Owners of small- and medium-sized businesses might easily become disillusioned in an era where massive retailers and mega-corporations are investing millions of dollars in Internet marketing and advertising. Smaller companies must compete in the expensive world of Internet marketing and advertising with limited marketing resources.
Unambiguously, “yes” is the response. In fact, using email marketing to manage, streamline, and improve client interactions and communications is one of the best methods to make the most of constrained marketing dollars. The best way to distribute a company newsletter, get in touch with potential customers, give special deals to current clients, or just stay in touch with an audience about company updates and changes is through email marketing.
It may appear at first look that email marketing is a brilliant idea in theory but challenging to put into practise. It takes time and effort to compile and maintain email lists, write email messages and offers, keep track of them, and send them out manually or with primitive email blast software. Due to the high percentage of blast emails that are blocked by spam filters and never reach their intended recipients, it is also a risk. Only sophisticated email marketing software can actually reach the customer with the message.
In the past, email list management software has been expensive for all but the biggest firms, had few features, and was unreliable in terms of email delivery. The good news is that brand-new goods have been introduced to the market that not only get beyond these constraints but also provide better affordability.
Shopping for email list management software as a small or medium-sized business can be challenging. Watch out for these characteristics:
- Cost-effectiveness – Email list management software should enable you to send 50,000 emails every month for less than $100. Some email list management software programmes even occasionally have one-month introductory fees of just $1.
- An easy-to-use Web interface – Web-based software is the way of the future, and an email list management system hosted on the Internet means you never have to worry about software maintenance or upgrades.
- Unlimited email lists – You need to be able to maintain as many addresses and lists as you like without paying extra. Be wary of businesses who rely their fees on how many database entries you have!
- Rollover credits – A decent email marketing plan will enable you to carry over unused credits into the following month or to add new credits immediately if you don’t use your permitted number of emails during a given month.
- Adding lists – With a few mouse clicks, you should be able to add full mailing lists to the online system. Additionally, renting or purchasing opt-in email lists and importing them into the system should be possible.
- Consecutive mailings – The top email marketing software programmes enable you to import a group of messages and set up sequential mailings to be sent at the time and day of your choosing. In other words, it should be possible for you to launch a six-month email marketing campaign in a single session.
- Flexibility – Look for software that lets you edit your mailing lists and messages up until the very moment it is scheduled to go out.
- Automated list management – Bounced emails, incorrect addresses, and removal requests should all be handled automatically by email marketing software. Additionally, you have to be able to create opt-in email lists and remove any addresses that are blacklisted.
In the realm of Internet marketing and advertising, strong email marketing software can be the great equaliser, enabling small and medium-sized enterprises to compete with the corporate giants.
