One cannot think of creating a brand image without owning a website. Since it is an important factor which cannot be ignored, it is only the first step towards having an online presence. Unless you stay in touch with your customers and prospects, the website will soon be dissolved among the millions others present on the internet. Hence, successful businesses can't be run without proper email marketing. Sending newsletters, offers, announcements, and wishes through email is the best way to let your customers know you care about them. But to handle such a huge database, you need to use the right kind of email marketing automation platforms.
When indulging in the e-business activities, choosing the right kind of email marketing software is an essential, but how do you know if you are choosing the right one? Here are some tips that can help you to make the perfect choice for your email campaigns.
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How to Choose an Email Marketing Vendor[/caption]Fee or Free?
The first thing you need to decide is if you are willing to spend some cash and make use of the elite features or you would be willing to work under a restricted and limited area. You will hear a lot of people say "there are too many free things available on the internet so why pay". Well we all know that there is nothing as free lunch, and you get what you pay for so certainly the things available for free are not fit to be used professionally. They can be good to use to a limited extent but when you have to seriously take your business to the next level, you will require some of the advanced features too which are definitely fee based.
Undoubtedly when you require your email campaigns to be properly managed and you desire to receive details on them to verify how successful your campaigns have been, you'll need to use the extensive features provided in the fee based apps. Here are some of the features that you get when you buy a subscription that clearly overshadows the free stuff.
Email Marketing Automation
With this amazing feature you can create your email campaigns in advance and set a time in the future to be delivered. Wish your customers a merry Christmas on the Christmas Eve and on the very day too. Although you and your entire staff will be on holidays, the marketing automation services allow you to set the time and lean back. Your emails will be automatically sent to the recipients without the need to initiate manually.
Analytics
Did your emails reach the intended audience? Did they read them? How did they respond to it? How many clicked on the links in it and how many explored your website through your emails? All of these are available to be seen in the analytics section of these amazing apps which woefully don't exist in the free services. Using the analytics one can easily understand the success rate of the campaign and know about the recipients that are his prospects.
Manage Huge Database with Ease
Today you are sending your emails to 1,000 subscribers. Within a short time the number of subscribers will increase. You cannot manage them all manually hence you'll surely need a reliable service to help you manage them. Don't waste your time on services that offer too many benefits for free because surely they won't work and you'll end up in a disaster. Reliable automation services allow you to manage a database of over 50,000 emails with just a few clicks.
These are just some of the great features you get to use with reliable marketing automation platforms. The list can go on and on. It is up to you to decide how many emails you need to send how easy are you to send them using the free or the fee based services. I would always recommend using the fee based services for professional email campaigns as they prove to be the best in terms of ROI.
Guest Post By Tahir Akbar
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