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3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Choosing an Email Marketing Service

Choosing an email marketing service can be intimidating…and for good reason.

The last I checked, there are more than 350+ email marketing and automation service providers out there in the market. This makes narrowing down a selection a lot harder.

Believe me when I tell you, it was hard for me to settle on a provider for my business.

My goal (+ hope) is that this blog post will serve as a reference point and guide to choosing the RIGHT service provider based on ONE important thing:

Your business goals…

So let’s get into the post shall we?

Common Mistakes I See People Making with Choosing an Email Marketing Service

I get it. You see the blog posts online that review the Top X email marketing service providers of [Insert Year].

Are these articles helpful?

Hell yea they are…

In fact, as I was putting together this blog post, I was on the verge of writing the same type of post.

But…then…I changed my mind because I knew that there are some other things to consider.

I would never recommend that you choose something because EVERYBODY else is using it.

I believe one of the main considerations you should think about is:

How Well Does The Email Marketing Service Align With My Business Goals?

Yes my friend…

I know this wasn’t the answer you were expecting but you’ve gotta know this before choosing a service.

This question brings me to the next point in this post which is….

Email Marketing Platforms Are Not Created Equal

Some are easy to use, while others…well it may take you a little time to get going.

I’ve been online for a while and have used quite a few email marketing systems. I have pretty much put email marketing services into 3 categories: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced.

To illustrate how these three categories of email marketing platforms can work, check out these three scenarios:

Scenario 1: Lisa, the Social Media Marketing Consultant

Lisa is a social media marketing consultant that loves all things social media. She has been running her social media marketing business for 7 months and wants to do more email marketing.

Lisa is not a fan of tech, but she realizes the importance of building a list of prospective clients to market her services to. Lisa needs an email marketing service that is easy to use, won’t take a lot of time to set up and is affordable.

She wants to be able to send emails out to her email subbies every week. Lisa would love to run special offers to offer discounts for her consulting packages. She also wants to add a few email opt-in forms to her blog’s sidebar – and needs a service that’s WordPress compatible.

Lisa has also made it clear that she doesn’t want to manage a ton of email lists and do any advanced marketing.

My recommendations for Lisa: An email marketing service for Beginners like AWeber or Mailchimp would be perfect for Lisa. These systems are easy to use, setup and manage.

 

Scenario 2: Teresa, the Blogger and Infopreneur

Teresa is a seasoned blogger and infopreneur that sells multiple digital products from her blog.

Teresa is pretty tech savvy and wants step up her list building efforts in a major way. For the past few years, she has been using Mailchimp to build and manage her email list, but has outgrown the system.

Teresa has been reading up on list building and has discovered that she needs to add multiple opt-in forms to her blog to get more email subscribers.

Teresa also wants to add a dedicated landing page on her blog to give away a free eBook. She also wants to add email opt-in forms to all of her blog posts and use pop-ups to increase conversions to her email list.

Teresa needs a system that integrates with her WordPress blog. She wants to do some basic marketing automation sequences that trigger based on a subscriber’s “behavior”.

My recommendations for Teresa: An email marketing service for Intermediate users like Mailerlite. Mailerlite will help Teresa create landing pages, multiple email opt-in forms and popups for her blog.

Since Lisa is tech savvy, setting up Mailerlite will not be intimidating to her as long as she has access to some tutorials that she can use.

 

Scenario 3: Stephanie, the Infopreneur and Digital Marketer

Stephanie has been running her digital marketing business for 5+ years and is a whiz at technology. She consults with small businesses helping them with their online marketing challenges and loves doing it.

She is always on top of the latest trends in technology and loves testing out new tools that come on the market. Stephanie is ready to move away from doing one-on-one consulting work with her clients. She wants to strike a balance in her business with offering online courses to her audience.

Stephanie dreads product launches because they are very stressful. She wants to leverage the power of Evergreen “Funnels” to sell her courses on autopilot.

For the past few years, Stephanie has been using AWeber to manage her email lists. While AWeber has worked…she realizes that the system has a lot of technical limitations.

Stephanie needs an email marketing automation platform that she can use to: run evergreen funnels, do advanced list segmentation, and trigger email sequences based on “specific actions” subscribers take. She also needs a service with a visual editor to “see” her funnels in action.

Stephanie is using tools like Thrive Leads to add opt-in forms to her blog posts and Thrive Content builder to build landing pages. The email service she invests in needs to integrate seamlessly with these tools.

My recommendations for Stephanie: An Advanced marketing automation platform like Active Campaign is right up Stephanie’s alley.

Since Stephanie is a whiz at technology, she will love the advanced capabilities that Active Campaign offers. Setting up funnels and advanced segmentation will be a breeze for her to implement.

 

Answer These 3 Questions Before Choosing an Email Marketing Service for your Business

Before you head off to choose an email marketing service for your business, be sure to do your research and answer these questions:

Question 1: Does the platform work well with other tools out that I am planning to use (or currently using in my business)?

I bring this up because a little while ago I worked with a customer that wanted to use Active Campaign as their email provider, but couldn’t.

Why?

Well because the platform that they used to build their website was not compatible with AC (which was a total bummer).

So my friend, you want to make sure that the email marketing service you decide to invest in is compatible with the current technology you are using.

Question 2: Will the platform help you accomplish your marketing goals?

Based on the previous scenarios that the email marketing platforms that I recommended for each business owner is aligned with their business goals and comfort levels with technology.

Here’s why:

Once you invest in a software application (especially email marketing) unless you have a team in place, you will be the one on the hook that has to use it.

So you want to make sho (that’s what my grandparents from the country say) that you can handle the tool.

Question 3: Are there any reviews for the email marketing platform (and support in place) in case you need it?

You never know when you will run across some issues with technology. Sooo you want to make sure that the service that you choose has some level of support.

Another thing you want to do is look for customer reviews. One thing that I’ve noticed in the tech space is that peeps are very vocal about tools.

Before choosing an email marketing platform, check to see if there are some reviews out there about the service and support in place.

What Has Your Experience Been with Choosing an Email Marketing Platform for your Business?

There is sooo much more to email marketing yall. When I created the Digital Domination Starter, Pro and Complete kits, I wanted to make sure that I covered email marketing more in depth and added some guidance for choosing a system for your business.

So tell me, what has your experience been with choosing an email marketing platform for your business? Please drop me a comment below.

Cheers peeps….
Kim G.