Blogging(opens in a new tab). Social(opens in a new tab). SEO(opens in a new tab). TripAdvisor(opens in a new tab). Now email marketing? When will you have time to run your business?
Besides hiring someone, the next best bet is to use an easy tool.
The good news is that running a basic email marketing effort is not all that difficult. The extra-special-amazing news is that effective email marketing is possibly the HIGHEST ROI marketing activity that exists! In fact, data from research company Experian says that the average return on email marketing is 44.2x(opens in a new tab). (I’m not mathematician, but that’s a LOT of x!)
First things first, make sure you pick a tool rather than mass emailing people from your current email account using BCC. If you do this, there’s a chance your email accounts (and those associated with your business) could be marked as spammers. You can trust my painful experience when I tell you that this is NOT a fun headache to deal with.
My favorite provider is ActiveCampaign, which in my opinion wipes the floor with MailChimp, the brand that most operators use. ActiveCampaign is easier for me to use, has MUCH more powerful features and is built with marketing in mind. I love it. MailChimp is trying to play catch-up, but the word has gotten out about ActiveCampaign so much that most of my email marketing friends can’t maintain a conversation for 5 minutes without mentioning it.
It’s also cheap. At time of writing, you could use ActiveCampaign for free for a list of 2000 people if you accept their logo at the bottom of your emails. If not, you could just go with the $9 per month plan for 500 people. That being said, MailChimp tends to integrate much better with WordPress, so you have 6 of one and a half dozen of the other.
More powerful tools for major heaving lifting are InfusionSoft(opens in a new tab), HubSpot(opens in a new tab) and Ontraport(opens in a new tab). They offer more power than ActiveCampaign but will run you $250+ a month, can be ugly and also are difficult to use without an expensive consultant to help you. I’ve never used these tools – I’m happy with ActiveCampaign – but if you’re doing revenues of $250k+, you should check them out.
Some tour booking software providers will give you some capability for email marketing. It’s nice to make use of this first, but specialist providers of email marketing software will do a better job for you if you’re looking to step things up a notch. If you’re just going to send the occasional ‘hello’ type of email, stick with whomever you’ve got. Alternatively, I always recommend the benefits of having a blog on your site because having consistently fresh content to send to your email list can provide great reward. And if you don’t have the time to blog, then we can do it for you!(opens in a new tab)
Here’s a few basic email providers:
ActiveCampaign(opens in a new tab), MailChimp(opens in a new tab), CampaignMonitor(opens in a new tab), ConstantContact(opens in a new tab), aWeber(opens in a new tab), EngageBay(opens in a new tab).
If you have anymore questions, get in contact with us.(opens in a new tab)
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