If you think that email marketing services are going the way of the newspaper ad, it’s time to take another look. According to OutboundEngine, email marketing brings in, on average, a whopping 4,300-percent return on investment. That’s a jaw-dropping number that means big business for those who can spin email campaigns into gold. And it’s not as difficult as it used to be. With a diverse array of email marketing services out there, finding one that fits your retail business is a piece of cake. Here are five email marketing services that are ready-made for the retail industry.
GoDaddy Email Marketing
GoDaddy Email Marketing — which seamlessly integrates with GoDaddy's WordPress Websites, Website Builder and Online Store — makes it easy to create professional email marketing campaigns for the retail industry in minutes.
This user-friendly tool features a drag-and-drop composer, sign-up form for your website or Facebook page, and automatic removal of bad addresses, duplicates and unsubscribes — not to mention access to GoDaddy’s 24/7 customer support team.
SendinBlue
The most attractive thing about SendinBlue is its trifecta of messaging options. SendinBlue allows you to create email campaigns, transactional emails and text messages to send to loyal or potential customers. With the email campaign feature, you can easily create marketing messages, sales promotions, newsletters or reminders.
The transactional email feature allows you to connect to SendinBlue’s SMTP and API to send out messages that are triggered by an action or inaction. For example, a message can be triggered when a customer purchases your ultra-popular baby blue, goldfish-printed, cashmere sweater or when a forgetful subscriber types in the wrong password a few too many times.
On the other hand, if a customer has started the process of signing up for your rewards program but gets distracted by cat videos midway, the transactional email campaign will kick in to remind them to continue the process. Finally, for an additional fee, you can open up a new window of retail opportunity … reaching your customers through text.
Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor offers bold, spectacularly designed templates that allow you to design a successful email campaign, newsletter or promotion without ever having to glance at pesky code.
Plus, with Campaign Monitor’s visual journey designer, you can easily create email triggers that send messages based on behavior and/or demographics so your campaigns are automatically personalized for each of your customers’ tastes.
Benchmark
Like Campaign Monitor, Benchmark has a comfort zone between ease of use and professionalism. They provide well-designed email templates that are searchable by category and industry, which makes choosing a template for the retail industry as easy as swooping up the latest and greatest in Bluetooth earbud technology. The templates are customizable, allowing you to edit by drag and drop or code or even make use of the text-only options. Benchmark also integrates with 15 of the top eCommerce platforms and tools.
While not as easily customizable as Campaign Monitor, Benchmark features auto-responders as well — so saying hi to new customers or wishing them a happy birthday is a breeze.
Zoho Campaigns
Zoho Campaigns is a great option because it’s more than just an email marketing service. Zoho offers CRM and Docs services as well that can be purchased in a bundle or separately. The email branch of the bundle provides advanced features such as auto-responders and Google Analytics to track your email campaigns. While the campaign builder is simple to use, one drawback is that the templates are a tad dated. But the most important thing is making sure your subscribers see the shine in your hand-tailored, leather loafers — and this the templates can do. That, plus the pricing, makes Zoho Campaigns an excellent option for the retail industry.
Test before you commit
With as many email marketing services out there as there are variations in your hand-stitched winter collection of dapper bowties, it can be overwhelming to choose, or even to know whether email marketing is right for your retail business. Look for a free trial to give your email marketing tool of choice a test run.
