subject: Top 5 Email Marketing Services [print this page] Whether sending out a sales blast to your customers and clients or keeping in contact with a newsletter, email marketing is important. Though I dont think it will ever truly replace physical advertisements and newsletters showing up in peoples mailboxes, with the evolution of the Internet and instantaneous connections, it is rapidly picking up speed. And its no wonder. People want that instant connection; they dont want to wait five to seven business days for their mail to be delivered so they can clip the coupon and go buy that item they knew would be going on sale.
In my research I found there were MANY MORE email marketing services available than I had even heard of. Thats why I want to take a little time and de-mystify the email marketing services and help you to see which might work best for you. A few factors to consider include: number of contacts, monthly fee, contact management, email creation, reports and reliability.
Number of Contacts: This is the number of email addresses in your contact database/mailing list. For purposes of this review this refers to the number of contacts offered with the lowest monthly plans of the email marketing services providers.
Monthly Fee: Excluding free plans, the lowest priced plans vary between a monthly fee of $9.95 and $15.00. With this first tier plan most of the marketing services reviewed was offered between 500 and 600 contacts as a starting base, with the exception of MailChimp, who stands out among them all, offering up to 1000 contacts under their free plan.
Contact Management: How easy is it to manage your contacts? How easy is it to import new contacts? Do they play well with others and work through email services including Google, Yahoo, Hotmail and even Microsoft Outlook?
Email Creation: How easy is it to create and designs emails that look professional? Do they offer many templates? How flexible are their templates design editors? Does it take a rocket scientist or graphic art degree to figure it out?
Reports: In todays day and age it is all about the numbers. How many emails were sent? How many bounced, never making it to their target? How many were not even opened? How many people clicked on a link in your campaign? Knowing the numbers helps the sender to know what is and/or is not important to their readers.
So, how do they rate?
MailChimp
Number of Contacts - 1000
Monthly Fee The monthly fee does not become necessary until the number of contacts reach 2500, at which point the monthly fee will be $30.
Contact Management Easy to use system.
Email Creation Offers only 100 email templates; could use a little more flexibility in the email creation process.
Reports Offers versatile reports and Google Analytics.
Benchmark Email
Number of Contacts - 600
Monthly Fee - $9.95
Contact Management Offers easy to use system for importing contacts. Also allows importing from Microsoft Outlook.
Email Creation Offers flexible templates.
Reports Offers Google Analytics.
Constant Contact
Number of Contacts - 500
Monthly Fee - $15.00
Contact Management Easy to use. Allows contact import from Microsoft Outlook.
Email Creation Offers flexibility with template manipulation and email creation.
Reports Offers comprehensive reports.
Vertical Response
Number of Contacts - 500
Monthly Fee - $10
Contact Management Not the easiest to work with in importing contacts.
Email Creation Offers flexibility with template manipulation and email editor.
Reports Offers Google Analytics.
iContact
Number of Contacts - 500
Monthly Fee - $9.95
Contact Management Allows importing from Microsoft Outlook.
Email Creation Could use some flexibility.
Reports Reports found to not be a true reflection of subscriber activity.
