Quite a lot of new comers to blogging slap a blog and go on a link building and SEO frenzy. But that’s leaving money on the table. You don’t want to rely heavily on SEO traffic because you can lose it the moment a new penalty comes out.
But with an email list, you don’t have to worry about your traffic dropping off since the people are on your list and you will keep on getting traffic as long as they stay being on your list.
There are 5 reputed email marketing services which you can fall back on to build your email list which I’ll talk about in a moment. But before that let me explain the benefits and basics of email marketing.
Email marketing benefits
Loyal traffic
One of the benefits of email marketing is its ability to let you keep your visitors loyal. What I mean by this is that when you post an email marketing form on your blog, visitors can subscribe to your blog. And once they’re subscribed, you can make contact with them whenever you post a new article. This will help the likelihood of their coming to your site time and again.
Build relationships
When you send good stuff to your visitors over and over again they will eventually become more familiar with your brand or what you do. And that will increase the relationship between you and them, which is something that can in turn increase your income and traffic.
Income
Income is possibly one of the biggest benefits of email marketing that a lot of people are fascinated by. Make a point to treat your subscribers like real people with real problems, and they will eventually turn out to be loyal readers who will listen to you and act upon your recommendations. If you have more loyal readers on your list, it’s easy to make easy money on demand.
Customers
In time, you will get more and more customers that you can sell to in the future. If you know what the people on your list want, it’s easy to find an affiliate product that will suit them and that they will be interested in buying. If you create your own product, you can also promote than on your list.
Email marketing basics – how to get started
The first thing that you need to do is sign up for an email marketing account with one of the top companies out there offering email marketing services. Then setup your email campaign settings by choosing your custom email address, confirmation message etc..
Follow that with writing your email marketing series and upload them to your account. Then you will add more emails into your autoresponder email series. You can also send broadcast emails that will be delivered as soon as you send them whenever you want.
After that create a sign-up form and post it on your website and you’re all set.
Best email marketing services
1. MailChimp
MailChimp provides one of the top email marketing services out there. It has a free plan for those just getting started in email marketing, and the features are almost as good as many of the paid options.
Automation and personalization are some of the features offered by MailChimp. Subscribers profile feature lets you keep a profile of your subscribers so as to be able to know the behaviors of your subscribers and what they want, and send them bespoke emails. It also has a feature that tells you what the best time is to send emails to your subscribers.
The great thing about MailChimp is that you can get started for free with no credit cards required, and use the service for free up to 2000 subscribers.
For accounts up to 600,000 subscribers, there are two payment options i.e. monthly subscription and a onetime payment. There are also plans for accounts with over 600k subscribers.
2. iContact
iContact is another company offering email marketing services you can use to set up an email marketing campaign.
The company offers a no end of features including hundreds of email templates, tracking as well as award-winning, robust support.
Pricing starts at $14 per month for up to 500 subscribers. For up to 2,500 subscribers, the price is $32 per month and for up to 5000 subscribers, the price is $52 per month. A free trail is also available.
3. Aweber
This is a popular email marketing service by Aweber Inc that is well liked by a lot of bloggers and online marketers these days.
The service comes with a plethora of robust features which include among others, design, templates, as well as good deliverability i.e. your emails won’t end up in the spam box. When it comes to design, you are offered hundreds of templates that you can use and customize.
Pricing starts at $19 per month for up to 500 subscribers and it goes up as the number of your subscriber increases. The price is pretty inexpensive in view of the many robust features that are included in the service. On top of that, there is also a 30 days free trail for those of you who want to test the waters first.
4. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is a great email marketing company that provides an email service comparable to that of the other top email marketing companies.
To mention some of its specs, customized templates, automation features and tracking are some of the key features that will help you deliver and run a successful email marketing campaign. You can also send unlimited emails.
Pricing starts at $20 per month for regular membership and goes up as your list number grows. You are also offered a free trial, no credit card required if you want to get your email marketing feet wet for free.
5. GetReponse
GetReponse is another top email marketing company with umpteen features. I use its email marketing services for this and other blogs and highly recommend it to others.
They include robust support, great testing features, analytics features, an easy to use control panel and a whole lot of others.
As far as pricing goes, the plans start at $15 per month for up to 1000 subscribers, and then its $25 per month for up to 2,500 subscribers and $54 per month for up to 5,000 subscribers, and you can cancel at any time. A free trial is also offered if you want to test the service before deciding if you want to pay for it.
What’s Your Feedback?
Do you use any of the above email marketing services? If yes, what has been your experiences with them? Do let us know of any other email marketing services you may have read about or used, in the comments box below.