Email is one of the most popular points of contact between businesses and customers in the modern world. Customers resort to emails and social media these days to communicate their queries or grievances regarding products and services. On the other side, businesses and enterprises use email very effectively to advertise and market their products among potential customers as well as to solve issues within the existing customer base. Email marketing software is key to achieving optimum utilization of all resources when it comes to using email as a point of contact.
Email is just the start. Social Media is a whole another dimension where customers are resorting to communicating their queries. But still, Email remains the primary contact point for businesses even today. Sending bulk emails in a jiffy, categorizing them according to target groups and keeping subscribers in the loop daily was a torrid task a few years ago, but now, email marketing software has made all these tasks simple and achievable every single day. Even if you are a small business owner, Software tools are extremely vital to maintaining your internet presence.
What is an Email Marketing Software Tool?
The Software helps you in conducting email marketing and advertising campaigns and helps you get in touch with customers and potential customers directly. Writing emails is quite tasking as time has become a very valuable resource when it comes to businesses and enterprises. The tools help integrate all email functions in one place along with automation of the mail sending process as well as responses for common replies and queries from customers and subscribers. The software also helps create and manage campaigns and events based on the mail platform which might involve advertisements, products and even direct sales of your products and services. An email is a direct form of communication with people and even organizations which makes it extremely vital for businesses to have a huge ecosystem on the mail platform. Email Marketing tools help manage this ecosystem, keeping all vital elements under constant supervision and trying to improve the output as much as it can.
Features of an Email Marketing Software Tool
- Email Automation: The software will automate and simplify the whole mail sending and receiving process. Mails can be scheduled and categorically sorted. The tool can also respond to certain queries and emails from customers. The user can set template responses to similar mails and queries using the software, and from there on, it will respond to emails of such profiles automatically.
- Analytics and Metrics: Ths software is in most cases integrated with Google Analytics or some other analytics platform. Analytics is a very important part of business metrics and statistics these days. Analytics help you to keep a check on responses and alerts and keep track of daily activity on your mail platform. Analytics will help you judge the execution and success of your advertising and marketing campaigns and also how the future campaigns should be carried out. Having statistics and figures at your disposal will always make your job easier running any business.
- Social Media Management and Integration: Email is the stepping stone to a social media connection. The email marketing tools integrate the power of mail with social media marketing. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are very vital tools if you want to promote your brand or service in today’s world. Tools integrate the power of direct emails to social media platforms and create a proper webbed ecosystem for your product to be viewed and advertised over multiple platforms.
- WYSIWYG: WYSIWYG stands for ‘what you see is what you get. This is a very important factor when it comes to email marketing, especially in the region of direct sales. While marketing and advertising your product or service through mail servers or even social media, you need to be transparent about what you offer. Tools make this simple by providing direct access to customers with queries and suggestions regarding your products and services. Mail is a very closed and personal point of contact for the customer and they prefer contacting over email rather than social media in most cases if they have grievances and queries about products. This has changed with the younger generation a bit, but still, the mail is very important.
Although you can choose and deploy any of the 7 Free and Open source Email Marketing software discussed below in this article, ContactOut deserves a special mention. Powered by high-end data intelligence technology, ContactOut is one of the best email marketing solutions available in the market today. This email marketing tool is one of the must-have applications for recruitment, sales, and marketing outreach campaigns.
Let us discuss this enterprise-grade email marketing software in detail:
ContactOut
A highly efficient and feature-rich application, this email marketing tool has a vast resource pool with an accurate B2B email and phone number database of over 250 million professionals. Its flagship Chrome extension works on LinkedIn and makes finding emails and phone numbers super easy. It comes with a free version of its services that allows sourcing 40 emails and 30 phone numbers. For premium features, one can choose from four paid plans- Personal, Recruiter, Sales, and Team. Sales, marketing, research, and recruitment departments of over two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, including Google, JP Morgan, Netflix, Microsoft, etc., utilize ContactOut for their email marketing needs.
Source: ContactOut
Key Features:
- Users can fetch, save, and organize leads from Linkedin directly into shareable folders.
- Personalize outbound messaging with the mail merge tool
- Users can directly find contacts on ContactOut’s search portal
- Reusable templates for faster email formation
- Automation for sourcing leads, building pipelines, and follow-ups
- It comes with data enrichment features that turn any list of Linkedin URLs into contact lists with 20+ fields
- One-click export to spreadsheets or ATS.
- Artificial Intelligence enabled email composition for ultra-personalized emails
Here is the list of best free and open source email marketing software solutions compiled by GoodFirms:
The Top 7 Free and Open Source Email Marketing software tools are:
- Mautic
- List Messenger
- phpList
- OpenEMM
- MailChimp
- SendBlaster
- GNU Mailman
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS CHART
Let us look into these software tools with further details.
Mautic
(Source: Mautic)
Features
- Automated Email Responses
- Personalized Emails
- Mobile Optimized
- Search Tracking and Optimization
- Automated Alerts and Tasks
- Budgeting
- Ad Management
- Analytics
Mautic is one of the most advanced software tools available on the Internet today. It has a wide range of features that automate almost all advanced functions and enable seamless functioning. The response system and task management systems are completely automated. All the searches can be tracked and Mautic even optimizes searches for future uses. Mautic is integrated across almost all major platforms and is even mobile friendly which makes it extremely convenient. Mautic helps you manage Ads over Google and Facebook as well. Mautic also uses Google Analytics and gives use daily and weekly reports regarding responses and alerts you about irregularities. Mautic is extremely customizable and is a complete package when it comes to email marketing. If you have a small to medium enterprise, Mautic is a great option to have at hand.
List Messenger
(Source: List Messenger)
Features
- Automated Subscribing/Unsubscribing
- Message Archive System
- Integrated Subscriber History
- Spell Check
- Automated responses
- Analytics
- Database Management
List Messenger is one of the most basic tools out there. It has a simple and extremely customizable UI. But being simple does not make it devoid of an array of features. It has a completely automated subscriber management system. Along with this, it has a vast message archive system which makes it easy to manage similar responses and alerts. Subscriber history enables tracking of vital information and helps you manage messages and campaigns accordingly. It also has a very convenient spell check feature that keeps your emails precise and error-free. List Messenger is integrated with Google Analytics which helps keep track of important information regarding subscribers and important alerts and responses on a daily and weekly basis.
pHpList
(Source: pHpList)
Features
- Personalization
- Extremely Scalable
- Automated email responses
- Subscriber Management
- Analytics
- Bounce Processing
- Campaign Scheduling
pHpList is a great software tool that enables seamless integration over a range of platforms. It is very scalable and can be used from the smallest of businesses to even large enterprises. The response and alert systems are automated which makes it very time-saving. It has an excellent subscriber management system that helps sort them, and adapt and respond according to their activity. It is fully integrated with Google Analytics, keeping you in the loop with overall activity daily. Bounce processing and management is another very important feature that helps avoid delivery errors and keep a check on invalid email IDs and accounts. pHpList helps in creating and managing campaigns as well, from scheduling them to planning them. pHpList is a complete package when it comes to email marketing and can be used by small and medium enterprises.
OpenEMM
(Source: OpenEMM)
Features
- Fluid and Simple UI
- Bounce Management
- Mail and Link Tracking
- Automated data import and export
- Scripting and personalized emails
- Target Group management
- Analytics
OpenEMM is a very simple and customizable email management system. The UI is very fluid and user-friendly. It has a great bounce management system which helps avoid delivery errors. Email and link tracking help keep track of regular responses and alerts from subscribers. OpenEMM can import and export data and manage a huge database regarding users and subscribers. OpenEMM can help you script and personalize emails in context with the user’s needs. OpenEMM can also keep track of your target groups, segregate them and automate your responses regarding those target groups. It is integrated with Google Analytics which helps keep track of responses and alerts daily.
MailChimp
(Source: MailChimp)
Features
- Personalization
- Segmentation
- Analytics
- Google and Facebook Ad Management
- Multi-Platform Integration
- Automated responses
- Campaign Management
MailChimp is one of the most advanced software out there. It is extremely customizable and the dashboard can be personalized according to the user’s needs. The response and alert system are automated, wherein MailChimp starts sending bulk responses to a similar set of subscribers. Another great feature is the Ad management feature which enables advertising over various platforms, mainly Google and Facebook. MailChimp is integrated with Google Analytics which helps track responses and subscribers daily. A major feature of MailChimp is its campaign management system which helps plan and schedule mail campaigns regarding any event or occasion. MailChimp can manage small to medium enterprises very easily, which makes it one of the most popular email marketing platforms on the market.
SendBlaster
(Source: SendBlaster)
Features
- Layout Editor
- Personalization
- Categorized Templates
- Campaign Management
- Segmentation
- Subscriber Management
- Bounce Management
- Analytics
SendBlaster is an extremely customizable software tool. The dashboard and regular activities or actions of the software can be personalized according to the user’s needs. The layout and the templates of the emails can be edited and framed to your need. SendBlaster has a huge database of templates that are categorized according to events, responses and subscribers. It has a very convenient campaign management system that helps plan and schedule email and Ad campaigns when needed. Another great feature is its bounce management system which helps avoid delivery and response failures. SendBlaster is integrated with Google analytics, keeping you in the loop with statistics regarding mails and responses daily.
GNU Mailman
(Source: GNU Mailman)
Features
- Simple UI
- Subscriber Management
- Bounce management and processing
- Archive system
- Content Filtering
- Personalization
- Analytics
GNU Mailman is a very basic software tool, very convenient as starter software. Although the UI is very basic and simple, the feature list is not. Mailman has a very good subscriber management system enabling the user to automate and schedule responses and emails to subscribers according to their needs. The bounce management feature is also a very convenient feature that helps in avoiding delivery and response issues. Mailman has a huge message archive system as well. GNU Mailman is integrated into Google Analytics which helps keep track of responses and issues daily. Mailman is perfect as a starter software for small and medium enterprises.
We have added one more popular software for discussion-Active Campaign.
ActiveCampaign
Features
- It builds a history to store all edits in case users want an older email.
- With its multi-user feature, users can edit campaigns together in a team
- Track your contacts location for geo-targeted campaigns
- Segment and group your audience based on the information you have.
- It makes emails look good both on mobile and desktop
- Add a tag, create deals, and get notifications when an email link is clicked
- Custom data fields to collect the contact information
- Personalize each email
- Track your campaigns on popular social media sites.
- Upload unlimited images
- Sitetracking allows connecting your email marketing strategy with the audience’s behavior on your website.
- It manages delivery to reach as many people as possible
- It integrates and connects your email marketing service to other external apps.
Active Campaign is a popular software to create email marketing campaigns and email newsletters. It lets users plan and executes email campaigns with its robust set of features. Users can send welcome emails, auto-responses, triggered and targeted emails, and scheduled emails to the broadcast list. It has a drag and drops options with beautiful prebuilt templates to let users design appealing emails for their respective audiences. It makes email marketing engaging and optimized.
Conclusion
An email has evolved a lot through the years and has found its uses for different purposes from time to time. The email began as a personal messaging medium and gradually found mass usage among businesses and organizations. Email found its uses in advertising and marketing posts that very quickly and still is very vital in that department for businesses worldwide. Email maintains to be one of the most important points of contact between customers and businesses even today and that does not seem like decreasing any time soon.
Email Marketing Software Tools are extremely vital for business owners in the Internet age, where keeping regular contact with customers is important and email is a pretty direct medium to market or advertise your product amongst a target group. The discussed software in the blog is very well equipped to handle all your requirements if you have a small or medium-sized business, some even excellently handle large-scale businesses and customer bases. And the most important factor being all of them are free of cost and open source, making them extremely customizable and adaptable according to the user’s needs. There are paid and premium software available in the market as well, which might have some more added features to the mentioned above, but overall, almost all the mentioned software tools should be sufficient for your requirements.
To know more about email marketing software tools, including premium options, you can click here.
