5 Email Marketing Providers Made For Small Business

Contrary to popular belief in the rise of social media platforms and instant customer access, email marketing is NOT dead. In fact, in these unprecedented economic times, email marketing stands as one of the most cost-effective ways for Small to Mid-size Enterprises (SMEs) to communicate with their target market, quickly and effectively nurturing leads into loyal customers.

As an upcoming SME ourself, we personally understand the importance of email marketing in our overall marketing strategy. Our preferred provider is FloDesk, which is a simple but powerful email marketing platform. It allows us to create visually appealing emails and sign-up forms from which we can implement automated workflows to keep our database engaged, and ultimately, convert leads.

If you’re new to email marketing, give our strategy a go:

1. Create an enticing offer or freebie in exchange for email details using a capture form.
2. Use automated workflows to send your new leads a welcome series and keep them updated on your offers and launches.
3. Use audience segments and sign-up forms to send targeted emails to those who have demonstrated an interest in a particular topic or product category.

To streamline the process of email marketing, you may want to engage the services of an email marketing software provider, but with so many options on the market, which one is right for you?

Here we bring you some of our favourite providers and outline each of their pros and cons to help you decide which provider will best serve your small business needs.

 

 

1. FLODESK

Relatively new to the market, Flodesk has quickly made a name for itself as one of the best in the biz and is our preferred product. With a simple user interface, it’s easy to create a visually pleasing and effective email campaign with Flodesk, for an affordable fixed price. No matter what size your email list grows to.

PRO: Aesthetic Templates

Flodesk offers a range of stunning templates for you to create an enticing email campaign your customers will WANT to click on. Far superior to any other provider on the market, Flodesk’s templates are hands down the best looking option available and display beautifully on mobile and desktop. 

PRO: Simple User Interface

Thanks to Flodesk’s intuitive user interface, users of all skill levels will be able to operate Flodesk with minimal to no guidance.

PRO: Build Automated Workflows

Follow up potential leads and convert them in your sleep with an automated workflow, that is easy to set up and monitor.

PRO: Feedback

Flodesk provides in depth statistics on each subscriber, helping you to tweak your campaigns for your market.

PRO: Affordable Fixed Price

There’s no hidden surprises with Flodesk – what you sign up for is all you’ll pay.

CONS: Age

As with most new businesses, Flodesk is still finding its bearings. The good news is that in our experience, when minor glitches have occurred, Flodesk has been quick to rectify any issues.

If you are needing to add HTML to your emails, you may want to wait a little, as Flodesk are yet to introduce a coding feature.

BONUS DISCOUNT: If you'd like to give @flodesk a try, they have a generous free trial PLUS use the code MARKETINGYOURBRAND when you first sign up, to get 50% off per month FOREVER!

2. MAILERLITE

This program has been around for about 10 years and currently boasts over 600,000 subscribers worldwide. It’s an affordable, simple, no-frills option for beginners.

PRO: Free plan and free trials available

You can sign up for a free trial before committing to a monthly plan or even choose the free plan (with limited features).

PRO: Simple to use

Even beginners will find the program easy to navigate.

PRO: Good customer support

MailerLite offers excellent customer support to help you through anything from technical issues to guidance on how to use the product.

CON: Limited features

Unfortunately, even MailerLite’s paid plans have limited available templates and advanced features.

 

3. CONVERTKIT

Aimed at professional bloggers, ConvertKit offers a range of plans with varying features depending on your budget.

PRO: Sequences

ConvertKit’s ‘sequences’ feature allows you to create an automated workflow when combined with other features such as ‘automations’.

PRO: Simplicity

Overall, ConvertKit is simple and easy to use.

CON: Pricey

Although there is a free plan on offer, ConvertKit sits at the pricier end of the spectrum, with paid plans starting at USD $29.99 per month.

CON: Text based

ConvertKit’s focus is on plain-text emails, so you will not achieve the same aesthetics as you would with something like Flodesk.

CON: Some skill required

Some knowledge of HTML is required to use all of ConvertKit’s functions, which can be a disadvantage for beginners.

 

4. KLAVIYO

If you’re looking for an email-marketing program that will work with your e-commerce store, Klaviyo will definitely be a frontrunner for you.

PRO: Facebook integration

Connect Klaviyo to your Facebook custom audiences for highly targeted marketing.

PRO: Targeted segmenting

Segment your audience based on different factors for more effective marketing.

CON: Price

Klaviyo definitely sits at the higher end of the scale in terms of cost.

CON: Weak customer support

Unfortunately the general consensus seems to be that Klaviyo’s customer support is often quite slow.

 

5. SHOPIFY EMAIL

Although Shopify has been one of the biggest names in the e-commerce game for a while now, Shopify’s email marketing plugin is brand new. Intended to assist Shopify merchants easily and effectively reach existing and potential customers, Shopify Email promises simple setup and execution with no experience required. The program was rolled out to a select number of merchants at the end of last year and has so far received mostly positive reviews.

PRO: Simple to use

Create, implement and monitor email marketing campaigns natively inside Shopify Marketing.

PRO: Easily customisable

Shopify’s email templates make it possible to import existing brand assets and product content directly from your Shopify store.

PRO: In-depth analytics

Shopify Email also includes campaign analytics so that you can view email open and click-through rates, along with the number of products added to carts and/or purchased.

CON: New

As this is such a new product, expect a few glitches or minor hiccups.

CON: Limited

Because the product is designed as a Shopify add-on, it is really only suitable for Shopify merchants.

 

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Have you used any of our email software suggestions?

If you have, leave your comments below and let us know how you are finding the software. 

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