A lot of people ask me if they need to use specialist email marketing software to send their marketing emails. I understand the appeal of saving money where you can, how about just seeing how it goes using outlook first? Lots of people tell me that outlook sends emails, they just want to send emails, so what is the point paying for software? Well, thats fine, but you can apply the same logical to lots of things.
These are just a few of the numerous reasons that you should use email marketing software:
Lists can be managed automatically. This becomes more important the bigger your list is. You dont need to do anything when people add or remove themselves from your list, dead email addresses arent a problem either as they will be automatically removed.
You can send automated emails, welcome emails when someone joins your mailing list are a great example of why you would want to do this.
You can track the performance of the emails you send. You will probably want to be able to measure unsubscribe rates as well as who opened your emails and followed your links. If you want to improve future campaigns this is the sort of thing you need to know.
Maybe that is enough to make your mind up? If not, think about the support you can get from an email marketing company. You will need tools to make sure that your emails are delivered rather than ending up in the spam box, that you can use to customise emails for each recipient (i.e.
Of course it isnt just about the tools, as email marketing experts you will be able to call upon advice and help on getting the best results from email marketing.
How much of that can outlook do? When you look at it like that, using outlook for email marketing because it sends emails is like using your bike to make deliveries because it takes you from a to b. Not as well as a delivery van though!
Of course there are two elements to this. It is great to have the tools and support, but you have to make use of them if you are going to experience the benefits. The reporting functionality of most email marketing software is one of the most appealing things for the savvy marketer. If you dont monitor results and learn from them you will continue to make the same mistakes. Look at the open rate of an email, is it lower than you expected? Try changing the subject line of your email and send it again. Compare the open rates, did they go up or down. If you are sending emails that your readers dont want they will unsubscribe. Make sure you learn from their response so you can send more effective material next time.
Does email marketing software improve your efficiency?