Best Email Marketing Tools for Small Businesses in 2021

There is no shortage of email marketing tools for small businesses, with no indication of slowing down. With an overlapping buffet of purpose-built solutions that carry out virtually any conceivable task make it all the more difficult for marketers to decide what technology can truly enhance their marketing effectively and within their budget.

Email marketing has changed the way brands communicate with their customers. According to Statista, in 2019 the global number of email users amount amounted to 3.9 billion. And this number is only going to grow, by 2023 this number is set to be at 4.3 billion users — half of the world’s population! Gone are the days of sending out generic emails, in order to take advantage of these numbers you’re going to want the help of a leader email marketing software.

Since email marketing tools and apps constantly evolve in the digital space, not all platforms are built the same. The Agency Vista team has listed best of the best email marketing tools that you can use today to help you achieve your goals for the year.

10 Best Email Marketing Tools for Small Businesses

1. Mailchimp – Leader of email marketing tools
2. SharpSpring — Best all-in-one marketing automation suite
3. MailGenius — Best email spam checker
4. Drip – Best email marketing automation tool
5. Moosend – Best email audience segmentation
6. MailerLite – Most Affordable mass email service
7. Benchmark — Best email tool for agencies
8. Keap — Best email marketing automation software for small business
9. ActiveCampaign — Best for small businesses & enterprise
10. Crystal — Best email service provider

1. MailChimp

MailChimp markets itself as an easy-to-use, all-in-one integrated marketing platform for small businesses. It allows you to create and send email marketing campaigns and analyze them on their dashboard. You can build your email list, create contacts subsets, and send your campaign to a specific segment only.

Key Features:

• Email Builder
• Marketing CRM
• Forms & Landing Pages
• Website Builder & Mailchimp Domain
• Email Templates
• Custom Branding
• A/B Testing
• Send Time Optimization
• Behavioral Targeting
• Custom Templates
• Dynamic Content
• Advanced Segmentation
• Multivariate Testing
• Comparative Reporting

Pricing:

MailChimp is free for the first 2000 contacts with 10,000 emails sent per month (2,000 daily limits). The monthly send limit is 10x for Essentials, 12x for Standard, and 15x for Premium, as multiplied by your specific plan’s contact limit.

2. SharpSpring

SharpSpring is a marketing automation tool that offers a email marketing service that is perfect for small businesses. If you need to assistance with email design, dynamic email automation, and transformative email analytics, SharpSpring’s email tool can do that for you. It features an easy-to-use email editor with ready-made templates that allows a newbie to quickly send out an email with ease. 

Key Features:

• Building and Personalizing Emails
• Automated Email Responses
• Sending Outbound Emails
• Manage Email Deliverability

Pricing:

Contact SharpSpring for agency partner plans.

3. MailGenius

MailGenius is a free email deliverability testing service that allows you to check if the emails you are sending are valid or if the email you are sending will potentially go to the spam folder. What’s great with this tool is that it provides suggestions/recommendations on what you can do to avoid landing in the spam folder and increase security.

Key Features:

• Email deliverability tester
• Email spam checker

Pricing:

FREE

4. Drip

Drip is an email marketing platform made for eCommerce marketers. You can integrate with top eCommerce platforms such as Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and even a custom platform via API. You can create personalized messaging and optimize each send through A/B testing.

Key Features:

• Email marketing
• Pre-built workflows
• Meaningful segmentation
• Revenue and engagement reporting
• 90+ integrations

Pricing:

Drip offers a 14-day free trial with a limit of email sends up to 500, after the trial you may sign up for $19/month for unlimited sends or pay as you go for $0.015 per send.

5. Moosend

Moosend is a great tool for automating repetitive tasks. Design behavioral email campaigns based on your subscriber’s activities. It also has a segmentation feature that sends highly accurate emails to each recipient which increases the open rate and click-through rate.

Once you start running a campaign, Moosend provides a detailed performance report so you can see where you can optimize your campaign and improve your results. Best of all, this free tool lets you opt-out of its logo without having to sign up for a paid plan.

Key Features:

• Unlimited Emails
• Sign-up & Subscription Forms
• Reporting & Analytics
• Landing Pages
• Transactional Emails
• SMTP Server
• Custom Reporting

Pricing:

Moosend is free to send unlimited emails but if you want the landing pages, transactional emails, SMTP server and have multiple users in the account, then you need to upgrade to $8/month.

6. MailerLite

• 

MailerLite allows you to design newsletters using either drag-and-drop, rich text, or custom HTML. They also have a great selection of pre-designed templates so you can start fast – just upload your logo, add your text and you’re ready to go!

Key Features:

• Drag & drop editor
• Rich text editor
• Built-in photo editing
• File manager
• Mobile-friendly email newsletters
• Newsletter templates
• Landing pages
• Embedded signup forms
• Pop-up subscribe forms
• Subscriber management
• Email automation
• Advanced segmentation
• Email campaign reports
• Free website and landing pages

Pricing:

Free for the first 1,000 contacts with 12,000 email sends per month. Unlimited sends start at $10/month.

7. Benchmark

This tool offers multiple templates for every possible purpose — whether a thank you email, newsletter, promotional email, discounts, giveaways, etc. It has an intuitive visual editor tool that you can edit via HTML or CSS to suit your needs. It also has a built-in spam filter to make sure that your email does not contain any objectionable content.

Key Features:

• Email builder
• Marketing automation
• Lead generation
• Landing pages
• Reporting
• Integrations

Pricing:

Free for up to 250 emails per month. Unlimited emails start at $13/month.

8. Keap/InfusionSoft

Keap (formerly InfusionSoft) is a combination of CRM, sales and marketing automation, payment processor, and much more. With plans catered to all businesses – from solopreneurs to big brands needing a robust solution, Keap is a great one-stop solution for all your marketing needs.

Key Features:

• CRM
• Automation
• Email Marketing
• B2B Capabilities
• Invoices
• Appointments
• Mobile App
• SMS Messages & Keap Business Line
• Quotes
• Reminders & Reports
• Internal Forms
• Landing pages
• Sales Pipeline
• A/B Testing
• Recurring Payments
• Checkout Forms
• Lead Scoring
• Analytics

Pricing:

Starts at $56/month for the first 5 months with a 14-day free trial. 

9. ActiveCampaign

Dubbed as an InfusionSoft alternative, ActiveCampaign has a wealth of features that allow you to maximize your email marketing efforts. Setup email autoresponders, create email funnels and schedule emails for a specific date and time. It also features a drag-and-drop email designer so you can run beautiful campaigns in a few minutes.

Key Features:

• Multi-user editing
• Integrations
• Link actions
• Audience segmentation
• Personalization
• Revision history
• Conditional content
• Custom data
• Free image hosting
• Social sharing
• Managed deliverability
• Mobile optimized
• Geotracking
• Site tracking
• Analytics

Pricing:

Starts at $9/month for 500 contacts, with features that encompass more than just email, it has its own CRM, sales automation, deal flow, and more!

10. Crystal

Crystal is a unique tool that integrates DISC personality insights into your marketing campaigns. If you are not familiar with DISC, it is a well-established and trusted behavioral framework that businesses use to build high-performing teams. When you apply this in your marketing efforts, you create a deeper insight into every prospect and learn how to motivate buyers and drive deals forward.

Key Features:

• Predict your prospect’s personality
• Understand how to motivate buyers
• Close deals faster with personalized playbooks for every sale

Pricing:

Not provided. Contact their support team for more information.

Conclusion

Whatever email marketing software you choose, make sure that it has a good deliverability rate, integrates with the platform that you use, has personalization capabilities, and has a great selection of email templates. And then it all boils down to your marketing objectives and requirements and see which one meets your needs.

While you’re busy scaling your client’s email marketing, let us handle your agency’s marketing. Upgrade your plan and take your own marketing efforts to the next level!