How to Choose an Email Provider for Business Marketing

Email Service Providers: Features You Need

When choosing the right email marketing software for your business, the first step is determining the features you need. Maybe your business needs advanced segmentation options to send marketing messages to a wide and diverse audience, or perhaps you are looking for a software program with A/B testing abilities to allow you to figure out what works best when sending marketing messages. Before making the decision, create a list of the most crucial features of your business to make it easier to narrow your choices down.

In order to figure out which features you need, consider your ideal marketing campaign. What it looks like, and what do customers feel when engaging with it? What results are you looking to achieve with your email campaign? Once you have a clearer picture of your email marketing campaigns, it’s easier to identify the necessary features to reach your goals.

Choosing the Best Email Provider – Think About Your Budget

Once you have a list of the features you need, you can start thinking about how much you want to spend on it. Email marketing services’ price typically depends on the number of subscribers you have, so it’s important to keep that in mind before determining the budget.

When thinking about your budget, it’s crucial to consider the size and needs of your business to ensure that the budget is realistic. Also, consider the long-term cost of using the platform rather than just the set-up costs. Find out if a free trial option or a money-back guarantee is available, especially if you are setting up email marketing on a small budget.

Understand the Emails You Want to Send Before Choosing the Best Email Service Provider

The next step in the process is to consider the type of emails that you want to send. Are you going to be sending mainly transactional messages? Drip email campaigns? Bulk emails? One-off promotional emails? Automated welcome messages?

How you answer this question will make all the difference in helping you narrow your choices, as some platforms are a better fit for certain types of emails than others. For example, an email marketing platform offering good contact management features might be a better choice if you mainly want to send one-off promotional emails.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a solid option for small businesses, a platform that offers advanced marketing automation and segmentation capabilities might be worth checking.

Consider the Email Platform Support

When choosing an email marketing platform, you want to ensure that the email provider you choose offers round-the-clock support. This is crucial if you face future problems or have questions when using the platform.

Most email marketing platforms today offer customer support, so this shouldn’t be a feature that is hard to find. When choosing the right email marketing platform for your business, customer support is a crucial factor to consider. Keep it at the forefront of your mind as you weigh up your options and determine the best platform for you.

Check the Email Platform Deliverability Rates

Before you make your final decision on choosing the right email marketing service, it’s important to double-check the deliverability rates of the email provider platforms that you are thinking about signing up for. The deliverability rate refers to the percentage of emails successfully sent and delivered to the recipients’ inboxes. Ideally, you will want to sign up to use a platform that has a high deliverability rate so that you can be sure that your recipients are going to receive the messages you send.

You can do several things to check the deliverability rate of an email marketing platform before you sign up to use it. The first step is to contact the customer support team and ask about their deliverability rates. Many also list their deliverability rate on their website, but it can be a good idea to double-check this by using a deliverability testing tool like Litmus or Email on Acid, and to read testimonials and reviews from other customers.

Consider the User-Friendliness of Your Selected Email Provider

Before choosing the right email marketing platform for your business, think about how user-friendly you need the interface to be. A user-friendly interface has intuitive navigation, allowing the system to easily perform routine tasks quickly and design engaging, aesthetically pleasing emails that your recipients will enjoy receiving.

Consider the people who are going to be using the email marketing platform before you decide on the level of user-friendliness you need. A more advanced platform might be fine if you have designers with strong coding knowledge working for you. On the other hand, if you’re designing your marketing emails yourself and have little to no coding knowledge, a more user-friendly option will be a better choice.

Consider Integrations

Before choosing the right email marketing platform for your business, it’s worth considering the integrations available with any other software programs you use or are considering using in the future. For example, you may need to integrate with external platforms for various reasons, including transferring contact data, confirming payments, sending events from a CRM, importing analytics, sending order information and more.

Bouncer is a leading email verification and validation service that can integrate with many email service providers, making it an ideal choice for businesses looking to ensure the quality of their email lists.

Bouncer supports integrations with popular email service providers like Mailchimp, HubSpot, and Campaign Monitor, making it easy for businesses to seamlessly integrate their email marketing efforts with Bouncer’s email verification and validation services (just explore our free email checker to whet your appetite!)

Come Up with a Team to Test the Email Provider Platform

Getting some people together as testers for your new email marketing platform is a good idea. They will test it out before starting your email marketing efforts. They might test many factors, for example, the deliverability rates, or creating emails to see how the design tools work. Coming up with a good team of people to test the platform is a crucial step in choosing the right option for you, as it will help you ensure that the platform you choose is the right fit for your business.

Consider working with a project manager who will be responsible for overseeing the testing process, a designer who will be responsible for creating engaging emails using the platform, a developer who will be setting the platform up and configuring it, and an analyst who will take on the role of tracking and analysing the results you get.

Come Up with a List of Email Provider Options

Once you have considered all the main important factors for choosing the right email marketing platform for your business, it’s time to come up with a list of options to choose from. To do this, all you need to do is search for email marketing platforms in your usual search engine.

Chances are that you will get a long list of options, so it’s important to use the features you’ve decided your business needs to access to set up successful email marketing campaigns. For example, if you are on a small budget, you might want to consider eliminating any platforms that don’t offer a money-back guarantee or a free trial. Or, if you need advanced segmentation options or a customer relationship management system, you can discard any platforms that don’t offer this feature.

Is it worth going for free email service providers?

While free email service providers may seem like an enticing option for cost-conscious users, it’s important to take a step back and consider the true cost of “free” tools. Sure, you may not be spending any actual money, but you could be paying in other ways.

For starters, free email service providers often lack the advanced features, customization options, and robust security measures that paid alternatives offer. This might leave you vulnerable to spam, data breaches, and limited functionality when it comes to organizing and managing your inbox.

Another factor to consider is that free email services are frequently supported by advertising. This means you may be inundated with ads that can clutter your inbox or even compromise your privacy. After all, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and these companies need to generate revenue somehow. In some cases, they may even sell your data to third parties, putting your privacy at risk.

Furthermore, free email service providers often come with limited storage capacity. As your inbox fills up, you may find yourself having to delete old emails or attachments, potentially losing important information in the process. Paid email services, on the other hand, usually offer generous storage options, saving you from this dilemma.

Lastly, free email services can lack the professional appearance and credibility that a paid, personalized domain can provide. This can negatively impact your reputation, especially if you’re using the email service for business purposes.

So, while it may be tempting to opt for a free email service provider, it’s crucial to weigh the potential downsides against the immediate monetary savings. You may find that the hidden costs of free email services far outweigh the benefits.

Try Your Email Provider Out First

Once you’ve made a list of the features you need and have narrowed down your options, it’s important to consider trying out each platform before making a final decision. This will give you a better idea of how each platform works and which is likely to be a better fit for your business. The good news is that most email marketing platforms available today offer a free trial for new users, so you can use this before you sign up for real to get a feel for the platform and decide if it’s right for you.

The right email marketing platform can help your business go further when it comes to marketing success. After making a list of the features your business needs, consider these factors before choosing the right fit.

FAQ: Best Email Providers, Free Email Services, and Email Service Providers

What are the best email service providers?

There are many email service providers (also best free email service) to choose from, including Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, gmx mail, iCloud mail, AOL mail, and Zoho Mail. The best email service for you depends on your specific needs and preferences. These email service provider services offer a range of features, including end-to-end encryption, email hosting, email marketing, import contacts, drag and drop email builder, various attachment size, unlimited storage, and email management.

What are the best email service providers for multiple email addresses?

Gmail and Outlook are popular choices for multiple email addresses, as they allow you to manage multiple accounts from a single inbox.

What is an email service?

An email service is a platform that enables users to send and receive electronic mail via email providers (or even several email service providers).

What is global mail exchange?

Global mail exchange is the process by which email client messages are transmitted and delivered across different email service providers and domains, including free email provider options.

What are email clients?

Email clients are software applications that enable users to access and manage their email accounts from their computer or mobile device.

What is a free email account?

A free account is an email account that is offered for free, without any subscription fees, in various email address format options, on Android and iOS if needed.