Choosing the right Email Marketing tool

Stay in touch with your existing and potential clients with a regular emailed newsletter. Learn what to look for and how to choose the right tool so it's easy, affordable and looks as good as your website.

Written Jan 05, 2011, read 2046 times since then.

By now everyone knows it’s important to stay in touch with your existing and potential clients on a consistent basis. An emailed newsletter reminding them about your business is a good way to do this as long as there’s value added for them and not just selling your services. I’m writing in response to questions from many of my clients who are struggling to figure out the best way to accomplish this. They want their emails to be easy, affordable and look as good as their websites. My goal is to explain what to look for and point you in the right direction.

While Constant Contact clearly holds the name recognition as the oldest email marketing tool, there are many other options from which to choose. They range from using Outlook (not recommended) to hiring a designer to create every issue (expensive) and everything in between.

The most basic and affordable way to go is installing a script that resides on the same server with your website. You buy it for $50+/- and once installed and configured you never pay anything again. For this reason I’ve recommended ListMessenger to my clients for years. It allows me to design a “donut” template in html to match any website, and after some basic training, you can easily fill the donut hole yourself each issue. There are two reasons some of my clients are now opting for other tools. One is that ListMessenger does not yet offer “click-through tracking” and other metrics you might want to use in your marketing strategies. And the other is that while it’s possible to do sophisticated layouts such as changing sidebar content and teaser messages that click to continued articles on your website, these would require a designer be involved every time, which defeats the purpose.

At the next level, you’re looking at a huge range of options that are all pretty similar. They all import your contact list without forcing them to opt-in again, provide a way to take subscriptions on your website, offer double-opt in, easy unsubscribing and are hosted on external servers, not with your website. AND, they all charge some kind of monthly and/or per piece fee. While they all provide the requisite statistics, few, if any, offer adequate design control. You must use their templates and manipulate them. Some have more flexibility than others. But this is one of the reasons I do not like Constant Contact. I’ve also had poor customer service experiences with them.

Another variable to consider as you look at the options is how big is your list and how often will you send out emails. If your list is relatively small and/or you plan to send less frequently, the best approach for you might be the pay-as-go model where you buy credits you can use as needed. Not all of them offer this model.

Here are some examples. AWeber costs $19/month up to 500 even if you don’t use it every month. If you pay for the year it’s $193.80. But if your list is bigger your cost goes up by $10/month up to 2500. That’s $30/month if you use it or not. With Campaign Monitor there’s no setup fee and no monthly fees. You simply pay $5 per mailing plus .01 per address. So if you skip months, no cost. If you send to 500 people it’s $10. If you send to 1000 it’s $15. Much cleaner. And if you use MailChimp it’s entirely free for up to 1000 email addresses and up to 6000 messages a month.

Currently I have clients using Vertical Response, Constant Contact, and Mail Chimp. I’m particularly impressed with MailChimp and Campaign Monitor for their ease of use and customer service.

I was doing the research to prepare this article thinking I would present an organized grid of information. But this quickly became unwieldy. There are many existing comparison charts with reviews. At this link you can easily compare the 15 they list including Constant Contact, Vertical Response & Mail Chimp.

Here’s an article that explains why Vertical Response is significantly better than Constant Contact…and I agree if you’re only considering those two. And this is a pretty thorough review of several email marketing tools I’ve mentioned above though it was written in 2008 so the prices are not accurate. The lengthy comments following the post offer many individuals personal experiences with these tools which lead me to a few new options included below.

To make it easier for you to do further investigation, I offer this list of the websites I think are worth considering, listed in alphabetical order:

And one final thought. Whatever you do, be sure you are in compliance with the CanSpam Act.

Learn more about the author, Sheila Hoffman.

Posted by Joy Stephens, Bellevue, Washington | Jan 05, 2011

Sheila, Great article and your timing is perfect. I have been wrestling with this very topic. I need to get an email messaging application and you have given me lots of think about. Thanks for the warning about constant contact ..... you're right they do seem to have the brand recognition out there right now but I will avoid using them as I cannot deal with a firm that has poor customer service. Which service would you use if you use yahoo as your web and email hosting firm?
Posted by Victoria Dzenis, Seattle, Washington | Jan 05, 2011

Hi Sheila! Thanks for this article -- very helpful.

I'm currently using iContact and have found them very user-friendly. However, I've been considering switching over to Mail Chimp, in part because of the pricing and because I can create the look I want. Having the link for comparison purposes is great!

Thanks again!
Posted by Sheila Hoffman, Seattle, Washington | Jan 06, 2011

Thanks for you kind comments.

@Joy, I've never used Yahoo for email or hosting so I don't know if they have any "issues" to consider. But I would think Mail Chimp would work great for you. One of the things I love about them is that they have live chat for customer service and you don't have to be a customer. So you can just ask them. They also have EXCELLENT and extensive online training and educational materials about marketing.

I didn't specifically say this in the article, but just to be clear, I have no affiliation with any of these companies!
Posted by Matt Lawrence, Seattle, Washington | Jan 06, 2011

Thanks Sheila for these great resources.

I would also note that if you want to use video in your email campaign, Wistia and MailChimp are synced very nicely.

Biznik Community Manager
Posted by Sheila Hoffman, Seattle, Washington | Jan 06, 2011

Cool Matt...thanks! I've never even looked into video in emails!

But that does remind me of something else I didn't say in the article. I know a lot of folks in Biznik have WordPress sites. Some of these vendors integrate easily and some not so much. I use Gravity Forms on all my WordPress sites and they integrate directly with Mail Chimp and Campaign Monitor.
Posted by Angel Stevens, Seattle, Washington | Jan 06, 2011

I highly recommend MailChimp. They're free until you have many connections and they have really cute video tutorials.

Junk Removal in Seattle
Posted by David Berkey, Edmonds, Washington | Jan 06, 2011

As usual, Sheila, you provide quite well researched information. As Joy said above, great timing, as I too am considering a connecting service once I finish revamping my website.

The other service that's available is through any reseller of Mindfire's platform. This permits multiple contact points in any one campaign through multiple channels, traceable and measurable. PrintStream is one such reseller. They happen to be one of the vendors I represent.
Posted by Conor MacEvilly, Seattle, Washington | Jan 08, 2011

Nice article Shelia

Like Victoria, I use iContact and their customer support is good but they have been dragging their feed getting new servers in place so can be like molasses at times. Photo size limitations are a major issue for me. I like to have a lot of big photos in my newsletter but iContact limits the size. Their solution is to have you host the photo elsewhere and connect via a link. Shelia, do you know if MailChimp has photo size limitations? Thanks Conor
Posted by Sheila Hoffman, Seattle, Washington | Jan 08, 2011

@Conor: I wasn't sure so I emailed MailChimp last night. I awoke to their response even though it's the weekend!

In regard to images, there is not a limit to the number of images that can be hosted in the account. Simply upload to your MailChimp gallery in your account and plug the images in your templates and campaigns. The following link will explain the image requirements for specific templates and some tips for images:

What are the image requirements for your Templates?: http://eepurl.com/hcHx
Posted by Conor MacEvilly, Seattle, Washington | Jan 08, 2011

Thanks Shelia for looking into this and good to hear. I'll definitely play around with their system and see if it works for me. Free accounts and good customer service is a good thing! Conor
Posted by Richard Whitaker, Federal Way, Washington | Jan 09, 2011

Thank you for your suggestions. Your article is a wonderful resource.

The Advisors Network
Posted by Jane A. Nelson, Montreal, Quebec Canada | Jan 10, 2011

Hi Sheila,

I thoroughly enjoyed your article .. and am anxious to look at your suggestions.

Will let you know how it works for me. Thanks!

Best rgds.,

Jane

All Natural Clothing - http://bit.ly/58D20n Going Green Stories, newsletter - http://bit.ly/16sNpf
Posted by Elissa Everett, San Francisco, California | Jan 11, 2011

Thanks for pointing out the important things to consider -- and I can't iterate enough that anyone who considers using email marketing needs to really understand and respect the CanSpam laws. It's a hugely powerful tool -- but only when we all use it well.

My only additional $.02 is that I would never use a direct marketing tool (which email is) without tracking ability. That's the beauty of this medium -- you can see it all. If you don't know if people are reading, clicking and ideally, responding, it's somewhat shouting into the wind.

Thanks for the info.
Posted by Sue Cartwright, Exeter, Devon United Kingdom | Jan 13, 2011

Hi Sheila

This is a great article summarising a comprehensive list of e-marketing platforms, some of which I had not heard of before.

I am about to use iContact https://www.icontact.com which has been recommended to me for it's great customer service. You can phone them and speak to a 'real' person if you get stuck and their online tutorial videos are second to none. It also has an excellent message designer tool that enables you to create your own brand look very easily. I found that with Constant Contact and Mailchimp this was quite a labourious process.

Through iContact I have learned the importance of spending (much) time on organising my contact database into the categories and fields I am likely to want to use from the onset, making it easier to create sign up forms with check boxes so that you can send specific emails and newsletters to individuals across all your small niche categories.

Worth taking a look at to add to your impressive list.

Thank you for sharing your insights.
Posted by Sheila Hoffman, Seattle, Washington | Jan 13, 2011

@Sue: let us know how you make out with iContact. I've never tried them. I think the name made me assume it was MAC oriented and being a PC person it didn't draw me. There are certainly pros and cons with each of them, hence the need to know what's most important to your particular situation. Conor needs more image flexibility. For a lot of my clients price drives the decision, which is one reason MailChimp is so appealing. I'll keep iContat in mind for the future. Happy my research has been helpful to some.
Posted by Sue Cartwright, Exeter, Devon United Kingdom | Jan 13, 2011

Thank you, Sheila,

I will certainly keep you posted. I am still working on my contact database and think I might write a post about the experience, together with my thoughts on iContact as an e-marketing platform.

It's so true that different applications are better suited to different people and situations, so your research has been most helpful, thank you.