HubSpot is known for its CRM platform, but they also offer powerful email marketing software for small businesses. With the drag and drop editor and ready-made templates, you can easily create beautiful emails without the help of a designer. The software also comes with personalization features, A/B testing, and more.
You can send up to 2,000 emails per month for free with HubSpot. If you want to send more emails and remove HubSpot branding, you can upgrade to a premium plan starting at $45 per month.
Omnisend is a powerful email marketing service for eCommerce websites. It comes with an easy email builder and a variety of pre-made responsive email templates to get you started.
The best part about Omnisend is its very generous free email marketing plan. It comes with many advanced features including ready-made email automation workflows, unlimited subscriber segmentation, A/B testing, SMS messages, push notifications, and more.
The free plan allows you to send up to 500 emails per month to up to 250 contacts. Plus, you can send up to 500 web push notifications and up to 60 SMS messages. As your email list grows, you can upgrade to a paid plan starting at $16/month.
Drip is a marketing automation tool that allows users to create complex email automation workflows and conditional statements within email messaging. Campaigns, workflows, and triggers are well-organized and Drip is as simple or as complex as you need it to be. Creating lists and nurturing leads is even easier using Drip + OptinMonster.
Drip plans start with Basic at $49/month for up to 2,500 subscribers and Pro at $99/month up to 5,000 subscribers, both with a 14-day trial period. Enterprise users (5,000+ subscribers) need to get a quote.
ConvertKit is an excellent choice if you are just starting out but you know that you are going to need some advanced features in the future, such as complex autoresponders (which you can do quite easily using ConvertKit Tags + OptinMonster). It’s kind of like a CRM tool, without the heavy price tag.
ConvertKit is targeted for professional bloggers, authors, and speakers.
Pricing starts at $29/month for up to 1,000 subscribers and goes up incrementally from there.
Some users have asked what the difference is between OptinMonster and ConvertKit and why they need both. For more information, check out this post on OptinMonster vs. ConvertKit and which is best to grow your list.
Mailchimp is a popular email marketing software. It is great for people who are just starting out, as it is easy to set up and it provides an intuitive user interface. You can also add new subscribers to specific segments using Mailchimp Groups + OptinMonster.
Mailchimp has a free plan for up to 2,000 subscribers making it the best free email marketing service.
However, if you want to use autoresponders or any other powerful feature, then you will have to switch to a paid plan. Paid plans start as low as $10/month and can go up to $30 for 2,500 subscribers. The bigger your list size, the more you’re going to pay.
UAE B2B Email DatabaseMailerLite allows you to create responsive emails and autoresponders with A/B testing capability built in. You can also send targeted emails to specific subscribers.
Besides the providers listed above, you can also look into ActiveCampaign, which is a full-fledged suite of marketing tools.
Once you have your optin form and your email marketing service in place, you are ready to start building your email list and making sales!
Most marketing experts will tell you to build an email list. But what they don’t tell you is that your email list will not be as effective without proper segmentation.
Email list segmentation is the process of breaking your subscribers into smaller groups based on specific criteria so that you can send them more personalized and relevant emails.
Rather than blasting every email to your entire email list, segmentation lets you send certain emails only to those subscribers you think will be the most interested in that content, resulting in higher conversions.
Segmenting your list is proven to increase your email open rates, boost your click-through rates, and decrease your unsubscribe rates. That’s why smart email marketers use segmentation to drastically improve the effectiveness of their email campaigns.
Once you’ve “tagged” your subscribers into different segments, you’ll be able to send really powerful autoresponders, a series of emails that get sent out automatically based on certain conditions, that you can use to nurture your leads and make sales. We’ll talk more about autoresponders in the section on automation.
Segments make it so much easier to know what subject lines and messages to write that will entice the users to open and engage with your email campaigns.
The goal with segmentation should be to find out how did the user get on your email list in the first place?
Did they purchase a product? Visit a specific page? Download a specific lead magnet?
There are many different ways to slice and dice your list into segments. Here are a few ways to get you started: