We talked about email marketing definition and steps in the first section, and after that, in the second section of this email marketing complete guide, I showed some ways to build an email list for free. And in section three, I shared my experience about how to validate an email list for free. And in the fourth section, I shared a complete guide on how to write marketing emails. So, we have our email list and validated it and wrote our email before. And now we want to send our email to the list. In this section, I’m going to introduce top email marketing platforms and have an email marketing systems comparison; so you can choose or build the best email marketing platform yourself.
What is an email marketing system? The email marketing system consists mainly of two things. A sending engine, for example, an SMTP server that sends email and the email marketing management software where you can manage your email lists and your campaigns, monitor reports, and so on. we combine both to have complete email marketing platforms or systems.
When you want to build this email marketing platform mainly, we have three options, and you need to choose one of these options; according to your business.
1. Top Email Marketing Platforms
The first option is to go with email marketing platforms, like Getresponse, MailChimp, Aweber, etc. These companies will make things super easy for you on one platform. So you add your campaigns and add your emails and start sending emails. Everything is programmed and combined in one platform.
After I did a lot of researches and testing about these companies, the pricing is almost the same, especially if you start with five thousand or fifteen thousand contacts. Of course, they differ in some more features like A/B split tests, like maybe sales funnels and so on. But all are simple to use, all have good support, and the pricing is almost the same, and they have all the main core email marketing features. Yes, some are more popular, like Getresponse. I use Getresponse also, but it’s up to you; you can test whatever company you want. It’s not that big deal. You can go and select the one that fits you after you read each one and what features it gives for you, so that’s it, I think, now the idea.
2. Install and use your email marketing application
the second option is to install and use your email marketing application, but you need to subscribe to an SMTP service, the second part of the email marketing platform. So you get an SMTP service like Amazon SES like Sparkpost or Mailgun and so on. Then you combine it with your email marketing application, and you use this service to send your emails. The best email marketing applications, in my opinion, are Mailwizz, Mailster for WordPress, and Sendblaster. You can choose any of them and combine them with Amazon SES. It cost you less than 10 dollars to send 100000 emails.
3. Build your email system from scratch
The third option is to build everything from scratch. For example, if you want to have your email marketing application and your SMTP server, you need to make everything. You may tell me I don’t want to bother myself building everything; I go with a company and do everything with that company.
This post is about this. Why will we not choose a company and decide to build our server? When should you use a company and use an SMTP service, and when do you use your system? You have to know whether you are a bulk mailer or you are that person who has an online business, collect emails, build some lists and send promotional emails to them. So you should choose your type, and let’s follow up with the best solution for each class.
Bulk Mailers
let’s start with the first type; bulk mailers. If you are a bulk mailer, you can’t use email marketing companies like Getresponse, MailChimp, Aweber, and so on. You will get blocked. I tested this a lot. There aren’t any tricks. So don’t waste your time and bother ahead with email marketing companies. You need to go with your email marketing system using an SMTP service or building everything from scratch. And what’s better is to build everything from scratch. You need to have your system. You have complete control over everything; reputation, sending score, and everything else; even if you use an SMTP server like Amazon SES, these companies can also detect any public mailing and block you. So the best option is to build your email marketing system, your SMTP, and your application.
also, it may be a lot cheaper because you’ll buy only the VPS server, and everything else will be unlimited email unlimited customers you can send as much as your server can handle off emails and so on
Cold Emailers and small businesses
We have a second type which is the standard email marketers. Those people who have websites that collect emails have something to promote their service, so what to choose to make things easy for you? If you are a beginner and just started your business and don’t have any follower base, go and sign up for an email marketing company. Go and select MailChimp, Aweber, Getresponse, or any company, start with the free plan and test everything to see how things work.
Or if you have an extensive subscriber base, like maybe ten thousand leads or maybe twenty thousand customers or clients, if you go with MailChimp as an example for fifteen or twenty-five thousand contacts, you will see it would cost you around two hundred dollars per month. So if that is your case and you can’t handle email marketing company prices, I advise you to go with a premium SMTP service like Amazon SES with your email marketing application like Mailwizz. So you combined, and with a system like in only one day or two days, you can start sending emails and pay as you go so you can send up to one hundred thousand emails from only ten dollars with Amazon SES.
