How (And why) To Choose An Email Marketing Service
This is an expert from my free ebook ‘Easy Email Marketing: 10 Simple Steps For Creating And Sending Email Your Customers Will Love’ . You can download and read it free here.
Step 3
In this step I’m going to explain why email services are the best way to send your marketing email to customers, and help you choose one.
If you haven’t signed up for one yet or don’t like the one you’re with, read on. (Maybe grab a cup of your favorite beverage, too.)
Why You Should Use An Email Marketing Service
Email marketing services offer tools to make it easier to manage your list of customer addresses, design your email, schedule mailings ahead of time and track the results of your hard work.
Even better, most email marketing services offer a free version that will probably be more than enough to get you started. (I list a few below.) In fact, you may never need more than what the free version offers.
You’ll Get Better Results
A proper email marketing service works with regulators and internet service providers (ISPs) to ensure your email makes it into the inboxes of your customers instead of being dumped into their spam folders. Your customers can buy your products only if they get the email, right? It’s that simple.
Never Use Gmail Or Outlook (Here’s Why)
Sending your marketing emails from Gmail or Outlook may seem like a good idea (it’s free!), but there are good reasons not to.
First, and most important, both services have aggressive anti-spam prevention in place. Sending a bunch of emails from your account will flag you as a spammer in their systems. Your account will be locked. The end.
Second, both Gmail and Outlook severely limit how many emails you can send each day. Like, fewer than 100 a day. As your business grows, you’ll probably need to send many more than that. You might need to now.
Finally, Gmail and Outlook don’t provide reports about how your customers reacted to the email. Did they open it? Did they click? Hard to say. ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄
You’ll Need An Email Address On Your Own Domain
Email marketing services want to confirm that you own the website address you’ll be mailing as. They do this by requiring you to sign up with an email address that’s on your website domain.
By that, I mean an email address that looks like this: you@yourwebsite.com, in which “you” is your name, and “yourwebsite.com” is your business’s website address.
If you don’t have email on your domain, you or your nerds (if you’re fortunate enough to have nerds) will need to set that up before you can sign up for a service.
In the meantime, let’s look at some services worth checking out.
Popular Email Marketing Services With Free Options
There are a lot of email marketing services out there. While there’s no way to evaluate them all, here are a few I like. All of these focus on being easy to use, and they’re all free to try, with optional upgrades.
MailerLite ― free up to 1,000 subscribers and unlimited emails a month.
EmailOctopus ― up to 2,500 subscribers, free forever.
MoonMail ― free up to 300 emails a month.
Campayn ― free up to 500 subscribers and 12,500 emails a month.
SendinBlue ― free unlimited subscribers and 300 emails a day.
As you can see, the free options are varied. My advice: Choose one that appeals to you, looks easy to use and offers a paid plan that works with your budget, should you ever need to upgrade.
Then There’s Mailchimp
You’ve probably heard of (maybe even already used) this super-popular 800-pound gorilla of email marketing. Mailchimp is great. I’ve used it for years to send newsletters and marketing emails for clients. But I’ve always found it a bit confusing. Maybe you won’t. Their support is top-notch and cleared up any confusion I had. Mailchimp is free to try, too.
Mailchimp ― free for up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails a month.
Sign Up For One Now, If You Haven’t
Go ahead and click on the above services, give them a look and sign up for the one that feels right to you. They all work essentially the same. And most are happy to help you switch from another service if you change your mind later.
Next Is Step 4
Whew! This is a big step. You’re well on your way to launching your first email to customers. Treat yourself. Eat a piece of candy, listen to your favorite song, do a dance. You deserve it.
You can download and read ‘Easy Email Marketing: 10 Simple Steps For Creating And Sending Email Your Customers Will Love’ absolutely free, no sign up necessary.
Hi, I’m Keith Monaghan.
I’ve created and managed e-mail marketing campaigns to millions of subscribers for companies like NBC Television and Lucasfilm (yep, the Star Wars people).
My work as a Market Researcher has helped creative teams with projects for Nike, The CW Network, Upworthy, THX, Specialized Bicycles, Umpqua Bank, and other companies you may have heard of (and many you probably haven’t.) You can learn more abut me and my work here.