As a small business owner you are constantly looking for new ways and ideas to grow your small business and email marketing is a proven method for reaching out to a potential customer base and build long-lasting business relationships. You might be aware about the email marketing newsletters but you may not know about the free email marketing software solutions that can help your small business in acquiring new customers (or some great paid tools like NetHunt that also have a free version available). In this post we will explore the top free email marketing software solutions for small business.
Before we dig deeper into the topic let’s have a look at some interesting data about email marketing.
There are 3.7 billion e-mail users in the world as of 2017 out of which around 233 million users are based in the United States. According to an estimate estimate the number of e-mail users in the U.S. will reach nearly 255 million by the end of 2020.
E-mail is likely to remain one of the key marketing channels in the United States. Around half of the marketers in the United States intend to increase spending on e-mail marketing and about 48 percent are expected to maintain their existing budgets.
The e-mail advertising spending in the U.S. is expected to increase from US $270 million in 2015 to US $350 million in 2019.
According to a survey done by the manifest, 69% of the business spend time and money in email marketing.
What is an email Marketing Software?
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Software Applications that are designed to plan, execute, and monitor email marketing campaigns are known as email marketing software. Tools such as newsletter builders, email scheduling, and campaign automation are often present in email marketing software solutions that make them ideal for running email campaigns. They are equipped to provide marketers with reporting and analytics options that allow them to fine-tune their email marketing efforts.
Email marketing software enables small business owners to reach out to their target audience and build relationships with current and potential customers through one of the most proven marketing channels. These bulk email software solutions allow you to deliver targeted messages effortlessly and distribute bulk messages, freeing you from time consuming tasks. Such tools are also designed to optimize your campaigns with analytics, so you can make changes to your campaigns and be more impactful with your messages.
Having a limited budget shouldn’t stop you from email marketing as there are plenty of vendors that offer their bulk email marketing software for free.
Choosing free bulk email marketing software can be a difficult task and so, we have listed the most reputable bulk emails software to make it easier for you to gauge which options are most suitable for you.
Important points to remember when choosing a good bulk email software:
It is important to keep in mind that your success with email marketing 99% depends on the email marketing software you choose because software itself is responsible for making sure that your bulk emails actually get delivered.
- Allows you to create interactive email newsletters with a drag-and-drop functionality.
- Simple and user friendly interfaces.
- Allows importing, exporting and managing contacts in a simple manner.
- Ensures deliverability of emails into inbox rather than spam folder.
- Reporting and analytics to track performance of your bulk email campaigns.
By the end of 2022, there will be more than 4.3 billion email users around the world. That’s more than half of the entire world’s population and a huge potential for small businesses leveraging email marketing to achieve different business goals such as customer engagement, indirect brand marketing and customer retention.
As a small business owner, you may have a spreadsheet with list of your contacts as your version of an email marketing system. But the fact is with time your marketing demands grow as well and you will soon find yourself drowned in chaotic emails and overwhelmed with unsubscribe lists if you don’t automate the bulk emailing tasks with a bulk email marketing software.
If budget is one of your main concerns then there are plenty of email marketing software solutions that you can choose and guess what, they go beyond offering a free trial as they actually have plans that you can use without time limit at zero cost but with only a limited number of email subscribers or contacts.
21 Free Email Marketing software solutions for Small Businesses
It is one of the most popular email marketing software on the market primarily because it is easy to use and it also offers a forever free email marketing plan.
Mailchimp comes with an easy email newsletter builder with a drag-and-drop feature, autoresponders, segmenting contacts into groups and tracking for analytics. It also allows you to setup delivery times based on users’ timezones, and you can setup segmenting based on geolocation as well.
You can easily integrate MailChimp with WordPress using plugin, Magento, Shopify, and many other popular services on the web.
When it comes to marketing automation features, Mailchimp platform is quite limited in features when compared to other providers email marketing software solutions such as Drip or ConvertKit.
Mailchimp support is offered by email, live chat, and a large tutorials knowledge-base.
Mailchimp offers a forever free plan which allows you to send 12,000 emails for up to 2,000 subscribers. This plan is fairly limited because you don’t features like send-time optimization, advanced segmentation, multi-variate testing, etc. You are also required to display their branding in your email. Last but not least, support is restricted to email only, and you may find it not as helpful.
Their paid plans start from $10/month for up to 500 subscribers, and the pricing increases in the increment of 500 subscribers.
Constant Contact
When it comes to free email marketing software solution for Small Businesses, Constant contact come on top of the list. It is also the most easy to use and beginner friendly email marketing service with WordPress plugin available to easily integrate with WordPress website.
You can easily manage your email lists, contacts, email templates, marketing calendar, and more.
Each account gives you access to easy tracking and reporting, built-in social media sharing tools, free image library, list segmentation, Facebook ads integration, and a powerful eCommerce integration for Shopify stores.
Their Email Plus accounts also come with powerful features like email automation, surveys & polls, coupons, online donations, and subject line A/B testing to maximize your open rate.
Constant Contact offers unmatched support with live chat, phone calls, email, community support, and a vast library of helpful resources.
Apart from online training, they also offer in-person live seminars across the United States. This allows small businesses to quickly learn the basics of email marketing and start using it to grow their business like a pro.
For all the reasons above, we rate Constant Contact the best email marketing service for small businesses.
Constant Contact has a 60-day free trial (no credit-card required). After that their pricing starts as low as $20/month.
Wix ShoutOut
It is extremely simple email marketing software designed for small businesses. It simplifies creating and sending email newsletters using its intuitive design tools, designer-made templates, and bulk email mailing features.
It allows you to customize the newsletter’s design by changing colors, text fonts, and background etc. All the newsletters that you design will be responsive which means they will look beautiful on tablets, smart phones and small devices.
Also, it comes with a powerful mailing list management tool that makes it easy to segment your contacts and create targeted email marketing campaigns. You can also evaluate its paid features at no cost when you sign up for a Wix ShoutOut free trial here.
It also has features such as contact integration, social media tools, and stats tracker based on your campaign’s open, view, and click rates.
Since it’s a product by Wix, a robust website builder, Wix ShoutOut works best with your website made on the platform. At the same time, you can also subscribe to the product on its own.
Drip
is another very powerful email marketing platform for eCommerce, bloggers, and marketers. It offers diverse tools to make marketing automation and personalization easy.
It offers seamless integration for all popular website builders including WordPress and WooCommerce. This allows you to easily add sign up forms to your website and capture more leads.
What sets Drip apart from the competition is their intelligent marketing automation tools, smarter email segmenting, list groups, and a visual workflow builder. These features allow you to reach targeted customers in your email list to get more sales.
Support options at Drip include live chat support, webinars, automation training, detailed courses, free guides and excellent documentation.
Drip can be used for several purposes because it allows users to connect, engage, and relate to every customer on a personal level with smarter eCommerce marketing automation.
Drip is the best email marketing software for eCommerce websites and business owners who want more advanced tools for email marketing automation.
Drip offers a free account for up to 100 subscribers. After that their plans starts from $49 / month which includes all their features.
Zoho offers complete software suite for managing small business and Zoho’s email marketing platform is known as Zoho Campaigns.
It is built to create, send, and track email campaigns for small- to medium-sized businesses. It connects with other applications of the Zoho suite, hence, it’s wise to also include this product for your email marketing needs if you’re already using Zoho apps, especially Zoho CRM.
It automates email marketing with permission-based access and personalized campaigns. Should you want to assess this product’s features further, you can sign up for a Zoho Campaigns free trial here.
Apart from its powerful campaign creation tools, Zoho Campaigns also comes with a wide range of features that will allow you to fine-tune your email marketing efforts. For one, it has a recipient activity tracking tool and engagement measurement capability that will help you determine how your customers are interacting with your messages.
Additionally, the platform comes with built-in A/B testing functionalities so you can gauge the efficacy of your campaigns before you even roll them out.
SendinBlue
It is a complete email marketing software for small businesses and it also offers SMS marketing. It is one of the fastest growing email marketing platforms in Europe.
It is an extremely easy to use platform with excellent tools to create beautiful and highly engaging emails. Their simple drag and drop tools are perfect for beginners with no experience in email marketing.
It includes beginner-friendly automation tools that allow you to send transactional emails, create workflows, and segment users. It can also select the best time to send email using their AI algorithms.
SendinBlue offer a completely free email marketing plan that lets you send up to 300 emails per day, but all your emails will have their branding. Paid plans start from $25 per month. You can also include SMS to your account, but the pricing will vary based on your sending requirements.
MailJet
Very popular email marketing software from Europe that sends, tracks, and delivers emails for both marketing and transactional purposes.
It’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor, lets users create email campaigns easily with free and responsive email and newsletter templates. What makes this great is that you can personalize the email and see how it looks like from the receiver’s end to ensure its well-crafted. Also, it integrates seamlessly with REST and SMTP servers to guarantee delivery. This way, you can be sure that your emails aren’t getting lost or ending up in the spam folder.
It also provides analytics for tracking progress and reporting capabilities. It has a campaign comparison system that lets you develop campaigns based on previous performance and future performance forecasts. In a nutshell, it analyzes how your customers are responding to your campaigns, collects the data on click or view rates, and provides you with comprehensive reports that you can pull insights from later on.
ConvertKit
It is a bulk email marketing software for professional bloggers, web masters and marketers. It is extremely easy to use and very powerful.
ConvertKit allows users to easily offer content upgrades and incentives with email signup forms. It also comes with easy to manage auto-responders allowing you to send drip emails.
You can easily segment contacts into those who are interested and those who have already purchased. This helps you increase conversions with automated emails with a touch of personalization.
ConvertKit offers email based support and have extensive knowledge base with great learning material to help you polish your email marketing skills.
A lot of its features are unique and especially designed for creators and professional bloggers that’s why it is among the best email marketing service for professional bloggers.
ConvertKit offers a 14-day free trial, and their pricing starts from $29/month. They also offer a 30-day refund policy.
Mailgun
It is a bulk email marketing software specifically for developers. Unlike other email marketing software solutions this platform doesn’t offer drag-and-drop navigation and therefore it is not suited for beginners or not so tech savvy marketers.
However, if you are looking for the complete flexibility to configure your campaigns and have IT experts by your side then this can do wonders for you.
It has an API-first architecture that is designed for reliability and. It also comes with a robust sending infrastructure and advanced email validation that lets you send transactional emails in bulk without worrying about them bouncing back or ending up in spam.
Mailgun also comes with powerful tracking and analytics tools that let you access searchable logs and helps you remain up-to-date on the status of your email campaigns. You can even tag certain data so that it is easier to pull information for A/B testing later on.
FreshMail
Cloud-based bulk email marketing software created for small and mid-sized businesses. It provides users with an intuitive template editor that lets you create emails and newsletters using drag-and-drop navigation or via HTML, making it great for users with limited coding knowledge as well as developers.
It has a wide range of industry-specific templates to accelerate the email newsletter design process. In addition it also offers robust automation options to help make your campaigns more efficient as well as real-time email tracking tools to give you an idea of your email campaigns performance.
What makes FreshMail different from its competitors is that it comes with clever auto-responders that let you auto-respond to customers depending on how they interact with your messages.
Additionally, it has a spam test feature that helps you ensure that your email is free from content that might cause it to end up in the spam folder, ensuring deliverability.
GetResponse
It is also among popular email marketing software solution for small businesses. It is extremely easy to use and simplifies email marketing even for beginners.
It comes with some amazing marketing automation tools which allow you to create smart automated campaigns.
With their drag and drop builder, you can create campaigns, segment contacts, and send content designed for specific groups. These tools help you create effective campaigns to boost your profits.
GetResponse comes with beautiful responsive forms, landing pages, A/B testing, tracking, and autoresponders. It also integrates with third party lead generation software like OptinMonster, SalesForce, Google Docs, ZenDesk, etc.
Support is provided by phone, live chat, and email. Their help section is full of free learning material including videos, webinars, how-tos, guides, etc.
GetResponse offers a 30-day free trial. Their pricing starts at $15/month.
AWeber
Aweber is among the oldest and most popular email marketing software solution for Small Businesses. It offers a wide-range of tools for small businesses to manage their email marketing campaigns.
Getting started with AWeber is easy. It connects seamlessly to most CMS platforms including WordPress.
It also offers ready to use email templates, list management, auto-responders, and email tracking with detailed insights.
Support options include live chat, phone support, email support, live webinars, and a vast knowledge base.
It offers a 30-day free trial. After that, their pricing starts from $19/month. You can also signup for quarterly or annual plans to save even more.
RedCappi
An award-winning bulk email marketing software that you can use for free. It provides small companies and medium-sized businesses with powerful features to streamline their email marketing process.
It has a drag-and-drop email newsletter editor, custom email campaign creators, email schedule automation, and contact management tools.
Additionally, it provides users with real-time insights on your email marketing data so that it is easier to adjust your workflow.
Optimizing your email marketing is just one thing but RedCappi also helps you leverage social networks to help you generate more leads. This way, you can improve brand awareness and customer loyal
Email Octopus
It allows users to send out emails through the Amazon Simple Email Service (SES). It comes with sophisticated yet easy-to-use email builders that can generate responsive HTML emails for time-based drip campaigns.
Also, this email marketing software solution is equipped with powerful tools such as bounce prevention and deliverability management so that you can make sure that your emails are reaching their respective destinations.
Other powerful features of this tool are its auto-responders, extensive image library, template management, and analytics. In case you are looking for other functionalities, this platform can also integrate with over 500 products and services through its developer API functionality. Lastly, Email Octopus is also fully compliant with the GDPR for your peace of mind if you are targeting users in European Union.
List of Free and Paid email Marketing Software Solutions
Express Pigeon
It is a free email marketing software built for reliability, flexibility and known for its robustness. It is best suited for marketers, freelancers, and small business owners who do have limited technical knowledge as it comes with a responsive editor complete with a wide variety of templates for different purposes.
The software is also equipped with robust email scheduling, contact segmentation, and A/B testing tools that make it easy to plan effective and streamlined email marketing campaigns.
You can even check the success of your email campaigns by using the campaign reporting tool.
In case if you feel that this free email marketing software doesn’t have particular functions that you might want for your campaigns, it also comes with powerful API capabilities that let it integrate with some of the most popular business systems on the market.
Pepipost
Transactional email marketing software offering best-in-class features at prices that won’t burn your pocket. Best suited for freelancers and small businesses, it comes with fast SMTP APIs, AI-powered email delivery, efficient bounce prevention, and reliable email tracking options.
It also has powerful security features to help you safeguard your information. Additionally, it provides users with a scalable architecture that doesn’t require you to maintain in-house servers to ensure the delivery of your emails.
Benchmark
It is an email marketing software which is known for its feature-rich WYSIWYG email editor that can be navigated using a drag-and-drop tool.
This makes it a good email marketing software solution for small business who want to create visually stunning, responsive emails in just a few clicks.
Users can also edit photos right on its editor and add effects, stickers, and texts. Moreover, it allows users to streamline the creation of auto-responses, surveys, and polls and then let you preview your work via mobile or desktop mode.
After rolling out campaigns, you also have the option to track campaigns success using real-time reporting features.
Taximail
This free email marketing software solution is very powerful which provides users with ways to set up, test, implement, and assess campaigns according to your preferences.
It is equipped with a drag-and-drop email editor and an advanced HTML editor, this tool is ideal for both beginners and professional developers that have coding knowledge.
It even provides users with A/B testing tool to help refine emails and test effectiveness before launching the campaigns.
Taximail also has real-time reporting options, spam diagnosis tools, and demographic detection, so that you can analyze the performance of your email marketing efforts and have a better understanding of your target market.
Marketo
It is an innovative email marketing software solution from Adobe. With this bulk email marketing solution you can engage your customers as individuals by responding to them based on what they do no matter wherever they are.
Powered by a smart marketing database, marketers can have a 360-degree view of each customer across web, email, social, and mobile channels.
Having access to rich profiles of your customers all in a single place, create relevant conversations with each of them, based on their individual behaviors, preferences, and demographics, in real time.
You can deliver relevant, triggered email marketing messages in a matter of minutes with easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface designed for marketers. Respond to customer journeys on the fly without waiting for your programmers to make the changes you need.
Infusionsoft
It is another very popular email marketing software for small businesses if you have 2-25 employees and generate between $100,000 and $3 million in annual revenue.
Infusionsoft by Keap’s email marketing capabilities allow you to design professional looking email newsletters, build campaigns, track how your emails and campaigns are performing and provide email deliverability tools.
The advantage of using infusionsoft is that not only it acts as email marketing software, but also effectively streamlines your marketing by combining your CRM, sales and marketing automation software and online store into one platform.
Hubspot
A popular email marketing software solution that is designed to streamline the organization, tracking, and nurturing of leads for campaigns.
It is among the most trusted platforms which offer the most advanced and powerful features. It goes beyond email marketing. If you want to start using its features, you can easily do by signing up for free Hubspot Marketing App.
Hubspot platform is equipped with a robust contact management system that lets users segment leads according to various parameters.
You can also schedule and queue the delivery of emails to a prospect for a personalized sequence. It also allows you to reduce the time it takes to send repetitive emails by tracking their performance to know which campaigns are effective or not.
Bottom Line
There are several of email marketing software solutions for small businesses on the market, all offering diverse features, tools and email services for marketing and transactional purposes which makes it difficult for beginners in marketing to pick the best email marketing service.
The list above is an effort to provide our users with the information they need to make a decision when it comes to choosing the best free email marketing software solution for small business.
If you’re a small business owner who wants powerful bulk email marketing software that combines both email marketing and SMS marketing then you can use SendinBlue.
One thing you need to keep in mind that do not spam your subscribers and only send newsletters that contain useful content.
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