Is Email Marketing Still a Thing?

Email marketing, the act of sending a commercial message via email, usually to a group of people, might seem like something that is slowly dying but it's not, its changing. In fact, 87% of B2B content marketers use email marketing for lead nurturing which goes to show that it's still an important strategy for many businesses to adopt.

Why Companies Should Use Email Software

One thing that can help companies manage their email campaigns is by using a email marketing software like Constant Contact or Mail Chimp. Email softwares like these offer a range of benefits that help companies take full control of their email campaigns and use take advantage of helpful features that give their campaign an edge. Here are some of those benefits.

• Email builder - One advantage of using an email marketing software is the ability to templates to easily build professional looking email promotions that customers can take seriously. Nick Sapia, the chief digital officer of Alps & Meter (an outerwear company) said “The biggest benefit of Mailchimp's email builder is that it's easy to use. From quickly loading in our color palette and our brand font, we can make emails look and feel like an extension of our website very easily.”
• Improve mailing list - Many email softwares allow you to add subscribers to your email list by creating customizable sign up forms that can be implemented on your website and this will even allow you to segment the list into different audiences.
• Track results - Email softwares will help you decide if your content is getting your desired results or not. They will offer insights on how the different campaigns are performing, whether people are opting in or out, and how many people even open the emails. Tracking results can offer a large advantage to your marketing process.

Constant Contact vs. Mail Chimp

So as I mentioned above the two most popular email marketing softwares are Constant Contact and Mail Chimp, so which one is best for you? What are the differences?

Well starting with an overview of Mail Chimp, it is the largest email marketing application and is a great program. It offers a free membership as well as a standard $15 a month membership with a long list of helpful features and analytics. Where it shines is with its sleek modern designs and templates which can help you get impressive emails.

Constant Contact is the second largest email marketing application and has a free trial with a $20 a month standard plan. The features and designs that it offers may not be as extensive as Mail Chimp but they shine with one of the highest deliverability rates which almost makes up for where it lacks in competition.

There are a lot of similarities and differences between the two platforms and although most people rate Mail Chimp higher, that doesn't mean Constant Contact could be the right fit for you, check out this link to see a more in depth comparison.

Marketing Automation

There are many programs like Marketo which assist you with your marketing automation. It is a way for companies to save valuable time and money by automating the email marketing process. An example of this process is having the automation first sending a promotional discount code to the list, then send a receipt or thank you note to whoever purchased with the code. Then a couple weeks later you can send a new promotion to the people who purchased.

This process means you still have to complete the email marketing process by making templates, landing pages and growing your list but it will allow your emails to stay consistent, on time and save a lot of time better spent on other things.

Marketing Automation - Best Practices

Inbound Integration - Integrate your inbound marketing strategies into your marketing automation. Inbound is all about providing valuable content that potential customers are interested in. This should be enhanced for marketing automation because you can provide the content that users want right when they want it.

Don't Blast General Messages - This goes along with being specific, you usually shouldn't send broad messages to your entire email lists because odds are it will probably just get deleted by most people. Although this is easy to do with marketing automation, it should be avoided.

Be Specific - By sending highly-targeted content to a specific audience you can connect better with you potential customers. With marketing automation you can be very specific and send promotions about topics that you know people are interested in which will be much more impactful.