First Up, What is Email Marketing Automation?
According to CampaignMonitor who describe it perfectly: Email automation is the ability to send time or action triggered emails to subscribers with relevant information. Automation is useful for a variety of different marketing purposes.
I assume you are here because you are interested in Email Marketing & Email Automation but, I have it on good authority that you should not even attempt to build your list before your website is generating traffic – at least 100 visitors per day. Not only that, the same source (and I do believe he knows what he is talking about) has said that email marketing is not as profitable as we are all being led to believe! Wow, that is really something to consider!
So the first point here is to ensure that you have a website up and running and you are generating traffic. Once that is in place, email marketing offers you the opportunity to stay in touch with your visitors after they have left your website. Yes, there is good reason to build your list. Just make sure you have traffic to your site first.
Now that I have thrown the cat amongst the pigeons, let’s have a look at the what’s, where and whys of Email Marketing Software & Email Marketing Tools.
One more thing before we delve into it. Selecting the best email market tool for your needs is very important . You will see that each of the offerings has its own set of unique feature. Please try not to become overwhlemed by the range available. In the reviews we will have an indepth look at each of the services offered. This will help you to select the best one for your business.
What Is The Purpose Of Email Marketing & Automation?
There is more than one purpose to email marketing and automation, here are a few examples:
- To share your message (whether you’re a blogger sharing updates or a business increasing marketshare)
- To build relationships with your prospects
- To drive sales
- Qualify leads
When we look at the traditional function of email marketing, previously you had the opportunity to send out email campaigns and track information such as open rates and click throughs.
There is a lot to be said for adding automation to your email campaigns. Automation enables you to set goals and place the different aspects of your campaign on auto-pilot. You can set up your automation to do the following:
- Create reminders in response to abandoned carts
- Create additional interest with special offers
- Enjoy insight to your campaign response by measuring which emails are opened
- Send thank you mails in response to a completed purchase
What Are The Benefits Of Email Marketing & Automation?
- Increase return and repeated visits to your website. Statistics say that more than 70% of website visitors will not return to your site. Imagine that? After all your hard work building the site! But wait! When you build your email list, you can pursue a relationship with your websit visitors by collecting their email addresses and sharing value with them via email. Just make sure it’s really good value, not just a “hiya” email.
- Build a base of loyal followers. The more a visitor returns to your website, the higher the liklihood that they will be come your customer. That is compared to first time visitors. I’ve heard that it takes 3 to 4 visits to your site for potential customers to think of doing business with you. I have a sales background and we used to bank on 7 points of contact before the customer was ready to commit. That means that 3 to 4 visits is pretty good stats!
- Increase Your Sales. Having built a relationship of trust with your followers through the value you have shared, increase sales should be the natural outcome.
Marketing automation software is more sophisticated that the traditional email marketing platforms. How so? It is able to monitor every interaction a lead has with your business from a digital perspective.
Email and marketing automation offers the opportunity for you to monitor every response and interaction a prospective customer has with your brand and offers. This means you have even more information at your finger tips.
Lead Scoring
Lead scoring is yet another awesome tool. What this does is assigns a value to potential customers, each representing the stage they are at within your sales and conversion funnel.
As you can imagine, this information provides you with the opportunity to develop more targeted marketing emails. Something to get excited about for sure, because it means that it will result in increased sales.
Designed correctly, which is made far simpler by the software designers, the process for your prospective customers will be one that leads them through your marketing funnel until it results in the sale.
Email automation also offers the opportunity to develop your in and outbound marketing channels. Traditional email marketing doesn’t offer the opportunity for marketers to do more than send out mails and collect a small amount of data for future use.
Automation, on the hand other, allows the marketer to offer a two-way communication experience. Your prospective customers can respond to your campaigns, and whether that response is positive or negative, you as the marketer are handed the gift of information. Future campaigns can be fine tuned based on this feedback. Again, resulting in higher sales and conversions.
Secrets to Comparing Email Marketing Software
The secrets to identifying the best email marketing software for your business are uncovered by asking the following questions:
- Is the system user-friendly?
- Are there templates available?
- How many?
- Do the designs work for your brand?
- & are they mobile responsive?
- Does the software integrate with third party apps you are making use of?
- What are the List Segmentation capabilities of the software?
- Does the software offer personalisation so that you can build a relationship of trust with your prospects?
- Are the Analytical Tools and A/B Testing Tools offering what you need them to?
- Is Heatmap technology offered?
- Do they offer 24 hour Customer Service and Support?
- What Lead Collection Tools are on offer?
- Does the price fit your budget
Reviews To Date – Email Marketing Tools Comparison
Please see below, 11 reviews of Top Email Marketing Tools and Software for your reading and comparison pleasure. You will notice that these reviews are listed in order of the ratings and linked to the relevant review pages:
1. AWeber – Rated: 9 out 10
2. BuilderAll – Rated: 9 out of 10
3. ActiveCampaign – Rated: 9 out of 10
4. SendInBlue – Rated: 9 out of 10
5. ActiveTrail – Rated: 8.8 out of 10
6. GetResponse – Rated 8 out of 10
7. Benchmark – Rated: 8 out of 10
8. ConstantContact – Rated: 8 out of 10
9. Campaign Monitor – Rated: 7 out of 10
10. HubSpot – Rated: 7 out of 10
11. MailChimp – Rated: 7 out of 10
