. After that, Drip’s pricing is refreshingly straightforward—you’ll get all features in an email-only or email and SMS account for a flat monthly price based on how many contacts you have.
Who should use it:
Drip is designed specifically for independent e-commerce businesses. It lacks some of the features bigger brands or publishers would want, but its narrow focus means it offers all the integrations and features an e-commerce store needs.
Free
$9 (INR 700) per month (for up to 1,000 contacts)
Email, website and landing page builders
Paid newsletter subscriptions, e-commerce integrations
Free
$9 (INR 700) per month (for up to 1,000 contacts)
Email, website and landing page builders
Paid newsletter subscriptions, e-commerce integrations
MailerLite offers an email solution for just about any kind of business. You can set up automations to engage B2B prospects, integrate with an e-commerce store, sell digital downloads and even set up a paid newsletter subscription.
The platform also offers a website and blog builder, so you can manage your online presence all in one place.
MailerLite offers a free version for businesses with up to 1,000 subscribers, and it doesn’t limit how many emails you can send as a free user, which is rare. Its templates aren’t available with a free account, but you can design your own emails in a drag-and-drop editor.
Who should use it:
MailerLite offers features that will appeal to most types of businesses, but it stands out from others in this list for features that’ll appeal to digital creators, especially bloggers. Its free version is for small audiences and support for paid subscriptions could make this a good platform for bloggers and small media companies looking to monetize their content directly.
Free
$59 (INR 4,800) per month (for up to 5,000 contacts)
Email and SMS marketing, full code editor
Geolocation and other customization options
Free
$59 (INR 4,800) per month (for up to 5,000 contacts)
Email and SMS marketing, full code editor
Geolocation and other customization options
Campaigner is a classic brand management software built by a team based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It offers advanced marketing features for complex campaigns for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and transactional businesses.
Through the platform, you get access to automation, segmentation, conversion tracking and a drag-and-drop builder with templates. You can also build landing pages and pop-up forms for lead collection.
Campaigner emails offer advanced personalization through audience segments and purchase behavior, so you can create dynamic emails to meet the reader where they are in your customer journey.
Who should use it:
Campaigner’s advanced features are best for experienced and robust marketing teams within small or enterprise businesses. The platform would be overwhelming for individual creators or new marketers, who wouldn’t need the complex features it offers.
Free
$15.58 (INR 1,200) per month, (for up to 1,000 contacts)
Email, SMS marketing, segmentation
Website and landing page builders
Free
$15.58 (INR 1,200) per month, (for up to 1,000 contacts)
Email, SMS marketing, segmentation
Website and landing page builders
GetResponse is an email marketing solution for small, medium and large businesses, with plans ranging from very basic and free, to custom pricing with full marketing automation for enterprise organizations.
The platform helps you create email newsletters, a free website, landing pages, webinars, transactional emails, SMS and social media ads.
Its free version is available for an audience of up to 500, but it limits key features. You’ll likely use this version more as a free trial and need to upgrade to a paid version quickly to achieve substantial business goals.
Who should use it:
GetResponse could be a fit for any size company. Its interface and free plan make it a more attractive option compared to other robust platforms, so this is a good fit if usability is a high priority for your team. The platform offers an intimidating way to access advanced marketing features.
Free
$9 (INR 700) per month, (for up to 500 contacts)
Email marketing, landing pages, advanced tracking
CRM, e-commerce AI product recommendation
Free
$9 (INR 700) per month, (for up to 500 contacts)
Email marketing, landing pages, advanced tracking
CRM, e-commerce AI product recommendation
Moosend is the delightful email service provider behind major brands such as TEDx, Vogue and Domino’s. Users love the value—lots of features at much lower price points than traditional competitors.
Moosend doesn’t offer a website builder, SMS or advertising support, so you’ll have to go elsewhere for all of your marketing needs. But it offers everything you need for email marketing: transactional emails, a drag-and-drop newsletter editor, landing pages, countdown timers, automation workflows, shopper behavior tracking and much more.
Plus, Moosend integrates with more than 100 other apps, so you can make sure all your marketing data and strategies are on the same page.
Who should use it:
Moosend is popular with larger companies and offers unlimited email sends at any subscription level. The only variable you pay for is the size of your audience. Its user-friendly interface makes marketing feel friendly and uncomplicated, so it could be a good choice if your team is just diving into email marketing for the first time.
We evaluated some of the most popular email marketing services according to the pricing and features they offer for small and medium businesses (SMBs). We also factor in third-party ratings and reviews from G2, Trustpilot and Capterra to include expert and customer feedback in our rankings. We then scored these contenders across four categories of features with 14 different metrics that were weighted to favor features that small business owners find valuable in a provider. Here is an expanded look at some of the factors that we used for our rankings.
For pricing, we considered the starting price for software and the highest price that a provider charges for its plan, then ranked them as far as what we considered to be cheap, moderate and expensive options. Those providers that offered lower starting prices or plans at higher tiers that offered more beneficial features for the price fared the best in our rankings. Pricing accounted for 15% of our weighted scoring.
We wanted to know how a software’s available features compared with its competitors. Some of the features we compared included email send volume, image libraries, social media integrations, marketing automations and A/B testing. We weighted features at 40% of our total score.
We turned to reviews from real users to gauge their opinion of each software. To gain the fullest picture of reality and reduce bias, we gave higher ratings to providers who had received positive reviews―scoring at least 3.5 out of 5 on each third-party website. These reviews accounted for 10% of the total score.
Our team of experts also ranked additional criteria from customer reviews that included stand-out features as well as value for the money, popularity and ease of use. For value for the money, we wanted to know if a provider’s paid plan pricing aligned well with the additional features it offered. For popularity, we looked at how widely it was being used. For ease of use, we considered how much of a learning curve that the platform required to get customers operational. Altogether, these criteria make up 35% of the total score.
Which email marketing service is right for your team depends on your business needs and goals. Consider these factors to choose the right tool for you:
Send volume: Do the send limits and their corresponding price points make sense for your business plans for the near future?
Migration: Can you easily migrate customer data from an existing platform into the new one?
Integrations: If you need to, can you use your email list for retargeting ads on social media and around the web? Does the platform work with your existing CRM, online store and other systems?
Design: Do the available templates and customization options fit your brand? Do the free themes and templates include features that serve your needs?
Ease of use: How easily can you create and send an email or set up an automation? Will you need to hire an email specialist, designer or coder to build emails?
Autonomy and customization: How much control do you have over the look and feel of your emails and newsletters? Does the platform have the functionality you need? Will your customers see the software’s logo on your emails?
Email marketing is the oldest form of digital marketing and is relatively simple to implement and maintain. At its core, email marketing consists of just five elements:
Building your email list: Gain email subscribers through in-person and online sales activities or by using lead magnets such as free e-books, webinars, coupons and trial subscriptions
Segmenting your email list: Segmenting organizes email subscribers into categories, called segments, based on interests, location, items purchased and website or blog interactions
Maintaining your email list: Removing email addresses that are undeliverable or that never open your emails regularly can improve your email delivery rates
Consistently sending useful content: Consistency is key to email success and so is sending engaging content that provides value to your readers
Measuring email campaign results: Tracking email open and click-through rates and running A/B tests for subject line and copy content helps improve results
All of this is easily accomplished with cost-effective—and often free—email marketing tools and software.
Email is the one form of digital communication that virtually everyone uses on an ongoing basis. Social media and other forms of digital advertising can reach very large audiences, but no single platform competes with the number of active email users. Plus, email offers a personal touchpoint since you can target email messages to specific subscriber interests easily.
Email marketing also has extremely low startup and ongoing costs. Small businesses can use top-rated email marketing software and tools for less than $50 (INR 4,000) per month. Most platforms offer free plans until you reach a certain level of subscribers.
So, if you’re spending marketing dollars elsewhere, but not building a list and emailing to it regularly, it’s high time to add this tried-and-true method to your mix.
Email marketing has a few moving parts, but successful campaigns boil down to these six factors:
You can’t run an effective email marketing campaign using a standard email service. Yes, you can send bulk and blast emails from Outlook, Office 365 and Gmail. However, none provide email list building and maintenance tools, list segmentation, attractive email templates, campaign reporting or list scrubbing features.
To achieve business-building results, you need software designed specifically for email marketing or a customer relationship management (CRM) system with email features. We’ll explore some top options for these below.
Start building your list by collecting customer email addresses during your sales process or client interactions. However, don’t limit your email list-building opportunities to only these interactions.
You can entice potential leads and customers to give you their email address before they ever spend a dime with you. The secret is using lead magnets. These are value-added freebies, such as e-books, webinars, checklist downloads, free trials and even coupons.
To get new email subscribers, promote lead magnet items on your website, landing pages, social media channels and so on, and require an email sign-up to download or receive the freebie. If the viewer perceives value, they’ll happily provide their email address and opt-in to your email list in exchange.
Segmenting divides your email subscriber list by user interest and is a key strategy to email marketing success. Using segmentation, you can target content to specific subscriber groups and deliver real value to readers. Campaigns that use segmentation have higher open rates and fewer unsubscribes compared to those that send generalized messaging to all subscribers.
You can segment email subscribers in several ways, such as by purchasing history, website interactions and lead magnet types. Most email marketing solutions even let you add interesting questions to your signup emails.
Most email marketing tools have customizable email signup forms that help you build segmented lists automatically like this one from Mailchimp.
Many email marketing tools integrate with website and retail platforms for automated segmentation based on sales history and website interactions too.
Once you have your email subscriber list, you’re ready to create and send content that delivers value to your segmented subscribers. Here, you have five opportunities to engage subscribers and entice them to open, read and perform an action in your email.
From line: Your business or promotion name that subscribers will recognize and trust.
Subject line: The short phrase that catches their eye as they scan their inbox.
Preheader line: Supports the subject line with an added enticement to open the email.
Email content: Short and punchy message such as a promotion, news update or announcement.
Call to action (CTA): Buttons or highlighted links drive click-throughs back to your shopping pages, signup forms or whatever action you wish subscribers to take.
When you send your emails also impacts engagement, opens and clicks. Most experts agree that email marketing should hit inboxes at 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. on business days. Data also shows that Mondays tend to have the highest open rates of 22% on average while weekend open rates run lower at about 20%.
After your email marketing message is sent, you’ll be able to review key metrics including the number of email bounces, how many subscribers opened your email and how many clicked on your CTA links and buttons.
If you follow the send at 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. rule, you’ll have a good picture of the success of your campaign within eight to 10 hours. After about a day, new email opens tend to just trickle in.
Tracking and measuring email opens and CTA clicks helps you gauge the messaging that works for your audience. A/B testing different email “from” lines, subject lines, preheaders and CTAs helps you fine-tune and pinpoint which phrasing and offers get your readers to click.
Bounced emails happen. It’s just part of the process. This means the email you sent was undeliverable due to a bad email address format, a blocked email or a fake email address. To maintain the health of your email list and improve overall deliverability, bounced emails need to be removed or scrubbed from your list.
Most email marketing systems make this step easy. Once a scrub of bounced emails is complete, you’re ready to jump back up to step four and run another campaign on the schedule you set. Remember to use what you learned from previous campaigns to improve your messaging each time.
Forbes Advisor adheres to strict editorial integrity standards. To the best of our knowledge, all content is accurate as of the date posted, though offers contained herein may no longer be available. The opinions expressed are the author’s alone and have not been provided, approved, or otherwise endorsed by our partners.
Which email marketing platform is best for your business depends on your goals and needs. Most platforms offer basic features including newsletters, landing pages, automations, audience segmentation and reporting. To find one that stands out for you, look for differences in pricing, integrations and additional features, such as website builders and social media ads.
Email is one of the most effective means to reach out to customers and potential customers for all types of businesses―both retail and non retail. It’s a cost-effective way to reach a mass audience quickly and easily to generate leads, share news and information and market your services or products. In addition to being affordable, email marketing software is simple to use and can be a way of connecting with your client base in a way that creates customers for life.
Email marketing includes promotional marketing, such as sales events and coupon offers; retention marketing, such as e-newsletters or announcements; and information marketing through webinars and videos.
Mailchimp is one of the most popular free email marketing services. You can use the service for free with up to 2,000 contacts, and automations and segmentation are available on the free plan. Its price isn’t competitive once you have more than 2,000 subscribers, though, so you may need to migrate to a new service as you grow.
Email marketing makes money by driving direct sales and promotions, plus it increases overall brand awareness for customer retention. Affiliate marketing, downloadable items and membership registrations are other ways to make money using email marketing.
Yes. Most email marketing systems offer free starter accounts based on total subscribers or the number of emails sent per month.
The Forbes Advisor editorial team is independent and objective. To help support our reporting work, and to continue our ability to provide this content for free to our readers, we receive payment from the companies that advertise on the Forbes Advisor site. This comes from two main sources.
First, we provide paid placements to advertisers to present their offers. The payments we receive for those placements affects how and where advertisers’ offers appear on the site. This site does not include all companies or products available within the market.
Second, we also include links to our advertisers’ offers in some of our articles. These “affiliate links” may generate income for our site when you click on them. The compensation we receive from advertisers does not influence the listings or commentary our editorial team provides in our articles or other impact any of the editorial content on Forbes Advisor.
While we work hard to provide accurate and up to date information that we think you will find relevant, Forbes Advisor does not and cannot guarantee that any information provided is complete and makes no representations or warranties in connection thereto, nor to the accuracy or applicability thereof