What Is The Best Email Marketing Platform For Small Businesses?

When a small or medium-sized business carries out an email marketing campaign, it’ll typically conduct them via an email marketing platform. There are a huge number of platforms available, each with its own pros, cons, costs, and ancillary benefits, however, speak with any marketer or marketing agency and you’ll probably hear the same handful of names come up over and over again. It’s hard to say which of these is the best email marketing platform as they all have their specialities and target customer but sufficed to say that picking the right (or wrong) one can have a huge impact.
We will take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of 5 of the most popular email marketing platforms in a little bit of detail further down but first, let’s start at the beginning.

What Is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is the use of email to promote products or services and to develop relationships with new and existing customers. In other words, it’s an effective way to deliver powerful advertising messages directly to users via their inboxes. This may include general updates on the company, including newsletters and important information updates, or it may be in the form of more direct advertising messages, such as the promotion of a new product or sale period.
The beauty of email marketing is that it enables businesses to maintain consistent communication with their customers, helping to encourage repeat custom as well as building brand trust with minimal hassle or cost involved. It also enables companies to create more targeted and personalised content, which is a huge benefit for small businesses that are trying to build up their brand reputation and develop strong relationships with their customers for an affordable price.

What Are The Best Email Marketing Platforms Available?

As mentioned, choosing the right email marketing platform is essential for pulling off a successful email marketing campaign. Fortunately, pretty much all of the best email marketing platforms will enable you to create compelling content that is tailored to a specific audience, whilst helping you manage your contact list and track engagement. So, what’s the difference? How do you choose the best email marketing platform to propel your small business forward?
The ‘trick’, as it were, is in understanding the capabilities and constraints of each email platform and matching them up with a business’ requirements. Below we are going to take a surface-level look at 5 of the most popular platforms and list their most prominent pros and cons for you to consider.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing platforms, and it’s also the name that you’re most likely to have heard of before. So, what’s all the fuss about Mailchimp? Aside from the fact that it’s free for databases of a certain size, Mailchimp is easy to use, making it accessible for new small business owners who haven’t been involved in digital marketing before. It’s easy to create beautiful templates whilst providing detailed analytics on crucial data points in order to help you tailor and improve your campaign. The main disadvantage of Mailchimp is its complicated pricing structure. Whilst it is free for up to 2000 contacts, once you exceed this point the pricing can become pretty hefty. However, this doesn’t take away from it being an effective tool for small businesses, particularly start-ups who are looking to expand their customer base as they develop.
Pros Of Mailchimp

• No setup fee
• Free to use (to a point)
• Flexible pricing structure
• Drag & Drop WYSIWYG editor (what you see is what you get)
• Importable email templates
• Integrates easily with common CMS’ like Shopify and WordPress
• Good Reputation Score

Cons Of Mailchimp

• Initially confusing to use
• Free service is more limited than other platforms’ free service
• Mailchimp branding appears on the free version
• Mailchimp can suspend or cancel your account without notice
• Email Templates must be created manually
• Send Limits are lower than on other similarly-priced plans

Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor isn’t the best email marketing platform in terms of value for money and customer support. It isn’t the cheapest option available to small businesses and lacks direct online support for users via phone or chat. However, it is an extremely easy product to use, providing simple automation tools and easy-to-access analytics. One of the characteristics that we like most about Campaign Monitor is the mobile-first preview that enables you to preview how your email template will look on mobile devices and different screen sizes. This is important when most of us access our emails on our phones when we’re out and about.
Pros Of Campaign Monitor

• Simple automation tools
• Easy-to-access analytics
• Mobile-first preview
• Personalised email content
• DIY email builder tool

Cons Of Campaign Monitor

• Can be expensive
• Lack of comprehensive customer support
• Contact importing is difficult when matching custom fields
• No SMS channel
• Lack of styling options

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is an email marketing platform that is specifically designed for eCommerce businesses. One of the main benefits of Klaviyo is the custom segmentation options that are available. This enables you to target a specific customer segment based on their user activities and behaviour. This is important for allowing small businesses to focus their resources logically. It also offers good automation tools. Whilst Klaviyo is generally considered the best email marketing platform for eCommerce by a lot of businesses, some of the features are a little more complicated to use and it is not the best option for non-eCommerce small businesses.
Pros Of Klaviyo

• Custom segmentation options for targeting specific audiences
• Specialises in eCommerce
• Good automation tools
• High customer retention
• Ability to set up flows

Cons Of Klaviyo

• Not as effective for non-eCommerce businesses
• Some features are complicated to use e.g video upload function
• Steep pricing
• Lack of customer support

Hubspot

One of the reasons that Hubspot is considered the best email marketing platform for small businesses by many digital marketers is because it offers a scalable solution for companies that are growing at a fast rate. Their motto is ‘helping millions grow better’ and this refers to their use of modular tools that enable you to fully customise your campaign and grow your platform as your company expands. Like Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor, it’s also easy to use. The drawback of Hubspot is that it can get expensive quickly when you start creating add ons and the reporting feature is a little more limited than other platforms.
Pros Of Hubspot

• Use of modular tools to create a highly customisable campaign
• Easy-to-use
• CRM and marketing software all in one place
• Strong analytics
• Effective social media scheduling tool

Cons Of Hubspot

• It gets expensive quickly
• Contracts aren’t flexible
• The templates are difficult to modify
• Reporting is limited
• You have to pay for additional technical support

Zoom Mail

Zoom Mail is a newer addition to the email marketing world, however, that doesn’t mean it can’t be considered one of the best email marketing platforms for small businesses. Zoom Mail uses AI to identify who to focus your sales efforts on and to provide real-time updates on lead engagement. You can trigger emails to be sent based on recipient behaviour or schedule a sequence of emails. Its personalisation options are also very high quality. The main drawback of Zoom Mail is that it is a relatively new platform, and so there is less information on tangible successes, than more established platforms such as Mailchimp.
Pros Of Zoom Mail

• Use of AI to focus sales efforts
• Effective personalisation options
• Real-time updates on lead engagement
• Automatic interest scoring
• Full management dashboard

Cons Of Zoom Mail

• Relatively new platform
• Lack of data/ reviews as of yet on the platform

If you are interested in using email marketing to boost revenue for your small business, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team at Fuel Communications for an informal chat about the options that are available to you.