Email marketing is a popular type of marketing strategy employed by several businesses. It helps to keep customers in their email list updated with their products, services, and latest discounts. Research suggests that email newsletters are the most used form of content marketing by several B2B marketers. Furthermore, 50% of people shop once per month seeing a marketing email. This article will guide one through email marketing and how to choose email marketing tools.

Understanding email marketing and its tools
Email marketing is an essential part of digital marketing, which is one of the most effective channels to directly communicate with the customers of a business. It involves sending commercial emails to potential or existing customers to educate them about the brand, promote offers and discounts, and retarget for upselling.

Email marketing tools are specialized software used to create, send, test, optimize, and collect insights from emails. These can be used to partially or fully automate the email sequence according to email marketing strategies. These tools play a critical role in managing and executing email campaigns. Moreover, brands can benefit from email marketing templates from such tools to create and send attractive emails easily.

Benefits of using top email marketing tools

• Compliance: Ensure adherence to anti-spam regulations, preventing account suspensions.
• Deliverability: Maintain a positive sender reputation and avoid unwanted email blocking.
• Collaboration: Enable seamless teamwork, facilitating multiple users’ support.
• Analytics: Gain valuable insights with open rates and click-through-rate (CTR) data for future improvements.
• Responsive design: Create mobile-friendly emails for an enhanced user experience.
• Automation: Email marketing tools enable automated email applications. So, one can efficiently manage growing email lists and automate transactional emails.
• GDPR compliance: Top email marketing tools ensure General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance. So, one can simplify database management, consent, and opt-out procedures.
• Cost-efficiency: Enjoy cost-effective solutions through free trials and budget-friendly packages, ensuring accessibility for businesses of all sizes.

How to choose the right email marketing tools
Follow these steps to find the best email marketing tool:

Define the types of emails to be sent
Every email marketing tool has certain advantages and disadvantages. Knowing which type of email one needs for their business helps one find the right tool. There are several types of emails, and depending on one’s business objective, different combinations of emails may be needed to run email marketing campaigns.

• Transactional emails: These emails are sent in response to a customer taking an action such as a purchase confirmation, shipping updates, or password reset.
• Drip campaigns: Drip campaigns involve a series of emails sent automatically at a defined interval.
• Promotional emails: These emails are sent to promote a specific deal or discount to increase sales and revenue.
• Newsletters: These emails are used to send regular news, updates, and informative content on certain topics or products to one’s target audience.

Determine which features are required
Based on the campaign requirements, determine which email marketing service can fulfill one’s business objectives. Some of the key features to consider are:

• HTML editing
• A/B testing
• Email automation
• Premade templates
• Email sequencing
• Scalability limit
• Quality customer support
• Business marketing features
• Validation and tracking

These are the primary, but not limited, features to look for in an email marketing tool.

Test each shortlisted email marketing tool
After shortlisting email marketing tools that offer the features one requires, it’s time to test them one by one. It helps to form a small team to do this job. Start comparing the interfaces of each software, how easily they can be used, and which tool is not only fulfilling one’s business needs but also easy to learn for their marketing team. Then, start sending test emails to a demo audience. Try all the personalization options, such as customer names and locations. Also, embed different types of multi-media like images, videos and gifs to check if it is compatible with the tool.

Start with a trial plan
It’s a great idea to start with free trial plans if one is afraid of paying a premium for that. One can also compare different plans and keep their future marketing campaigns in mind when their email list grows. Look for paid plans that are suitable to grow the email list and overall engagement. After working on multiple email platforms, one can get a deep understanding of which paid plan aligns with their objectives.

Research suggests that emails have an average CTR of 2.8% and a high conversion rate of 15%, more than any other marketing channel. This is the reason why several brands have increased their email marketing budget. Having the right email marketing tool can enhance the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns. Moreover, by automating interactive emails via sequencing, marketers and businesses can effectively manage their campaigns.