Sure there is social media, smart phones, instant messaging… tons of ways for people to keep in touch with each other by using the internet. But despite all of this, email is still the main source of sending and receiving information on the internet. This is why you want to make sure you integrate email into your business marketing strategy. The easiest method to do email marketing is to use email campaign software that will automate the process of managing your email subscriptions and sending out thousands of email.
Selecting the Best Email Campaign Software
If you are looking for the best “email campaign software” for marketing your business, then there are some things you need to consider before investing in one:
First Things First: How’s the Fit?
A very important thing to consider when evaluating email campaign software is how it fits into your business’ marketing plan. In order to really take advantage of your email campaign software, you should integrate it with your website. In my opinion, the main purpose of a website is to collect emails for your email list. If you are not doing this, you are missing a huge potential.
It’s really important that you take the time to find software that offers a smooth integration between your website and the email collection. Otherwise you’ll miss out on opportunities to grow your business faster.
Email Campaign Software Cost
The first step is to decide on your budget. Business email campaign software come in a large range of costs. There is software you can get with a small budget, whereas other email campaign software can only be used by large companies. Email software generally comes with monthly or annual payment plans, so decide on your marketing needs and then determine a realistic budget.
Trial Use Period
If you have never used email campaign software , you should look for services that provide a free or low cost trial. That way you can take the email campaign software for a test drive before you continue to buy it and integrate it into your business. This shouldn’t be a problem because a lot of email software providers offer a one month trial.
Customer and Technical Support
The email campaign software that you ultimately select should have a good customer and technical support system in case you run into challenges when using it. This help may come in the form of forums or help pages where you have to search for solutions to your issues. Others have a specialist support team that will walk you through solving your problem. No matter what service you use, you need to make sure there is sufficient support.
User Friendly
Your email campaign softwar e should be easy to use for you. It needs to be easy to navigate through the main functions, not complicated, and be visually pleasing. You want the software to be comfortable to use, rather than being complicated, hard to read, and frustrating.
Tracking and Reporting Features
In my opinion, just as important as how easy the email campaign software is to use is the ability for the software to create useful reports. The software should be able to tell you things like your subscriber click-through rate, how many people received your email vs opening it, and how many people opted-out. The more information provided, the better. With good information you can more efficiently plan your next email blast campaign to increase your subscriber open and click through rates.
CAN-SPAM Compliance
You want your email campaign software to help you remain compliant with the laws. For example, the Federal CAN-SPAM legislation includes only a few, easy-to-implement, requirements for commercial email. Unfortunately most people don’t know what they are, such needing as unsubscribe link that automatically updates user preferences.
Bounced Email Handling
If you send repeated emails to bad email addresses not only is it a waste of resources, but it’s also a good way to get mistaken for a spammer. Your email campaign software should track bounced emails and automatically purge bad email addresses from your subscriber list.
HTML and Plain Text
If you send HTML email to a subscriber who’s email tool can’t display HTML, it will looking like a jumbled mess to them. This isn’t good because it is a quick way to have your email deleted. Your email system should support a multi-part mime email format, with a text version that will be sent to subscribers who can’t see HTML emails.
Final Words
Choosing the right of email marketing tools for you and your business can have a significant impact on your business results.
