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Email marketing is one of the most effective platforms for marketing – if you know what you’re doing, that is. Cracking this field takes time, skill, and effort, but it pays off well, allowing you to achieve higher engagement, conversions, and loyalty. Knowing how to choose the best email marketing software is part of this learning journey and can significantly improve your ROI.

The email marketing software industry currently has an impressive CAGR of 10.7% and is expected to be valued at $2.53 billion by 2028. This growth shows that email marketing is still in demand, and businesses are investing time and money to boost their success.

This blog post will give a comprehensive guide on choosing the best email marketing software and explaining their significance.

How to Choose the Best Email Marketing Software

Choosing the best email marketing software is challenging, especially since so many incredible options are available. However, considering their suitability for your business is an excellent way to make the right choice. Following are the primary parameters to keep in mind when looking for optimal software to support your operations:

1. Consider your Business Size

Your business size and type must be considered because both will affect your choice. A small business will require substantially different services than a medium-sized or larger company. For starters, you will have a lower budget, fewer customers, smaller scope of operations, and lower overall capacity.

You will need standard segmentation, customer journey tracking, and basic analytics. However, you won’t need more advanced features, like AI integration, a straightforward user interface, or comprehensive reporting.

Aside from size, your decision will also depend on your business type. For example, e-commerce businesses require different email marketing expertise than those without an ecommerce leg.

If you are a startup, check out our startup marketing tips, and here’s our advice on free email software for startups.

2. Outline the Service Range you Need

Keeping your company size in mind, look for the range of services most suitable for your organization at its current size. The search should be growth-oriented, targeting services that facilitate small-scale operations and boost their success.

Create a list, prioritizing necessary features and mentioning preferred additional features. Look for viable and affordable options with essential features and a trustworthy reputation. Your goal should be to get as many features as possible within your budget.

3. Scalability

Scalability is critical, especially if you have a small or medium business. Larger businesses have the affordability and the need for sophisticated email marketing software, but you don’t need to work with something like that just yet.

It is much better to opt for software that offers essential services to allow you to execute your email growth strategy, for example, which are suitable for your business size and has options for upgrading to include more features. It will allow you to keep things affordable initially and slowly ease into the more extensive setup.

It will also give you time to understand the operational dynamics, allowing you to choose settings to maximize ROI as much as possible.

4. Audience Segmentation Options

Audience segmentation is a critical feature that needs to be a part of your chosen email marketing software. Most businesses have a relatively diverse audience base based on demographics and psychographics. While all of them have at least one common interest (in your product), their reasoning, user preferences, and buying patterns are likely different.

Therefore, the same communication wouldn’t be equally appealing to all. But how will you cater to them then?

The best solution is to conduct research and divide your audience into 3-4 interest-based segments. Software that supports audience segmentation will allow you to create separate client lists. You can then draft different emails for each segment, allowing you to keep the content relevant and exciting for the receiving party.

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5. E-commerce Integration and Optimization

E-commerce has become increasingly popular in the past decade, with COVID-19 further adding to its growth. Most businesses have started working on incorporating an efficient and advanced e-commerce leg to their business to ensure they do not lose opportunities to their customers.

Social media was quick on the uptake and already has plug-ins that allow you to feature your online store items in your SM ads. They are linked to your core website and create a redirection opportunity on a frequently visited platform.

The good news is that this feature is now available in emails to some degree, depending on the software you purchase. It may cost a little extra, but I recommend buying it to ensure your e-commerce business becomes well-integrated into your business model.

Remember that a significant percentage of the people you’re targeting are the engaged audience, so they are more likely to click on relevant links.

Related reading: An Ultimate Guide to Jasper Boss Mode Commands

6. Performance Reporting Features

Performance data and benchmarks is critical for your reporting and analytics and for your team to know how effective your campaign was. Do not settle for an email marketing software that does not provide this feature. Additionally, try looking for a version that provides detailed data about CTR (Click through Rate), conversions, or intended purpose.

The more you know about how your email campaign performed, the better you’ll understand what works and doesn’t. This knowledge will provide actionable insights and help shape your next email marketing strategy.

7. Software Reliability

The last thing you want is to rely on software that doesn’t offer reliable performance. Some email marketing solutions may look great on the surface due to their excellent features and affordable pricing. However, they often fail to meet quality standards.

For example, they might not send emails to all parties on the scheduled dates. This failure can go wrong for limited-time events and campaigns where customers don’t receive the emails on time to know about offers.

Secondly, some software also has poorly designed programming. This problem can affect features like segmentation, sending emails intended for one segment to the other. Needless to say, such failures will destroy your campaign and may affect your customer relationships.

Hence, buy a reliable solution the first time. Here’s our list of the best email marketing services.

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8. CRM Capabilities

CRM is an advanced feature, and you will need it once your business is at least medium-sized, with growth pushing it well into the large business zone. A customer relationship management platform works to optimize customer service and experience.

This process includes connecting sales, marketing, and customer service departments, analyzing available data, and generating performance reports. These details provide in-depth insight into the state of customer relationship services and highlight areas for improvement.

Incorporating them in email marketing will help increase strategy effectiveness. You’ll get more detailed data about performance, learn about active and inactive customers, and get trend analyses about consumer response rates.

This information and more will help optimize content and marketing strategy to achieve better results in the long run. CRM may not be part of your initial consideration, but it is relevant and an essential part of our guide on how to choose the best email marketing software.

9. Added Services

Some of the better (and more expensive) software offer add-ons, like a graphically well-designed user interface, digital media integration, and other marketing services. These services aren’t essential, but having them will enhance your user experience and may also provide more information or efficiency.

Try to see if you can get some of them in your software choices because they will help you grow your business. 

10. Customer Service Support Availability

Technology is fantastic, but sometimes it can fluster the best of us. Sometimes, the software will show errors, malfunction, or not provide the intended solution. You will also have moments where you’ll struggle to access certain features and will need help to get through.

Your chosen brand’s customer support team is in the best position to help when such issues arise. Hence, selecting an option that offers excellent post-sales service and support is critical. This factor can affect your operational efficiency, and spending a little extra to get this assurance is better.

11. AI Integration

Artificial intelligence is one of the most disruptive technologies of the century and has extensive applications in email marketing. Intelligent optimization and machine learning allow AI to present data-centric analyses and suggestions for performance improvement.

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AI Integration is an advanced feature and best suited for larger businesses. Although it can benefit small and medium businesses, the software will likely be out of their budgets.

12. Pricing

Software cost is vital to the decision-making process, so prioritize its consideration. As mentioned above, the more sophisticated email marketing software is expensive and not feasible for small and medium businesses.

However, several are scalable, with more affordable options for partners looking for growth.

Wrapping Up

I hope you found my guide on how to choose the best email marketing software informative and will use it while selecting a solution for your business. The ideal solution is affordable, scalable, and performance optimized. It has the necessary features and integrations and offers added services in its premium bundles.

You can also check out my other blogs to learn more about email marketing and send an email for further inquiries.