Email marketing is the marketing holy grail for most businesses. Given that the ROI for email marketing is around $36 for every $1 spent, it’s no surprise. Email marketing builds customer loyalty, provides valuable information, nurtures leads, and increases awareness and direct sales. 

The most important part of running a successful email campaign is to choose a good email marketing software. The right email marketing software helps businesses run effective email campaigns without friction; run rewarding campaigns without overshooting their budgets—and unnecessarily complicating the process. 

Why do You Need Email Marketing Software?

Personalizing emails, running customized campaigns, sending newsletters, organizing your email list, etc. —all of these tasks are time-consuming and cost-intensive. 

Doing all of them manually significantly reduces the time you can spend doing other important value-add activities for your business. Email marketing software automates these tasks and helps manage them all efficiently. 

Even so, when searching for an email marketing solution for your business, you don’t necessarily have to hunt for the most robust software on the market. In fact—choosing a bloated, feature-heavy service can be counter-intuitive. 

Disadvantages of Choosing the Wrong Email Marketing Service 

Disadvantage #1: Missing Important Information in Your Campaigns Due to a Complicated Interface

Using an email marketing solution with a clunky interface does more than lower efficiency—it also makes information difficult to access. A visual editor makes building campaigns incredibly easy and intuitive. Benchmark Email prioritizes your user experience with a clear interface designed for ease of use.

Disadvantage #2: Unnecessary Features Drive Up Costs

Many small and medium business owners make the mistake of investing in an extensive tool like Hubspot (which is better suited for Enterprises).

Tools like Hubspot or Klaviyo are more than just email marketing services – they have customer relationship management and website-building capabilities tools. Naturally, these features drive the software pricing higher when compared to a more essentials-focused tool.

As your business grows, leads and contacts exponentially increase. A jump from 10,000 contacts to 100,000 contacts oftentimes puts you in a different pricing bracket—and can add other hidden costs that come with the same growth. 

Disadvantage #3: Time Spent Training Teams

Your email marketing service should be a solution, not an extra learning project for your marketing team to pour over for a couple of weeks.

Time spent training your marketing team directly translates to a loss of resources. This also increases the amount of knowledge to be transferred, making it difficult to hire new marketing talent. 

That’s why it becomes especially important to invest in an elegant and impactful email software tool that has little to no learning curve.

The Most Impactful Email Marketing Features for a Successful Campaign

Here are the essential features to look for when investing in an email marketing solution.

1. Lead Generation

Arguably, the most important aspect of an effective email strategy is lead generation. Lead generation is the process by which businesses establish primary contact with potential customers. 53% of marketers say half or more of their budget is allocated to lead generation. And email is the most effective lead-generation channel. 

Embedding website forms on landing pages will help you track the subsequent actions of the customer to help you understand what they’re looking for and even add them to your email list! This is one of the easiest ways to generate leads on your website. 

37% of B2B marketers use marketing automation to generate leads; however, this feature is not commonly included in all email tools. So, if you’re looking for a simple way to generate leads, pick an email tool that includes this feature. 

2. List Segmentation

Every type of lead requires nurturing through different content and resources. To cater to each lead type, you need first to differentiate and organize them based on relevant factors, such as the industry they’re in, their specific needs and issues, how much they know about your business, etc.

Segmenting your leads will help you personalize the buyer journey to maximize conversions by matching them with the right information and resources. By doing so, they are left with the impression that you know exactly what they need. This, in turn, builds customer loyalty and helps you establish a long-standing relationship with them. However you slice it, it’s a gift that keeps on giving. 

That’s why you should be sure to pick an email tool that provides a simple and easy way to manage and segment your leads based on filters like behavior patterns, region, industry, or content interaction.

3. Email Builders

An email builder helps marketers craft an insightful and creative email marketing campaign that instantly appeals to the recipient. You can use this feature to curate and design the perfect marketing campaign targeted to your buyers.  

Almost all email marketing tools include this feature. However, based on your skill level, you can choose the more appropriate tool for your business. For example, an amateur email marketer will probably opt for the easy and intuitive drag-and-drop feature. On the other hand, long-time email marketers may prefer to use HTML code elements when creating their emails. 

Equally important is to ensure that the email builder is compatible with all the rest of your sales and marketing tools and your CRM to maintain a smooth workflow. With creative marketing, the sky is the limit! And the right email builder can help you build and execute your dream campaign. 

4. Email Templates 

Picking email builders with ready-to-use templates is a very rewarding feature. Built-in templates can help you create a beautiful campaign without having to overthink the aesthetics of the email. Most templates are designed to maximize customer engagement and participation. 

Again, this is based on your preference and skill level. If you want to create a unique template that specifically fits your brand and image, you’ll want to invest in an email marketing tool that will allow you to customize, design, and save templates for future use.  

5. CRM Integration

The right CRM Integration feature has the power to strengthen your business. CRM Integration seamlessly connects your CRM software with third-party applications. This enables you to integrate and consolidate all your automation in one place, so you don’t have to go back and forth between several systems. 

The effectiveness of your CRM Integration will dictate the efficiency of your business. You’ll need a CRM Integration that dispenses the right data at the right time, allows automation, and enables a smooth workflow across all your applications—be it ERP, social media, mobile devices, e-commerce systems, calendars, etc. 

Based on the needs of your business, you can choose the level of CRM integration you require to carry out your marketing activities optimally. For example, CRM Integrations relating to customer interactions can range from sales forecasting and lead management to business intelligence, marketing analytics, and more—depending on your business. The email marketing tool that provides you with the right level of CRM integration will be both cost-effective and a game-changer.   

6. Content Creation

This may seem a bit out of left field, but having an email marketing tool with content creation capabilities is a game changer. Thinking of fresh, creative email copy for every send can be overwhelming and downright difficult. However, if you are utilizing an email marketing tool with features that assist with the content creation process, you can send out better content faster.

Benchmark Email’s Smart Content feature does just that. It takes your prompts and uses them to create fresh content based on successful content from previous sends. No more writer’s block holding up your email campaign creation. 

7. Email List Verification

Get yourself an email marketing tool that allows you to verify your email list to ensure you’re not inadvertently sending your emails out to false or inactive accounts. Doing so can damage your sender reputation and even get your email blacklisted.

Benchmark Email works with Kickbox to scan emails and verify that each exists on the server. And if you’re looking to double down on your email deliverability, our Smart Sending feature eliminates inactive recipients, so you’re only sending emails to engaged subscribers, which ensures your sender score stays healthy.

Choose the Right Email Marketing Software for Your Business Today!

The above five features are indispensable to any marketing strategy, simple or complex. When executed well, they have a sizable impact on business returns and the ease of business management, customer interaction, and productivity. That’s why it is important to invest some time and energy in researching marketing software before integrating it into your marketing strategy. 

Benchmark Email ensures your business has all of the features it needs to make your email marketing campaign successful without overwhelming you with unnecessary extras. To try Benchmark Email at no cost, sign up for our free plan today!