subject: Are You Considering Free Email Marketing Software? [print this page] Are You Considering Free Email Marketing Software?
Are you considering free email marketing software for your company? To answer this question it is important to clarify what is meant by the term "free.". There are two groups of software tools that make use of this terminology. The first is software that has no month-to-month expenses associated with the product and the second is a service that has no associated costs for a trial period, generally thirty days.
For many marketers who are just starting out online, the desire to save money can often be the primary motivation behind their systems decisions. This is often what leads people to utilize free email marketing software that has no ongoing month-to-month charges. While this may sound attractive at first, there are a few points that need to be understood about with this particular arrangement. For starters, most companies offering a free service place advertising on the outgoing emails sent by their users. Since they are not charging a monthly usage fee, their expenses are covered through the placement of paid advertisements on all outgoing emails. These services also have limitations on the functionality of the free account. For example, a company may limit a free account to having not more than 500 email recipients. Anything above that number incurs an ongoing monthly cost or requires the migration to a paid service. An additional restriction often present with these kinds of services is the number of online email marketing pieces that may be sent on a monthly basis. Aside from these disadvantages there are other performance limitations in areas of design, tracking and split testing.
Free email marketing software is often offered on a limited time trial basis. In this type of arrangement the full functionality of the application is unlocked for the consumer, so they can effectively evaluate the overall performance and abilities of the program. Typically the only limitations are on the number of allowed marketing list subscribers and on the total number of emails that can be sent during the trial period. Unlike the arrangement mentioned previously, trial period software contains no third party promotion. All functionalities of the product are available for testing and the overall performance of the software can be effectively measured.
While it might at first seem like a good idea to save money, it is imperative that anyone serious about building their business through online email marketing take a long term perspective. With the traffic generation tools available to a marketer today, the power to grow a mailing list of over 500 people in a short time is well within reach. Having to go back and move that email list to another service later on is not only a bother, but it creates a chance to lose numerous subscribers, solely because they do not subscribe to the new email marketing service. Ultimately, the headaches caused by using this type of free email marketing software could become more costly than any financial savings that may have been realized.
It is a much more prudent strategy to work with free email marketing software as a test drive for a paid service. The paid service will provide much greater functionality to their clients and will also have greater flexibility for tailoring email campaigns to the needs of the business that is being promoted. The best use of this trial period is to learn the functions of the system, so that it is being fully maximized once the account moves from a free trial to paid subscription status.
Free email marketing software is a great tool for gaining knowledge of a paid marketing platform; having said that, it is not encouraged that it be used as the primary tool for an email marketing strategy.
