Customer acquisition via email has grown significantly in the last five years. According to the predictive analytics firm Custora, email marketing accounts for almost 7 percent of customer acquisitions. While organic search still trumps that, email far exceeds social media when it comes to bringing in new business. What’s even more exciting is that research shows that people who make a purchase because of an email usually buy more and spend more. There’s no better time to start marketing your business with email newsletters. To do it effectively, it’s a good idea to use an email newsletter service provider.
What Is an Email Newsletter Service Provider?
An email newsletter service provider helps you through the process of sending emails to your consumers. It manages your list, enables you to design an effective newsletter and track its success. Not all email service providers are the same though. You’ll have to shop around to find the one that has all the features you’re seeking for a cost that falls into your budget. Consider these email newsletter service providers, as they are the most popular ones business owners use for their marketing.
iContact
iContact is perfect for beginners and marketing pros. It is packed with features that most people find valuable such as the ability to create newsletters with templates, adding in social media links to emails, and sharing buttons for consumers to send to other people. You can set up an autoresponder to send out to consumers at times you choose. The only missing feature is the ability to see conversion rates. People wanting to do this will have to use Salesforce.
Pricing is reasonable. You have a 30 day trial period. If you sign up for a year of service, you’ll receive 15% off the price. You also have the option for a monthly account. The amount you pay depends on your number of subscribers. Up to 250 subscribers is $9.95, up to 500 subscribers is $14, up to 1000 subscribers is $19, and the amounts continue to increase from there.
Benchmark Email
Benchmark Email enables you to use video, images and other special effects in your newsletters. Beside newsletters, you can create surveys, event information and coupons. Importing your subscribers list is easy. All you have to do is upload the file. This email newsletter service provider also doesn’t track conversion rates, but it does allow you to integrate Google Analytics. This allows you to see differences in purchases when emails are delivered.
Benchmark Email also has a 30 day free trial. Just like iContact, you’ll receive 15% off if you sign up for a year. The monthly cost is slightly higher if you don’t have many subscribers. You’ll pay $18.95 a month for up to 1000 subscribers, and then $28.95 a month for up to 2000 subscribers.
Constant Contact
The biggest draw to Constant Contact is its design capabilities. They allow you to use Cascading Style Sheets, Designer mode, and XMHTML. You can also manage your social networking along with your email marketing. You can use videos and images in your emails like Benchmark Email, and use over 400 templates they have available. What’s unique about Constant Contact is being able to change the From line. Just like the others (iContact and Benchmark Email), it does not provide reports on conversion rates.
Constant Contact gives you a longer trial period of 60 days. They give you a 15% discount for an annual subscription. For accounts with less than 500 subscribers, you will pay $15 per month. If you have between 500 and 2500 subscribers, you’ll pay $30 a month.
Pinpointe
PInpointe is a bit different from the others. People love this service because it works with your list to figure out what their interests are before sending emails to them. It provide suggestions on what to include in your email newsletters to make them more effective. You can use the split testing feature to find out what works. Your list of subscribers can be added easily with a file upload, and you can add more information as you need to in the memo section.
Pinpointe is much more hands on with your email newsletter, so they don’t have set prices. You’ll have to contact them for a quote.
GetResponse
Tracking is why many people choose this email newsletter service provider. It provides reports with stats, graphs, and pie charts. This is valuable to people trying to find out which emails result in more clicks. Like iContact and Benchmark Email, you can choose from many templates. You’ll be able to use HTML as well to create your newsletters. You can use images in your emails and they have a large library of them. The only downside is that they don’t create autoresponders based on the success of past ones like Pinpointe does, but they do have autoresponders you can set up.
GetResponse has no limit on its trial as long as you don’t exceed 100 subscribers or send more than 500 emails a month. If you do go over this, you can sign up for annual subscription at an 18% discount. For 100 to 250 subscribers, you’ll pay $9.95 per month. For 250 to 500 subscribers, you’ll pay $14.
As you can see, each email newsletter provider has its own unique bundle of features. Use some of the trials to figure out which provider you like the best. Once you’ve committed to one, start using it often to bring in more consumers and online revenue with email marketing.