If you been in the online business even just a little while you should know by now the importance of Email marketing to grow your business. Today we want to discuss the top 5 email marketing software features you should consider when choosing an email marketing software.

1. Deliverability: Deliverability refers to the % of emails that are actually getting to your subscribers inbox. Imagine having a a list of 1000 subscribers and your email service provider is only reaching 50% of them, that means half your database isn’t getting your messages, needless to say it’s huge loss of time and money. You should never settle for less than 99% deliverabilty rate from your email service provider. Also verify that they follow industry best practices for email deliverability so you can stay compliant with current legislation like CAN-SPAM and CASL. One company that we can recommend in that regards is ConstantContact -They also offer 60 Days Free Trial so definitely check them out.

2. Visual/Drag&Drop Editor– A good drag and drop makes writing and sending emails very user friendly, fast and easy to customize.you also want to check that your provider has plenty of built in ready to use email templates you can use and customize. Also make sure all templates and emails are mobile responsive (pretty much a standard but just in case)

3. Analytics & Reports-  When managing an email list it is very important to know your metrics. How many users been added to your list in a specific time frame? how many unsubscribed? how many people are opening your emails? How many click them? how many share them?Which devices are your emails read from? which countries? and so on.

That data can help you optimize your email marketing campaigns and improve your email marketing metrics and achieve your goals. If for example you know an email with subject line A generated 30% Open rate and 2% Click through rate while email with subject line B generated 15% open rate and 1% click through rate that tells you that the first email yield better results, that’s why it’s important to have a software that tracks all these things.

Try ConstantContact Email Marketing 60 Days Free

4.Contact segmentation– a good email marketing software will allow you to create segments/groups based on different conditions such as:

• User’s country/city
• User’s Activity/Engagement (Clicks, opens, unsubscribe, spam complaints)
• Purchase behavior
• Device Used
• Subscription Date.

And the number of conditions you can segment your list into is limitless.

Why is contact segmentation is important? Well the more targeted your email campaigns are the more likely your deliverabilty rates will improve, open and click rates, and revenues. A study by marketing Sherpa supports these claims

5. 3rd Party Integrations and email automation– We always strive to achive more things in less time. That’s why it’s important that your email service provider gives you great email automation features like:

• When a contact joins list A automatically remove him from list B (imagine having a customer on list A buys your product for a full price on day 1 and getting an email with a %50 coupon on day 3 for the same product? you would like to remove him automatically from that list once he purchases right?_
• Sending a newsletter with your recent blog post as soon as you publish the post on your blog.
• Email scheduling (holiday coupons, welcome emails)
• Autoresponder sequence.

examples of 3rd party integrations are:

Facebookads- create advertising campaigns from your email service provider.

CRM- Integrate email campaigns with your CRM.

eCommerce- Integrate email marketing with your online store.

Possibilities are endless and as you can understand email automation and 3rd party integrations are designed to save you time and money, so make sure you have these options when choosing an email marketing service provider. ConstantContact for example has over 409 Apps & Integrations you can connect with.

Hopefully this article will help you make a more informed decision when choosing an email service provider. While we think the features listed here are the top 5 email marketing software features, every online business is different and you may value other/more features, so as always do your research. Don’t be shy to ask question in the comment section and/or share this.

The post Top 5 Email Marketing Software Features to look for appeared first on Self Made Today.