The Best Email Marketing Service

Anyone in charge of marketing these days is familiar with the use of email as a marketing tool. For those of us just learning the ways of this tool, the instruction manual sometimes seems to be written in another language. Research attempts to self-educate can be equal parts exciting and overwhelming as the intricate details of the email marketing genre continue to grow. No longer a simple method of sending your customers emails to maintain active communication, shopping for the right email marketing tool to meet your company needs is a little like walking into the tool aisle looking for a drill - there are LOTS of options and each one does something just a little different. So the question becomes... how do you know which is the right fit?

While I cannot claim to be any type of expert in this area, I can share my experiences with shopping for the right tool. My number one helpful suggestion - Take Your Time! Although it seems as though the use of email marketing should be a "no brainer" implementation, you really have to stop and think about what you need from the service and what your budget can accommodate. The power drill that has all of the professional carpentry bells and whistles might be REALLY cool, but do you really need all those extras to accomplish your marketing goals?

My second bit of advice is to consider taking advantage of the limited time free use offers that many of the email marketing services offer. Since most of the contact lists are uploaded to the sites via Excel you can keep copies of your lists for future use without losing contact data. There are, of course, some downsides to this freebie use. Visual consistency - most of the services offer templates allowing you to easily build your email messaging, but if you hop between several services you may lose some of this consistency until you settle on one service. Reporting - the bonus draw of most email marketing services is the tracking and reporting tools allowing you to quickly gather feedback and information on the receipt of your messages. Switching service hosts may mean that you lose the data for future use.

Since I don't wear the blogger equivalent of the "how can I help" apron, I did a little digging to provide some additional resources. One that I found particularly helpful is an article comparing the features and costs of the most popular email marketing services. Providing a simple side by side comparison, this chart offers a quick glance shopping overview to help ensure that you have purchased the right tool for your company's marketing needs (see below).

One recent newcomer on the scene that I am currently test driving is Easy Contact. It offers all of the standard service features for a fairly competitive cost. So far my only challenge has been the slow upload when utilizing the reporting tools.

Another recent development in the world of email marketing is the acquisition of Nutshellmail by Constant Contact. Rumor has it that this merger will allow for easier cross-posting of email marketing information on social media sites. I am not sure when all of this will take effect - assuming the rumors are true, but feel free to check out the article posting for yourself. Contact Contact Nutshellmail Merger

Happy shopping and please share your thoughts/experiences with these or other email marketing services!