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Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your business… It’s no wonder businesses of all sizes invest time and resources into crafting the perfect email campaign. However, with the average number of emails sent per day reaching as much as 333 billion worldwide, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to stand out in a crowded inbox.
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Email is a marvel of the modern world. With a few quick strokes, you can communicate with nearly 4 billion email addresses around the globe in minutes!
Small business email marketing is especially powerful as it allows growing organizations to expand their brand with minimal investment. Plus, email marketing provides small business owners with another avenue to build lasting personal relationships with their clientele!
Still, it’s one thing to know you should send an email campaign; it’s another to know how to take advantage of email marketing for small businesses.
Let’s be honest: your own spam folder is probably full of bad email marketing campaigns. Glitchy pop-ups, mangled subject lines, and phishing scams run rampant and give the industry a bad name.
But that just means small business owners who master email marketing have better chances of success.
When used properly, email marketing delivers one of the greatest ROIs in the business: up to $43 returned for every $1 spent.
And with 73% of consumers preferring email marketing over other avenues, it’s clearly the way to go!
Remember: successful email marketing campaigns aren’t just about blasting promotions around. They’re about nurturing relationships. Sure, you push the lead down the marketing funnel, but more than that, you can create brand loyalty for a lifetime.
A well-designed email marketing strategy constructs a two-way highway wherein the customer participates. Bare-bones newsletters and transactional emails won’t cut it; you need to spend time cultivating lifelong bonds.
Open communications with your customers. Listen. Respond to concerns. Adapt your products and service to their needs. Show the humanity behind your small business with well-written subject lines, vibrant email templates, and witty jokes.
In return, you’ll be rewarded with customer loyalty – and dollars!
The only limit is your imagination…and your willingness to invest in the next email campaign.
How to Start Your Small Business Email Marketing Campaigns
Email marketing for small businesses isn’t just about designing the brightest email templates or using the weirdest fonts.
A successful email marketing strategy requires planning, consideration, and the help of a great email marketing service!
Here are some things to cross off your list as you develop your strategy.
Design Your Client Avatar
You should start first and foremost with your client avatar – that is, a caricature of your target audience. This is also called a marketing persona!
If you don’t know who you’re marketing to, you’re shooting emails in the dark and hoping they land. Designing a client avatar and reeling in the right subscribers means that every campaign has a higher chance of success.
Once you’ve met this need, you can move on to the next step in your email marketing strategy.
Sure, you can write your first email campaign from your Google account. But as your business grows, you’ll find that Google lacks key features that make email campaigns pack a punch.
Spend some time researching the best email marketing services that fit your needs. (Or, read our recommendations below!) A variety of email service providers await in the wide world, offering crucial infrastructure and email marketing tools like:
Vibrant, prebuilt email templates
Drag-and-drop editor functions to design emails with ease
Customer retention tools like promotional and re-engagement emails
Sales CRM abilities
Unlimited contact storage and contact list segmentation
Plus, many offer a free plan to start, so you can test the tools and upgrade as you grow.
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Decide on Your Email Campaigns
Next, you have to decide which email campaigns you need for your business. While you’ll adapt your strategy and email marketing campaigns as you go, you may want to consider starting with:
Welcome emailsto greet new subscribers, set expectations, and show visitors around
Promotional emails to spread the word about great deals and discounts
You can also send emails on other occasions, such as to mark birthdays or holidays, update customers on your brand, or simply thank customers for their loyalty. Sometimes, it’s just nice to feel appreciated.
Sign Up for Email Marketing Courses
If you’re not sure where to begin, or you’re ready to take your email marketing strategy to the next level, consider an email marketing course. Many email marketing service providers offer free or paid plans to teach you the ins and outs of the industry.
Though each course differs, they generally cover basics like designing campaigns, segmenting lists, setting up automation, and reviewing analytics. Plus, you’ll learn which tactics have been proven to work – and which will drive customers away faster than a coyote on a cattle run!
6 Email Marketing Services for Small Businesses
The best email marketing services for your business may not be the best for another business. Small business needs and wants vary greatly by industry, location, and owner preferences.
Fortunately, there are literally dozens of email marketing tools available. We’ve plucked out six of the best.
Tailwind
Tailwind’s marketing automation platform was built with small businesses in mind, which gives its email marketing tool a power boost!
Not only can you import and build your contact lists, use beautiful templates with easy editing functions, and build easy automation to simplify your email campaigns, you can easily manage your social platforms and email sends from the same easy-to-use calendar!
Tailwind’s email tool features:
Beautiful premade templates that are a cinch to edit and personalize to your brand
Built-in best practices so you can send campaigns that actually reach inboxes
One platform to stay organized with your marketing – email, social scheduler, design, and more- all in one place.
Create automations and campaigns in a simple, straightforward builder that won’t leave you confused
Advanced segmentation for your contact lists for targeted sends to your specific demographics
Custom form builders to embed on your sites to capture leads and grow your email list.
Easy deliverability and optimized send times to make sure your emails arrive on time.
Best of all, Tailwind’s email tool is available on all subscription plans, including the forever-free plan!
AWeber
AWeber is one of the most popular email marketing services for small businesses that require simplicity and power on a limited budget.
This email marketing tool works beautifully for beginners thanks to its prebuilt email templates, AI-powered design assistant, and drag-and-drop editor.
You can use AWeber’s built-in automation and campaign marketplace to simplify your email campaigns from start to finish.
Plus, with A/B testing and intuitive analytics, you can design, test, redesign, and track your performance as you grow.
And if you need them, AWeber offers integrations with apps like WordPress and more than one signup form and landing page builder.
AWeber’s free plan offers limited features for up to 500 subscribers, while the premium starts at just under $20/month. All plans come with live chat and phone support.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the best email marketing software available for small businesses, full stop.
The Constant Contact drag-and-drop editor is intuitive, while its automation is a cinch to use. With these, you can build beautiful, converting campaigns that rely on a host of other Constant Contact features like:
Quick and easy installation
Customizable email templates
Drip campaigns
Contact list segmentation
Advanced analytics reports
Best of all, you can sign up for a 30-day free account to test its tools before you commit. When you’re ready to upgrade to a paid plan, the premium starts at just $9.99 per month.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is a great email marketing platform if you need a free plan that doesn’t skimp on features. You can start adding new subscribers with features like unlimited landing pages and a signup form embedding tool.
From there, you can harness its range of automation to design your email campaigns. A powerful drag-and-drop editor makes for functional – yet affordable – email design.
And of course, ConvertKit boasts a full range of segmentation and personalization opportunities to make reaching your target audience even easier.
ConvertKit’s free plan offers limited features for up to 300 subscribers. Premium plans start at just $9/month for more advanced features and more email sends.
Drip
Drip is a robust email marketing platform designed for eCommerce customers. This email service provider boasts several advanced email marketing tools like:
Smart marketing automation
Intelligent email segmentation
Social media and SMS integrations
Drip also includes basics like A/B testing, lead generation, signup forms, and premade workflows.
You can trigger Drip campaigns based on customer behaviors like first-time and returning website visitors, abandoned carts, and more.
Unlike the other email marketing platforms on our list, Drip doesn’t have a free plan.
Instead, you can sign up for a 14-day free trial, with paid plans starting at $39/month.
And with Drip, you’ll also have constant contact with customer service through live chat and a full range of online courses to learn email marketing inside-out.
Sendinblue
Sendinblue aims to straddle the line between cost and service for users with more advanced needs. This email marketing platform boasts features like:
A full sales CRM
SMS marketing abilities
Marketing automation
Integration capabilities
Contact list segmentations
These come alongside a comprehensive list of basic services, such as beautiful email templates, custom workflows, and triggered autoresponders. While small businesses may enjoy its range of options, the interface itself may be more complicated for beginners.
Sendinblue offers a free plan to send up to 300 daily emails to unlimited contacts – great for growing small businesses. As you expand, you can upgrade to paid plans, starting at $25/month for 20,000 monthly sends and unlimited contacts.
9 Tips to Pick the Best Email Marketing Service
Small business email marketing is an art form all its own.
While email marketing services for small businesses abound, you need to know how to find the best one to boost your marketing campaigns to their full potential.
As a small business owner, here’s what to look for to ensure your email marketing efforts pay off.
A Free Account or Free Email Marketing Service Trial
Not every email marketing service offers a free plan or even a free trial. But those who provide a free account alongside their paid plans often rank among the best, as you can try before you buy. They also give marketers a chance to shop different email marketing tools to determine which suits your needs – and which wants to upsell you needlessly.
Most top email marketing services limited the number of email sends per day based on your plan. But many free and paid plans alike offer unlimited contact storage, so you can start segmenting your contact list immediately.
Plenty of Email Campaign Options
Email marketers have a broad range of email campaigns to choose from, including welcome emails, transactional emails, and promotional emails. The types of emails you need most depend on your business and industry. Still, the best email marketing service will offer plenty of choices.
A crucial component of the email campaign creation process is actually designing your emails.
With a handy email editor by your side, you can adjust prebuilt email templates to your exact needs. (Or throw out the rulebook and design your own.)
A good email editor also makes it easy to edit your branding in-house, so your colors, fonts, and images reflect your small business.
Tailwind’s email builder features drag-and-drop editing and easy-to-use editing features for your email elements.
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Marketing Automation Features
The best email marketing services for small businesses offer a range of automation tools to simplify the designing and sending processes. With automatic workflows, segmentations, personalization options, and triggered emails, building and sending your next campaign should be easy as 1-2-3.
A/B testing
A/B testing lets you test and compare how various pieces of your email marketing strategy perform.
For instance, you may test which subject line gets the most clicks, or which CTA button converts the most sales. All top email marketing services offer A/B testing nowadays – but if yours doesn’t, you may reconsider buying.
Tailwind features prebuilt automations and the ability to build your own!
Advanced Reporting
Your email campaign isn’t over just because you’ve hit “send.” Now, you have to determine the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
For your email list to grow, your small business has to recruit new subscribers. To get those, you need at least one sign-up form on your website.
And as you build your list, you’ll want some landing pages scattered about to collect subscriber information and promote special offers, free eBooks, and more.
Together, these tools prove the benefits of joining your email marketing list and provide extra incentives to click on content. The best email marketing platforms will help you design and embed both signup forms and landing pages right into your website.
Website Builder
But what if you don’t have a website?
Well, some of the most advanced email marketing software boasts this ability, too.
Often, the extent of an email service provider’s website builder is somewhat limited. Still, you can use these tools to build your brand and start curating content like web pages or even a small blog.
And of course, let’s not forget tidbits like a signup form and landing pages to grow your contact list.
Shopify email marketing apps are a dime a dozen. While that leaves you plenty of choices, it also means you have to spend time testing each one to find what works!
Or you could seek out the best Shopify email marketing apps on your own, or better yet – search for a guide!
Without further ado, here they are: the best email marketing campaign services to elevate your eCommerce business dreams.
Why is Email Important in Shopify?
Email marketing is one of the best methods to win new customers and nurture repeat buyers back through the sales cycle. But for Shopify merchants, it’s not just a luxury – it’s a necessity.
With the right Shopify email marketing app, you can:
Integrate your service start-to-finish with Shopify
Trigger automated emails based on customer behaviors
Simplify customer data gathering, tracking, and analyzing
Boost your long-term revenue potential
In other words, the right email marketing services make running, promoting, and capitalizing on your business a breeze.
What to Look for in the Best Shopify Email Marketing Apps
Before diving in, let’s review what the best email marketing apps offer, regardless of price:
eCommerce-specific features. Since you run an eCommerce business, naturally, your email client should make your job easier.
Integrations. Ideally, your Shopify email marketing app should integrate with – you guessed it! – Shopify.
Contact syncing. A crucial piece of the integration puzzle is your contact list. If your store’s contacts don’t move over automatically, that’s time out of your schedule.
Segmenting. Good apps segment customers based on activity, purchase history, and personal preference. The best email marketing apps create segments upon import.
Automatic email campaigns. An absolute must-have as a Shopify marketer is automated email campaigns, from abandoned cart campaigns to upselling promotions.
A/B testing. Never stop improving. A/B tests can do wonders for your campaigns no matter how successful they are.
Reporting and analytics. Even basic email marketing apps should provide detailed metrics and analytics to help improve your marketing operations.
Ease of use. While email marketing apps often operate on a learning curve, beginner-friendly apps should be easy – even fun – to use.
Above all, your email marketing client should fit into your budget. While “affordability” varies based on business size and needs, most services offer tiered pricing to help clients scale in-house.
The Shopify Email Marketing App: Shopify Email
Shopify launched its in-house email marketing app in late 2019 to help eCommerce stores build their brands with:
Ready-made email templates implanted with your logo, store colors, and product details
Basic analytics
Manual segmentation abilities
Abandoned cart emails
Imported customer lists
2,500 free emails monthly ($1 per every 1,000 above the limit)
While the Shopify email marketing app gets the job done, that’s about the extent of our praise.
The template library is minimal, as are your customization options.
For customers seeking automated segmentation, triggered email marketing campaigns, or advanced analytics, Shopify will recommend another email marketing app.
As such, Shopify’s in-house email campaign builder is best suited for small businesses or beginning marketers just breaking into the email game.
As you gain more experience, you may decide to graduate to an alternative email marketing platform.
Shopify Email Marketing App Alternatives
Picking the best email marketing software isn’t just about paying for the most features. Rather, it’s about finding the service that meets your needs, from marketing automation features to segmented contact lists.
1. GetResponse
GetResponse is a robust email marketing app that offers a bit more than the average service.
Features like webinars, landing pages, and a full-blown CRM make this service stand out. Plus, with its automated integration abilities, eCommerce stores can enjoy simple contact importation, segmentation, and tagging.
Unfortunately, some marketers find that the analytics aren’t in-depth enough for their needs.
Email Marketing App Main Features:
Deep Data Shopify integrations
Wide range of email templates
Easy-to-build marketing automations
Triggered email campaigns for abandoned carts, promotions, and post-purchase emails
Easy-add personalized product recommendations
Pricing
Free: Up to 500 subscribers with limited abilities
Email Marketing: Starts at $15.58/month for up to 1,000 subscribers*
Marketing Automation: Starts at $48.38/month
eCommerce Marketing: Starts at $97.58/month
*Minimum pricing tier that offers Shopify integration
Who’s It Built For?
GetResponse is well-suited to larger eCommerce ventures that could benefit from advanced email marketing automation, added features like webinars, and the built-in CRM.
2. AWeber
AWeber is a well-known email marketing campaign manager that boasts the normal features like integrations, customizable email templates, analytics, and segmentation. They offer email marketing automation to simplify the process at almost every step of the way. Plus, you can track your performance anytime, anywhere with the mobile AWeber Stats app.
Email Marketing App Main Features:
Over 700 customizable templates
Triggered automatic marketing campaigns, including newsletters
Customer tagging and segmentation based on opens, clicks, purchases, and location
Landing page builder
Built-in performance analyzer
Over 1,000 software integrations
Pricing
Free: Up to 500 subscribers with landing pages, web push notifications, and eCommerce abilities
Pro: Starts at $19.99/month for up to 500 subscribers
Who’s It Built For?
AWeber offers some impressive tools at a low price, but it does lack advanced features. Small-time Shopify store owners and beginning email marketers might find this platform an ideal jumping-off point.
3. Mailchimp
Mailchimp offers a robust free service with up to 10,000 monthly emails, making this a popular email marketing app for beginners. Paid plans offer no watermarks, a direct integration with Shopify, and increased customer data analytics and access. You can also automate email marketing campaigns like abandoned carts, reorder reminders, and transactional emails.
However, Mailchimp’s email template library is sparsely-populated. And for scaling purposes, this email client may get pricey quickly.
Email Marketing App Main Features:
Customizable email templates
Google Analytics integration
Content optimizer to make content more engaging
eCommerce features like pop-ups, scroll boxes, and ad retargeting
Pricing
Free: Up to 2,000 emails daily/10,000 monthly for limited abilities
Essentials: Starts at $11/month for additional features*
Standard: Starts at $17/month for advanced features
Premium: Starts at $299/month for full features
*Minimum pricing tier that offers Shopify integration
Who’s It Built For?
Mailchimp offers one of the best email marketing apps for store owners seeking a free service. However, as your business scales, you may require a more advanced platform.
4. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is another solid email marketing app that offers CRM functionality and Shopify compatibility. The service comes with plenty of marketing automation, customizations, and subscriber personalization opportunities. Plus, you can use its eCommerce abilities to push product recommendations and offer embeddable discounts.
That said, ActiveCampaign is notable for its steeper learning curve and (occasional) code-writing requirements.
Email Marketing App Main Features:
Over 600 pre-built automation workflows
Deep Data platform integrations
Drag-and-drop editor
Dynamic segmenting and tagging
Triggered email campaigns
In-depth data gathering
Paid SMS marketing
Pricing
Lite: Starts at $29/month for up to 1,000 subscribers with limited abilities
Plus: Starts at $49/month with additional features*
Professional: Starts at $149/month with advanced features and personalization
*Minimum pricing tier that offers Shopify integration
Who’s It Built For?
Due to its pricing, steeper learning curve, and advanced abilities, ActiveCampaign works better for larger stores. The CRM also provides plenty of oomph for stores with more repeat customers.
5. Omnisend
Omnisend is unusual in that it offers SMS marketing, social media integrations, and push notifications alongside email campaigns.
With a range of automated workflows and segmentations, you can target customers based on browsing, abandonment, and search behaviors. You can even examine your sales metrics and campaign reports in the same dashboard.
That said, while its email editor is quite intuitive, Omnisend’s template library leaves something to be desired.
Email Marketing App Main Features:
Easy Shopify integrations and cross-sell features
Conversion-focused email marketing tools like scratch cards and “spin to win”
Detailed campaign and sales analytics
Multi-channel marketing abilities
Unlimited contact storage (though not unlimited sends)
Pricing
Free: Up to 500 emails/month for 250 subscribers
Standard: Starts at $16/month for up to 6,000 emails, 500 subscribers, and unlimited web pushes
Pro: Starts at $59/month for up to 500 subscribers, unlimited emails, and advanced features
Who’s It Built For?
Omnisend is ideal for marketers who want to take their multi-channel marketing communications to the next level. Plus, its affordability and added eCommerce features make it ideal for small- to medium-sized Shopify stores.
6. Klaviyo
Klaviyo is a marketing software designed especially for eCommerce that boasts impressive returns for Shopify store owners on its website. Aside from advanced segmentation and marketing automation workflows, Klaviyo facilitates SMS marketing and A/B testing.
Overall, Klaviyo marks a solid email marketing service – though its prices can get steep for larger subscriber lists.
Email Marketing App Main Features:
Easy Shopify store integrations
Extensive pre-built workflow automations
A/B testing
Triggered email campaigns
Modern email templates with dynamic blocks for personalization
Pricing
Free: Up to 250 subscribers and 500 emails/month
$30/month: Up to 1,000 subscribers and 10,000 emails
$100/month: Up to 5,000 subscribers and 50,000 emails
$150/month: Up to 10,000 subscribers and 100,000 emails
Who’s It Built For?
Because of its focus on eCommerce email marketing and built-in CRM, Klaviyo is a good email marketing app for small- to medium-sized businesses. However, beginners may find the interface challenging at first, and larger businesses may find the price schedule prohibitive.
7. Sendinblue
Sendinblue is a feature-rich email marketing service that aims to impress with marketing automation, landing pages, lead scoring, and even Facebook ads. It offers eCommerce marketing alongside email marketing, with features like conditional content, imported order data, and store product integrations.
These capabilities, alongside advanced features like SMS messaging, make Sendinblue one of the best Shopify email marketing apps available.
Email Marketing App Main Features:
Customizable email templates
A/B testing for data-driven campaigns
Real-time reporting and analytics
Targeted segmentation
eCommerce marketing features to complete email campaigns
Pricing
Free: Up to 300 emails/day
Lite: $25/month for up to 20,000 emails and additional abilities*
Premium: $65/month for up to 20,000 emails and advanced automation
*Minimum pricing tier that offers Shopify integration
Who’s It Built For?
Sendinblue is a well-rounded service that works well for small- to medium-sized Shopify store owners. While it’s an efficient email marketing software, it’s also not always beginner-friendly, as some features require snippets of code. That said, Sendinblue’s Lite plan is also budget-friendly.
8. Drip
Drip is an email marketing app for Shopify store owners who want to segment the heck out of their lists. You can divide emails based on the smallest actions, including products and brands viewed, browsing history, and more. And with its blended eCommerce-CRM abilities, Drip puts the emphasis on strong communication and customer guidance.
But watch out: if you exceed your subscriber capacity for your plan, Drip automatically bumps you up a notch. And unfortunately, Drip offers just a handful of pre-built email templates.
Email Marketing App Main Features:
Strong behavior-based marketing automation
Workflow split-testing and application
Robust analytics, including engagement and revenue metrics
Easy Shopify and Facebook Customer Audience integrations
Pricing
$39/month for up to 2,500 subscribers and unlimited sends
$89/month for up to 5,000 subscribers and unlimited sends
$154/month for up to 10,000 subscribers and unlimited sends
Drip also offers a 14-day free trial with all features included.
Who’s It Built For?
Due to Drip’s more advanced automation and segmentation abilities, this email marketing service may best serve more established businesses. With its subscriber-based pricing model, it offers full features at every tier, making it powerful at every price.
5 Tips To Pick The Best Shopify Email Tool
Below are some tips that can help you choose the right email marketing tool for you!
Integration
Goes without saying that you need your email marketing platform to integrate with Shopify. In case you are using any other tools to manage your clients – check if they will also integrate easily.
Ease of use
You want the tool to feel natural. The main information should be right on the dashboard, and all the important features should be just a click away.
Automations & Segmentations
Run a testing campaign and see how various automation and segmentation work. Can you tag subscribers based on their behavior? Can you separate them into A/B test groups?
Team management
Chances are that you will not be working alone. What options are there to manage access to your team? What is the pricing like for several seats?
Imports & Exports
Some email marketing services have strict policies on email imports. Make sure that importing your leads from another service will be simple and won’t take too much time!
Key Takeaways
Email marketing is essential for a Shopify store owner. But before you can succeed in your marketing endeavors, you must determine your business needs and goals.
The email marketing app you choose should reflect your:
Required subscriber count
Desire for growth and expansion
And your budget
Ideally, the best email marketing app has the email marketing tools and pricing tiers needed to scale with you. (And many offer a 14-day free trial, so you can be sure an email marketing service checks all your boxes.)
Studies show that email marketing is40x more effectiveat reeling in new customers than social media. Email marketing makes it easy to nurture long-term relationships and stay aligned with the customers that drive your profits.
But to work properly, you must design your email marketing campaigns just right.
As an email marketer, one of the worst experiences is sending out what you think is a top-notch campaign – only to watch it flop.
From a dearth of opens to no clicks on your CTA, it’s tough when customers don’t engage with your brand. (Not to mention the impact a failed campaign has on your bottom line.)
Many marketers’ struggles boil down to a single factor: poor email design. If your emails don’t balance a vibrant vibe with a clean look, it’s difficult to drive conversions, let alone opens.
That’s where expertly-designed email marketing templates come in!
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What is an Email Marketing Template?
An email marketing template is what it sounds like: an email template designed for email marketing campaigns.
By tapping into professionally-designed emails, you can produce the same gorgeous emails as the Big Guys without trashing your budget. Plus, you don’t have to spend hours sweating your own campaign visuals or stressing about that plain-text campaign.
Effective email marketing templates split the difference by supplying you with all the designs, styles, and colors you need. All you have to do is change the colors, add your logo, and insert your message.
Best of all, email templates come in a huge variety, so you can select and edit the perfect template to:
Welcome new customers to the family
Send promotional emails and special deals
Offer loyalty rewards to returning customers
Provide purchase, shipping, and delivery confirmations
Request feedback to better your brand and engage your customers
Then, all that’s left is to hit “send” and watch your efforts pay off.
Why Do You Need Email Marketing Templates?
Novices and professionals alike may turn to email marketing templates for several reasons. We’ll explore a few of them here.
A Lack of Ideas
When you’re fresh out of ideas, email templates can provide the answer or at least inspiration. Even if you don’t use the whole design, it’s important to bring new ideas to the table occasionally.
Tested Layouts
Sometimes, your marketing team needs a reminder of what works, especially as trends change. Email marketing templates often come field-tested or professionally designed. (Read: they’re proven to work.)
Quick, Easy, and Cheap to Use
Email templates do half the work for you. All you have to do is download the template, plug in your branding and message, and send the campaign.
Save Time
Why spend more time and money stressing than you have to?
With email templates, all you have to do is pick the right template, drop in compelling copy, and add images. If need be, you can also customize existing design elements to fit your brand and stay on message.
And since many modern templates are no-code, you don’t need expert coding skills to produce expertly-designed, engaging emails.
Consistency
One beauty of email templates is that they construct the layout, design, and quality for you. Anyone on your team, from interns to freelancers to career marketers, can write a well-performing email in minutes.
Plus, you can design custom templates for your own team to tweak and personalize later, building consistency from the inside out.
Seamless Personalization
Modern marketing email templates tend to be highly customizable.
Even if you start with a cut-and-paste job, your personal touches can create a unique, conversion-driving email.
Any or all of these make great reasons to incorporate email templates into your strategy. But frankly, you only need one: because you want to.
Where to Find the Best Email Marketing Templates
Literally, dozens of websites provide free email templates that you can download at a whim.
While these can be effective, often, it’s better to sign up with a dedicated service that has a built-in template library.
Of course, there’s no harm in combining strategies and enjoying the best of both worlds.
So, we’ve helpfully rounded up a list of both free email templates and paid template sites for your perusal.
All you have to do is find the templates you like, sign up with the site, and get customizing!
ReallyGoodEmails
Really Good Emails (RGE for short) aims to be “the best showcase of email design” available. The website boasts an impressive 10,000+ email templates and an inspirational collection library.
RGE sources actual email content and templates from an active user community to help you fulfill your marketing dreams. That means that new emails pop up all the time for you to customize or get inspired by.
You can start with a free account and curate up to three collections, or go Pro for just $9 a month.
HubSpot
HubSpot is a huge name in digital marketing, so it makes sense that they have a few marketing tools lying around.
Users can access around five dozen email marketing templates completely free. HubSpot also boasts a free email marketing template maker in-house, so you can design and save your own templates for future use.
Canva
Canva is an online graphic design tool that helps users create social media posts, videos, logos, presentations, and more.
Aside from its hundreds of thousands of templates for every purpose, its stock photo library is truly massive. (While Canva doesn’t split the numbers, it’s safe to assume they have at least a few thousand email templates.)
You can access about 250,000 of their total templates and a hefty portion of their stock images with their free plan. Or you can access 610,000 premium templates and the full image library for just $120 per person, per year.
Cakemail
Cakemail provides another source for free newsletters and email templates to spruce up your email campaigns. All told, Cakemail offers around 55 templates and an easy-to-use platform.
Cakemail’s templates come in a variety of designs, so you can send everything from welcome emails to promotional offers. They also boast a few unique designs alongside more generic templates to give you plenty of choices.
Cakemail pricing is customized to each business, so you don’t have to worry about overpaying for services you don’t need.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is a popular email marketing tool that provides a built-in CRM and over 500 automated workflows.
Oh, and their template library isn’t bad either, with about 250 customizable layouts available on all paid plans.
ActiveCampaign offers a free plan with limited abilities and a handful of layouts. Or you can jump in with a paid plan, which starts at just $9 a month for 500 contacts.
BEE Free
BEE Free is a newer email editor that lets users create responsive designs quickly. The site boasts over 1,200 (mostly) unique, highly vibrant templates for all occasions.
BEE Free’s templates live in a handy quick-search menu, so you can find what you need in a flash. From there, it’s all plug, play, and send.
Or if you’re not satisfied with the existing menu, you can submit template ideas to their design team.
BEE Free starts with a free, no-code email and page creation plan for up to 10 emails and pages. Upgrading to their Team plan costs just $30 a month for unlimited projects and content blocks.
Sendinblue
Sendinblue offers over 60 fully responsive email templates to all users.
Best of all, there’s no code required. The process is simple: pick a template, customize it with the drag-and-drop editor, and press send.
Advanced users can also take advantage of the WYSIWYG HTML email editor to code their own content from square one.
Sendinblue offers four plans: Free, Lite, Premium, and Enterprise. (The free plan also comes with prebuilt email templates.) The Lite plan starts at $25/month for basic features. Premium kicks it up a notch at $65/month for automation, landing pages, and Facebook ads.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a popular email marketing software renowned for its ease of use and predesigned template library.
Each design is fully customizable, from the layout to the color scheme and images. (Though free users will have Mailchimp’s branding on their designs.)
Mailchimp users can access a portion of its basic templates on the free plan to get a feel for the service.
If you like what you see, you can switch to the Essentials plan (starting at $11/month) to access all 100 Mailchimp templates.
Stripo
Stripo is an email design platform that offers over 1,050 fully responsive no-code HTML templates.
Stripo’s emails are built so you don’t need to customize to get a good-looking email – just drop in your message and go. Marketers can also access a library of premade interactive elements like GIFs, countdown timers, and animated buttons.
To enjoy Strip’s premium template options, you can expect to pay at least $15/month.
But bear in mind that unlike the other names on this list, you can’t send emails from Stripo directly. Instead, you can export your designs into the email marketing software of your choice.
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5 Email Marketing Template Examples
For those low on time, money, or ideas, email templates make short work of a crucial process. But if you’re still not sure how well a template can turn out, let’s look at a few examples of effective templates that could drive your ROI from 0 to 60 in a hot minute.
This abandoned cart email template from Cakemail is the perfect way to ask customers to return without being obnoxious. (Clicks and conversions, here we come.)
The muted color palette does the opposite of what you’d expect by not sparking a sense of excitement. It’s just busy enough to keep the eye without overwhelming, producing a calming effect that reassures customers clicking through is the right move.
Plus, with the CTA conveniently placed beneath the discount and above the upsells, the design pulls double-duty without trying too hard.
A little customer feedback goes a long way to helping businesses improve their brands – so what does mass-produced feedback get you?
That’s what this feedback email template aims to find out.
Unfortunately, feedback emails come with one big problem: customers really don’t like to click through multiple pages for a business benefit.
Fortunately, this email template solves that problem, too. By including a clickable feedback mechanism right in the email, you make your customers’ jobs quick and easy.
And even if the link redirects to a longer survey, your customers have already begun the process. Chances are, they’ll finish it.
Key Takeaways
Modern tools have slashed the effort needed substantially. It can’t get much simpler than plugging your content into an existing template and sending it off in your email campaigns.
Email marketing success isn’t just about the template – your ability to connect with your audience matters, too!
A/B testing and proper email timing play a crucial role in the success of your email marketing campaign.
Keep an eye out for changes in your email marketing metrics, and make sure to constantly improve your campaigns!
FAQ
How do I create an email marketing template?
There are a few things you’ll need to consider when creating an email marketing template:
1. The purpose of the email – what are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to promote a new product, announce a sale, or simply stay in touch with your customers?
2. The target audience – who will you be sending the email to? Make sure your template is designed with your target audience in mind.
3. The content – what will you include in the email? Will you be including text, images, or both?
4. The design – how will you lay out the content? Will you use a single-column or multi-column layout?
What are email marketing templates?
Email marketing templates are pre-designed email layouts that you can use to easily create and send marketing emails. Most email marketing platforms (such as Constant Contact, Mailchimp, or AWeber) offer a library of free and paid email templates that you can use to get started with your email campaigns.
Email marketing is the bread and butter of modern growth tactics. It remains one of the best ways to attract customers, build your brand, and boost your bottom line!
With effective email marketing campaigns, you can drive consistent conversions and enjoy more personal relationships.
But if you employ weak email marketing strategies, you’ll never achieve your full potential.
To ensure you achieve the desired results, you’ll need to start with the right email marketing strategy for your brand!
Why Do You Need an Email Marketing Strategy?
Email marketing is one of the most influential (and affordable) digital marketing strategies. By reaching right into subscribers’ inboxes, you’ll enjoy a direct link to your customer base.
Not to mention all the other perks a successful email marketing campaign promotes – you can sell products, share the good news, and improve cart abandonment rates. Or, you can get more personal and take the time to share a story or re-engage with lost subscribers.
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How to Formulate Your Email Marketing Strategy
Before you run out and send emails willy-nilly, you need to prepare. Effective email marketing campaigns all start with a well-designed email marketing strategy.
Once you find your stride, the potential rewards can be huge.
Pick the Perfect Email Service Provider
Email service providers are a dime a dozen, but the right one can make or break your email marketing campaigns.
Choose an email service provider that balances cost against the email marketing tools you need to design and send emails that are beautifully on-brand.
Define Your Audience
You can’t target your audience if you don’t know who they are. The more information you gather about your customers (even if they don’t exist yet), the more success you’ll see.
Build Your Email List
Next, it’s time to build your email marketing list. Ideally, you’ll curate a list chock-full of engaged subscribers who choose to receive the valuable content you create.
Adding opt-in or subscription forms on your webpage
Designing standalone lead capture pages to promote offers like free webinars or eBooks
Offering lead magnets, like discounts or free shipping, in exchange for emails
Boosting your email marketing list on social media
Pick Your Design
Every email campaign will likely have a different flourish to set it apart. But first, you need to decide on the basics, such as your brand colors, ideal fonts, and email signature.
Planning ahead here ensures that no matter who actually composes your message, your emails hold to your high standards.
Plus, applying an identical color scheme and logo ensures brand familiarity with your audience.
Mobile-ize Your Infantry
Over 60% of emails are opened using a mobile device. Yet, 20% of all email marketing campaigns aren’t optimized for mobile.
That’s a big mistake – especially considering that mobile device customers are more likely to spend big than desktop customers.
Unoptimized emails lead to wonky, unreadable images and text and drive higher unsubscribe and delete rates.
Avoiding these mistakes can be as simple as inserting responsive email designs that are automatically optimized by the device.
Other tips include keeping the subject line short and minimizing the preheader’s length.
You should also make the call-to-action (CTA) big, bold, and beautiful to ensure it’s obvious on tiny screens.
Test in Different Clients and ISPs
Before you send emails for the first time, it’s crucial to test email clients and ISPs. The way clients handle data may alter how your designs look in a subscriber’s inbox.
Automate Your Campaigns
You should also consider automating your email campaigns. Trigger-based automation lets you send personalized messages and content based on:
User behaviors, like visiting your website, clicking a link, or purchasing a products
Demographic information like birthdays, holidays, and religious preferences
Time-sensitive actions, such as expired subscriptions, reorder reminders, and re-engagement opportunities
You can also send out the classics like a handy welcome email, transactional emails, and thank-you emails. And don’t underestimate the power of “surprise” emails for your most loyal customers. (25% off goes a long way to building loyalty!)
Data supports using automation, too.
Triggered emails nab higher open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. Trigger-based marketing has even been found to produce500% better resultsthan batch emails.
Leverage Social Media
Social media provides powerful tools to build your email list and further engagement. For instance, Facebook-boosted posts can increase traffic by nearly 50%.
You can use social media to build landing pages, share incentives, and premium content, and host webinars or digital get-togethers in real-time.
Remember: the more subscribers engage with your brand, the more memorable – and profitable – you’ll be.
Prepare to Measure Your Performance
It’s impossible to accurately predict how effective email marketing campaigns will be before you send them out.
But before you can measure their performance, you need to determine which metrics to gather.
Knowing which email metrics are most important for your campaigns before you send emails means you can segment your email strategy from the outset and optimize it as you gather more data.
How to Create an Email Marketing Campaign That Works
Once you’ve defined your email marketing strategy, it’s time to move into the meat of your success: actual email campaigns.
Set Goals
The first step in designing an effective email marketing campaign is deciding upon its goal. Your goal will determine the content, images, CTA, and segmentation you deem appropriate.
Many marketers swear by mid-week sends, while some target the weekend crowd!
Purge Your Subscriber List
Unfortunately, just because a subscriber joins your email list doesn’t mean they’ll stick around.
While a re-engagement campaign can reignite their passion, sometimes, your subscribers will relegate you to the spam folder or move emails without informing you.
Whatever the reason, purging these subscribers from your list ensures your content only goes to subscribers who will take (and give) the most value.
Segment Your Email List
Segmenting subscribers allows you to deliver the best value to customers.
Unique interests or characteristics, location, purchase history, and industry all comprise segmentable data.
You can even use segmenting to re-engage inactive subscribers.
Conversely, failing to segment your emails, or segmenting them poorly, risks pushing customers away by meeting them at the wrong stage of the customer journey. You’ll also miss out on benefits like increased deliverability and opens, better click-through rates, and more conversions.
Perfect Your Designs
In the modern world, appearances mean a lot – specifically, your brand appearance.
You should test and retest the presentation of every email within your larger campaigns. From content and templates to fonts, layouts, images, and even text sizes, no detail is too small to consider.
The last thing you want to do is design the perfect email for the wrong purpose.
Write Your Content
With the visual elements out of the way, it’s time to write your email message. Ask yourself what you want to say to your audience and what value you can offer them.
Sending purpose-driven emails will keep your subscribers engaged and your bottom line fat.
Run Re-Engagement Campaigns
We mentioned the need to purge your subscriber lists before sending out your major email campaigns to prevent wasting sends.
But sometimes, subscribers just lose interest – and it’s your goal to re-engage them.
Instead of removing them from your mailing list, spark a re-engagement campaign. Remind subscribers of the benefits of sticking with your brand and offer exclusive offers and discounts.
You can also use this opportunity to gain feedback through your emails or unsubscribe page.
6 Quick Email Marketing Tips to Optimize Your Strategy
Once you’ve built an effective email marketing strategy, you can start optimizing individual emails.
2. Use a Real Reply-to Email Address and Signature
When you use a “do not reply” email address or generic sign-off, that turns off the engagement and reduces the likelihood that customers will respond positively to your brand.
The key is building engagement and excitement through authenticity and credibility.
3. Personalize Your Message
Personalization is a small tactic but a powerful one.
By capitalizing on customer data, you can insert a little spice into your strategy.
You can insert names into email subject lines, send welcome emails to new customers, offer birthday wishes (and discounts!), and recommend products based on previous purchases.
Remember: email marketing isn’t just another marketing channel; it’s crucial to each customer’s experience of your brand. There’s almost no end to the ways you can use personalized messages to improve the customer experience.
Best of all, 70% of brands don’t personalize their email marketing strategy. That means a little personalization goes a long way to helping you stand out against the competition.
4. Optimize your CTA
Your call-to-action can dramatically impact the click-through rates of your email marketing campaigns. (And in turn, your conversion rates.)
An ill-placed or poorly-designed CTA translates to fewer clicks and visitors and a smaller bottom line.
To improve your CTA, experiment with factors like:
Buttons versus text
Text font and size
Colors (standing out is almost always better!)
Additionally, focus on the language you use in your CTAs. Tried-and-true tactics include starting with strong verbs (like buy and download), evoking emotion, and giving a reason to convert.
5. A/B Split Testing
How do you know that your email is perfectly optimized?
You test it, of course.
But don’t just limit yourself to A/B testing your subject line. (Though that’s important, too.)
Your home page and landing pages, templates, colors, fonts, CTA, personalization opportunities, and even segmentation should all be tested too.
And don’t forget your signature, sender name, image usage, and placement…
You get the point. There’s a lot to A/B test.
As you test these factors, you can build a database of customer preferences and optimize every email from the get-go.
Over time, you can re-test to keep up with consumer trends and perfect your email marketing strategy long-term.
6. Link to Your Social Media Marketing Campaign
Linking your social media to your email marketing campaigns can generate more activity and bring customers into the customer experience.
When subscribers see customers enjoying your brand and products, they’re more likely to click through and convert.
Aside from capitalizing on existing customers, you can also include CTAs on your various social media in your marketing campaigns.
You may even want to share the content of your emails on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. Don’t be afraid to spread the word!
Key Takeaways
Email marketing continues to be a popular, effective way to promote your brand and generate a higher ROI.
Through your email marketing, you can connect with your audience, drive sales, and rally a community around your brand.
Determine the best email marketing strategy by testing, optimizing, retesting, and reoptimizing. Running the paces ensures you don’t have to re-engage inactive subscribers later or hassle with high bounce rates.
Your marketing efforts will build successful campaign strategies to see you through to the brand you always dreamed of.