There are basically two ways to monetize a blog or website.
One is to depend upon Google to make money (AdSense, selling banner ads, paid reviews, etc.) and the other is to grow your readership (using your blog or an email list).
You never know when Google will penalize your site costing you traffic and sales. On the other hand, if you build your list, you have unlimited ways to make money.
Did you know that over 80% of the income made by top bloggers and marketers comes from their email list?
Did you also know that Capterra found that every dollar spent on email marketing resulted in $44.25 of revenue? That’s a whopping ROI, right?
Email List Building ROI
Simply put: money is REALLY in the list.
It doesn’t matter whether you are building a blog for making money or increase your online influence; email list is a goldmine.
Having an email list not only helps you increase your money but also helps you:
- bring targeted traffic to your sales pages, blogs or product pages
- quickly build awareness about the products or services you promote
- build a strong rapport with your audience
So how to build and grow your email list?
You simply can’t use RSS feeds to grow your subscribers. Gone are the days where people used RSS feeds to increase their subscribers. You really can’t do anything with such feeds.
You NEED to start using email marketing software to grow your email list. Only then you will be able to send email newsletters, promotional emails and sales pitches to grow your income using your email list.
Picking the best software for building your list is a lot of pain because there are over 250 email marketing software solutions on the web right now!
If you are wondering about using the RIGHT email marketing software to build your list, let me help you.
I’ll be compiling a list of all the incredible email marketing software you can use to grow your list.
Go through them one by one and decide by yourself the right one that suits your blogging needs.
Let’s get started.
Before sharing the list of all the best email marketing tools to grow your list, let me first tell you which one I personally use.
The reason I’m doing this because I want to let you know more about the email marketing software that I’ve been using for a long time now. I can explain you better about the products I use so you can decide whether it’s a good fit for you or not.
The email marketing service I use is GetResponse!
Why I use GetResponse and why you should too?
This email marketing software is one of the most complete I’ve ever come across. I consider GetResponse as a 3-in-1 package which allows you to:
- build your email list
- create webinars and
- build stunning landing pages
Let me explain about all of these 3 features that you can easily do with GetResponse.
1. Building an email list with GetResponse: Building an email list with GetResponse is extremely easy. Not only you can add signup forms wherever you want on your blog with their pre-designed email opt-in forms, but you can send emails automatically.
You can broadcast all your emails to the people who sign up to your list whenever you want. Even if you are not a tech savvy, you will find it easy to send newsletters with GetResponse. Have a look at their dashboard once and you will know why.
GetResponse Dashboard
You can easily add contacts from your Gmail/Yahoo account, and Facebook accounts using their “Add Contacts” feature. You can create forms and showcase them on your site with their “Create Form” section, and you can easily send newsletters with just one click from their dashboard.
2. Creating webinars: Did you know webinars convert really well? Most successful online marketers like Derek Halpern, Pat Flynn, Jon Morrow frequently use webinars to grow their influence. Not only webinars help you quickly boost your email list, but they give you highest conversion rates when you recommend a product or service.
With GetResponse PRO account, you can run and promote unlimited monthly webinars up to 100 attendees each.
3. Creating landing pages with GetResponse landing page builder: GetResponse offers so many landing page templates ranging from sales pages to video pages to webinar pages. There are over 200 pre-designed landing pages which help you increase your online influence and conversions.
What I like about creating landing pages with GetResponse is that it's a drag and drop method. You can change everything from font size to color to images that are included in the pre-designed landing pages to suit your needs.
As I said earlier, I use GetResponse to grow my email list. Here are few more reasons that persuaded me to pick GetResponse over the others.
• Incredible autoresponders: The #1 reason for anyone to start building a list is to send email newsletters. You need "autoresponders" to automate your communications to your email subscribers so you can save a lot of time. When it comes to autoresponders, GetResponse is the industry leader. They have an email deliverability rate which stands at 99%.
• Split testing: A/B testing or split testing is a must these days. It allows you to try out various versions of your email newsletters and tell you which one is performing better so you will have a clear idea of what's working and what's not.
Quick note: GetResponse allows you split test up to 5 variations whereas AWeber allows you to do 4 variations and MailChimp allows just 3.
• Pricing: Up to 1,000 email subscribers, the cost is just $15 per month with GetResponse. And the best part is that you don’t have to enter your credit card information if you want to give a try to their 30 days free trial version. You can build a list up to 250 subscribers with their free account. You can send unlimitedemails as well as promotional sales letters.
Number of subscribers
|
Cost per month
|
|---|---|
1,000
|
$15
|
2,500
|
$25
|
5,000
|
$45
|
10,000
|
$65
|
25,000
|
$145
|
50,000
|
$250
|
100,000
|
$450
|
What are the pros of using GetResponse?
Split testing feature of GetResponse is just amazing. It lets you create 5 variations with your emails, more than any other email newsletter service.- Email open rates will be high with GetResponse. The email deliverability rate is more than 99%.
- It sends responsive email newsletters. It means, people who use smartphones to read your emails will NOT face any issues reading your stuff.
- 500 stunning pre-designed email templates ranging from education to eCommerce to real estate.
- FREE trial of 30 days. No credit card information is required. Such a generous deal!
Cons of GetResponse:
- The user interface can be updated and become
more cleaner to compete with AWeber, MailChimp, which has much better interfaces.
Although GetResponse is definitely one of the best email marketing tools for marketers, there are also other great tools that offer exceptional features to build and grow your email list. This page is created for you just to provide you a wide range of tools to build your list.
Now let’s talk about 5 other incredible email marketing tools:
5. ConstantContact
ConstantContact is another great choice which is widely used by small business owners who want all the things at one place such as feedback forms, doing surveys, event registration pages, etc.
They offer you 60 days free trial account (no credit card required). And you can get FULL access to their marketing tools.
Their pricing starts at $20 per month which you can use to build an email list up to 500 subscribers.
What are the benefits of ConstantContact?
- Drag and drop template design make it easy for you to create professional looking emails with ease.
- Editing your emails and customizing them with any design you want is as simple as dragging and dropping.
- Personalization of emails is what makes ConstantContact an incredible email marketing software. For instance, if you create a personalized and friendly email to send to a customer/friend/reader, it automatically sends an email on their birthday or any other special day which you have created already.
- You can have free access to their gallery of stock photos and use them in your email templates whenever you need.
- They also have both Facebook and Instagram integration which makes it easy to build a new audience from social media sites.
Any pitfalls with ConstantContact?
- Pricing is bit high when compared to others like GetResponse or AWeber although the features are almost the same. Doesn't offer a wide range of integrations.
4. Active Campaign
ActiveCampaign was launched in 2003 and offering email marketing services since then. They are industry leaders in providing intelligence driven marketing solutions at an affordable price tag.
Their pricing plan starts at $9 per month, and you can use it to build a list of 500 subscribers.
Why should you go with Active Campaign?
- One of the best things about using ActiveCampaign is that you can seefull information about anyone who is in your email list. You can easily find out when a person has opened your email, replied to you or pages visited, etc. This helps you better understand about your email subscribers and what to send to them to get better conversions.
- You can easily build automated email campaigns to different segments of your list.
- Last but not least, their pricing is unbeatable. At just $9 per month, you can build a list up to 500 contacts.
Are there any cons?
- Their drag and drop builder to create emails
is noted as one of their major cons. - Segmenting your email reports is quite hard with their interface.
3. iContact
iContact was started in 2003 and offering email marketing solutions for all kinds of budget since then. iContact is represented by a leading global media intelligence company called Cision which has 100,000 customers around the globe.
Their pricing starts at $14 per month which allows you to build a list up to 500 subscribers.
Pros of iContact:
- Loads of beautifully crafted email templates which are easy to use.
- iContact provides an incredible tracking and reporting which stands #1 in the email marketing field.
- They also offer a robust social media integration which you can use to integrate your social media accounts and activities with ease (through your emails or custom surveys).
- They offer campaign tracking, responsive email templates, autoresponder and A/B testing to make your email list building easy to use.
Cons of iContact:
- iContact doesn't have powerful API integrations when compared to other services such as AWeber, GetResponse or MailChimp.
2. AWeber
The majority of the BIG players in the marketing world use AWeber to manage their email lists. AWeber allows you to easily customize your email templates and provides excellent email deliverability rate of 99.34%.
What about the price?
Just like GetResponse and other email marketing solutions, AWeber also has flexible pricing options which vary as below.
Number of subscribers
|
Cost per month
|
|---|---|
500
|
$19
|
501 - 2,500
|
$29
|
2,501 - 5,000
|
$49
|
5,001 - 10,000
|
$69
|
10,001 - 25,000
|
$149
|
Advantages of using AWeber:
- AWeber’s email templates look gorgeous. Better than any other email marketing solution.
- RSS to e-newsletter functionality (it helps you easily and automatically send your latest blog posts to your email subscribers)
- Mobile responsive newsletters. Check!
- AWeber allows you to perform split testing on each email up to 4 variations.
- Widely used by the Internet marketing experts.
Are there any cons?
- The price is a bit con when compared to others, especially GetResponse.
- No webinar option unlike GetResponse.
1. MailChimp
MailChimp is incredible and widely used email marketing service. MailChimp is afree email marketing software that allows you to create a list of up to 2,000 email subscribers.
Here are the pros of MailChimp:
- MailChimp has a free plan where you can send up to 12,000 emails/month to up to 2,000 email subscribers.
- You can use your own HTML email design or use their pre-designed email templates.
- Their interface is easy to use. It’s very minimalistic and easily can be used even by non-tech savvy.
- Mobile responsive emails.
Cons of MailChimp:
- Their emails can be easily labeled as spam due to their ability to add almost anyone to their list.
- You can’t send promotional emails using their free plan. Duh? Noaffiliate links mean no money!
- You can’t automate your newsletters with their free account.
Which one should you pick in terms of ease of use?
We have talked about 5 different email marketing solutions in this post and picking one or two among them is tough.
Let me be honest - all of them are excellent concerning automation, split testing, pricing factor, etc.
BUT...
If you are concerned about managing your email lists with the "easy of use", GetResponse wins the race.
It's not only affordable (just $15 per month) but helps you create stunning landing pages and allows you to host your webinars without costing you anything extra.
If you are searching for a free option, then MailChimp is the one you should try.
It's free up to 2,000 subscribers, and you can send automated emails to your list. Although it costs you more when compared to the other services like GetResponse, AWeber once you reach your 2000 subscribers count but it's a great start if you are searching for something free.
Both GetResponse and MailChimp are my favorites when it comes to building and growing an email list. So do let me know which email marketing software you are going to try. Is it GetResponse or MailChimp or any other?
If you have any questions before trying them out, let me know in the comments, and I’d be glad to respond to all your queries.
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