Newsletter platforms compared

Whether you own a small, medium or large-scale business, you should be using newsletter or email marketing! What is it you ask? Email marketing is a business strategy whereby emails containing relative and useful content about your business are sent to your prospects and clients with the aim of converting subscribers to customers and customers to loyal fans. In a nutshell, it forms part of the bigger goal of making more sales.

A powerful and captivating newsletter can be a handy tool to get your brand name known and spread far and wide. Stats show that email marketing provides an average of 4.3% return on investment for businesses in the US and although email marketing existed before social media marketing, emails still dominate the online marketing world.

There are so many Newsletter platforms these days that the hardest part is deciding which one will best fit your business requirements. We decided to compare a few to help you on your way.

Popular Email Newsletter Platforms

1. AWeber: this software allows you to create innovative templates, automatically makes emails from blog posts, has a drag and drop editor with responsive email templates and the option to insert tags that automatically trigger emails.
2. ActiveCampaign: this platform focuses on automation that allows you to send less emails but still get great results. You are able to automate everything based on your website visitors’ behaviour and the CRM makes it easy to manage sales.
3. MailChimp: this is already a well-known email marketing platform that boasts a large template selection and is user friendly. It also integrates with WooCommerce, Shopify and Magento eCommerce providers which is another win. Plus, it has an unpaid version.
4. GetResponse: this platform suits businesses that are growing rapidly and has a pricing structure that works around whatever marketing level your business is at. When business perks up, you can move onto landing pages, webinars and enterprise features, plus there are over 200 email templates, webform templates and thousands of stock images to choose from.
5. Constant Contact: a good option for small businesses and it comes with a 60-day free trial period. You’ll get unique features like an event management, social media tool where you can create coupons and shareable downloads and you have the option of integrating with other apps. It just lacks any real automation tools.
6. Flodesk and ConvertKit: are great for bloggers! Both offer easy to use and navigate, and you can create bee-you-ti-ful emails!! These are slightly more expensive options, but the rewards are great.

When deciding on which newsletter platform to go with, you should also consider the following: how easy is the tool to use, what price range can you afford, how automated are the features and how efficient is the software as a whole; like, are the emails going to be delivered properly?

Some people might believe email marketing to be somewhat outdated but think about this; with technology advancing in leaps and bounds, it’s super easy to use these platforms; when you use email marketing, all the data gathered belongs to you and is in your control; it’s flexible, if you need to switch providers you can import or export the list via CSV, and the lifespan is guaranteed to last at least 10 years- people don’t change email addresses very often.

You say Newsletter platforms, we say, ‘Sign us up!’.

If you would like to get a newsletter or email marketing strategy going and need help, get in touch at www.skivvy.co.za.