Does your email marketing strategy include these must-have items? If not, it might be time for a refresh. 

For companies of all sizes, email is a staple when it comes to marketing efforts. It’s something that everyone has to do and it continues to be an extremely effective way to reach your customers. 

But are you making the most out of your email marketing efforts? Or do you find you’re spending hours crafting, designing, and sending emails with lackluster results? 

It’s easy to get stuck in the status quo when it comes to fyour email marketing efforts. You might start to feel like you’re doing the same tedious task over and over again — but it doesn’t have to be that way. 

In this article, we’ll talk about two different ways to break the mold of the everyday email marketing process. 

First, we’ll talk about a few different email marketing must-haves. While you’re likely already doing many of these, hopefully, a few will help inspire you on ways to improve your current process.

Then, we’ll provide you with 10 different email automation platforms that can help you improve your current process and rid your day of the boring, mundane email-related tasks. Partnering with the right automation platform will allow you to do more with your time and provide your customers with the best brand experience possible. 

Looking to skip ahead? Here’s a sneak peek at the email automation platform’s we’ll cover: 

1. Listrak
2. BenchmarkONE
3. Constant Contact
4. E-goi
5. Cakemail
6. LeadSquared
7. Customer.io
8. Keap
9. ActiveCampaign
10. ConvertKit

Email Marketing Must-Haves For Successful Companies

When it comes to email marketing, there are hundreds of tips and best practices to follow out there. There are so many different opinions out there that it can get confusing on what you should and shouldn’t do with your emails. 

That’s why we decided to outline a few must-haves for email marketing. Each of these must-haves is something you can easily implement (if you haven’t already) and will help improve your current email marketing success. 

So let’s dive in and start talking about the must-haves you need in your email marketing! 

Set Goals to Measure Success

The first thing you must have on our list should be determined well before you send your first email or develop a new campaign. 

Setting goals early on in your email marketing journey is important, but you’ll also want to do it before the development of any big campaign. 

You need to ask yourself things like: 

• What am I trying to gain from this campaign? 
• Will I measure a successful campaign by the number of lead, sales, or simply engagement? 
• Am I looking for ways to reach new customers or is the primary audience of existing customers? 

Taking time to think through questions like this will allow you to identify how you need to approach your audience. If your end goal is to reach new customers, you’re not going to want to spend time developing retention messaging.

While it varies from company to company, many have similar goals and priorities for their email marketing strategy. From increasing revenue and leads to improving nurturing efforts — you need to set and understand the goals of your messages. Image courtesy of Smart Insights.

Many companies set goals for an entire year and work to build email campaigns that help them achieve these higher-level goals. If this is the case for your company, the goal-setting process should include understanding how each email or campaign helps meet the end goal. 

Here are just a few business goals you can achieve through email marketing: 

• Build brand awareness 
• Identify opportunities to upsell or cross-sell products
• Gather customer reviews and feedback
• Announce new product launches
• Encourage customers to return to an abandoned shopping cart

Without setting goals, you won’t have a way to gauge the true success of your campaign. That’s why you need to sit down and figure out exactly what you’re hoping to get out of your email marketing plan. 

An Email Automation Platform to Make it Easier

Investing in an email automation platform can help make reaching your goals a little more achievable. 

If you’re tired of putting hours into creating emails, finding the right contacts, and knowing exactly what content to send to them — then you need email automation. Using a platform, such as the ones discussed below, will help automate and simplify your email marketing process. 

From having the ability to schedule emails to automate workflows and content based on customer interests and behaviors, you’ll start to see metrics like never before. On top of that, you’ll have more time to focus on other marketing tactics and implement new strategies. 

The benefits of using email automation are practically endless, but here are a few things you can expect to see: 

• Automate your emails and limit the amount of manual intervention needed
• Easily create workflows to nurture leads and move them through their purchasing journey
• Increase brand awareness with frequent communication
• Improve personalization through data collection and understanding
• Put your focus on other tasks while saving time and money in the process
• Have detailed monthly reporting to know exactly how your campaigns are performing

Marketing automation can help you improve your current process across the board. You’ll have the ability to track customer data from your website and integrate that into your email marketing efforts to improve the customer experience across all platforms. Image courtesy of Cetrix Cloud Services.

Email automation is a very powerful tool that can help take your current email efforts to the next level, and beyond. 

But if you’re still not quite sold, here are a few key automation stats from G2 you’ll want to know: 

1. Businesses that implement marketing automation experience an average of 451% increase in qualified leads
2. 91% of marketers feel that automation is very important to the success of their marketing campaigns
3. The use of lead nurturing through marketing automation saw 15-20% of potential buyers that were not ready to purchase converted to sales
4. 4 of 5 successful marketers credit marketing automation as a key contributor to their success

All of these details are why it’s so important to take time to identify the right email automation partner for your business needs. But don’t worry, later in this article, we’ll make sure to provide you with 10 platforms to consider when it comes time to invest in a platform.

A Growing Subscriber List to Reach More Customers

To continue to be successful in your email marketing efforts, you need a growing subscriber list. While it is true that the majority of your sales do come from existing customers, you can’t just ignore potential opportunities out there. 

In fact, improving subscriber lists is often one of the top priorities for companies in all industries. 

Many companies are moving towards building subscriber lists that provide higher quality and result in converting more leads. If you’re not focusing on continuously growing and im[roving your current list, you’ll never have the opportunity to see these results. Image courtesy of Campaign Monitor.

But there are plenty of other reasons why you should be putting an effort into growing your subscriber list, including: 

• Direct contact with potential clients that you can work to nurture and convert
• Having the ability to segment subscribers as they join your list means you can make every contact more meaningful 
• Increase sales by targeting new clients and increase your ROI
• Turning new subscribers into brand evangelists and they will become even more valuable 

While many people like to believe that email marketing is losing its luster, we’re here to tell you it’s still one of the most effective ways to engage with your customers. By focusing on email over other marketing strategies, you’ll see improved metrics from open rates to conversions.  

You might be wondering why you should be spending more time growing your email subscriber list than focusing on other channels? Because email continuously generates higher ROI than all other marketing strategies. On top of that, your emails are 5x more likely to be seen in an email than on Facebook. 

Personalized Content to Increase Engagement

In today’s email marketing world, personalization has become a must-have. In fact, your customers now expect that the messages you send them are personalized, and they may choose to go elsewhere if that isn’t the case. 

Now, chances are good you’re already aware of the impressive stats that come along with using personalization in your email marketing efforts. 

But just in case you need a refresher, let’s take a look at a few personalization numbers that you just can’t ignore: 

• 71% of consumers get frustrated when a shopping experience is impersonal
• 36% of consumers think retailers need to do more to offer personalized experiences
• 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides personalized experiences
• 72% of consumers say they only engage with personalized messaging

And the list goes on and on. 

Luckily, there are tons of different ways you can use personalization in your emails to better engage with your customers. From using their name to triggering emails based on their behaviors and interactions — personalization has never been easier. 

Personalization can come in many forms, from adding the customer’s name to the email to using third-party data it all makes a difference. The more granular you can get, the better your messages will be received. Image courtesy of Litmus.

If you’re not sure where to start, here’s a list of a few different ways you can pull personalization into your current email marketing efforts: 

• Use the recipient’s name
• Segment your subscriber list based on behaviors
• Past interactions and engagements with emails 
• Previous purchase and browsing habits
• General demographic information 

Taking the time to add personalization to your emails will help your company stand out from the competition and improve the customer experience. While it may seem like a daunting task at first, with the help of an email automation platform you can easily manage customer data and use it for personalization. 

A Cross Channel Marketing Strategy to Create a Seamless Experience

Cross channel marketing takes your email marketing beyond the inbox and creates a seamless experience across all platforms and channels. This can include email, SMS messages, social media, and even print marketing. 

The big thing to remember when developing a cross channel marketing strategy is the holistic customer journey. Each touchpoint should easily be integrated 

Here are a few tips to help you create the best cross channel marketing strategy possible: 

• Create buyer personas: before starting out, you need to understand your customers on a more granular level. Buyer personas will allow you to identify customer preferences, behaviors, buying habits, and more. 
• Use mediums that complement one another: some channels just don’t mess as well as others. Find the channels you use that work together and easily create a comprehensive experience for your customers. 

• Unify your data: having all of your customer data in one location will allow you to see a holistic view of your customers. You need to know what messages are sent to what customers across all of your platforms — unified data will make this much easier.
• Align with the buyer’s journey: every customer will have a different journey, and you need to account for that. When developing your strategy, make sure it aligns well with all of your buyers’ journeys. 

Cross channel marketing is a very effective way to reach your customers. While it may take some time to get everything aligned and working together, the pay off is well worth it. 

By implementing cross channel marketing efforts, you’ll quickly begin to see an increase in your monthly metrics. From increased purchase to engagement rates, the more touchpoints and channels you interact with your customers on, the better your stats will be. Image courtesy of Clickz.

Beyond purchase and engagement increases, there is a 30% higher lifetime customer value attributed to consumers shopping across multiple channels. When you consider the increase in sales, engagement, and lifetime customer value — it’s hard to ignore the lure of cross-channel marketing. 

10 Marketing Platforms to Get the Results You’re Looking For

1. Listrak

Listrak is an email automation platform that goes beyond your simple email creation, scheduling, and reporting.  

Listrak allows you to easily create and send emails but offers a variety of benefits to help improve your email marketing efforts. With an easy to use platform, your email automation process has never been easier. Image courtesy of Listrak.

Take your email marketing to the next level with cross channel capabilities, data management, predictive analytics, and so much more. 

Here’s what you’ll get with Listrak: 

• An easy to use responsive email designed to create professional messages and add dynamic content to improve content relevancy 
• Cross channel capabilities that allow you to orchestrate sophisticated multi-stage and highly personalized customer journeys
• Real-time customer data to send the right content at the right time and predict the future needs of your customers 
• The ability to develop and automate trigger emails to increase sales and revenue numbers

What makes Listrak stand out? The ability to utilize technology such as AI and machine learning to understand customers on a deeper level and automatically integrate that knowledge into your email and cross-channel marketing efforts. 

2. BenchmarkONE

BenchmarkONE is a sales and marketing platform designed for small businesses and marketing agencies to help make reaching customers easier than ever before. 

The BenchmarkONE platform allows you to easily create messages with dynamic content designed to engage users on a more personal level. Increased personalization will result in higher engagement and lead to more conversions. Image courtesy of BenchmarkONE.

When it comes to email automation, BenchmarkONE focuses on personalization and ensuring you have messages tailored to the needs of your audience.

Here’s what you’ll get with BenchmarkONE:

• A drag and drop email building that requires no coding so anyone can quickly and easily create appealing messages 
• A place to manage and grow your subscriber list with sign up forms that automatically tag and score contacts for you
• The ability to use dynamic content to ensure you’re sending the most relevant content to each customer on your subscriber list
• Tracking to understand your campaign success and know exactly what customers are opening and clicking your emails

What makes BenchmarkONE stand out? The ability to use dynamic content to tailor messages for each customer on your subscriber list from one central template. 

3. Constant Contact

Constant Contact is an email automation platform that will help you improve your current email marketing process through better segmentation, easier email development, and list management. 

Constant Contact will help you create professional emails that bring users back to your site and increase revenue. With more eye-catching designs, you’re much more likely to see higher clicks and associated sales. Image courtesy of Constant Contact.

Using a platform such as Constant Contact will allow you to create professional emails that connect users directly back to your eCommerce site to increase sales. 

Here’s what you’ll get with Constant Contact:

• An easy to use drag and drop editor to design emails that are optimized for every device
• Improved email segmentation to ensure you’re sending the right content to the right subscribers
• The ability to schedule and automate emails to send to customers based on their behaviors and interactions 
• An option to resend emails to non-openers to increase visibility and improve campaign success

What makes Constant Contact stand out? That you can easily manage all of your email marketing efforts within one platform that can connect and integrate with your website and e-store. 

4. E-goi

E-goi is a marketing automation platform that allows you to advance your email marketing through automation and easy to use templates. 

E-goi allows you to create automated workflows to reach your customers at the right time based on their interactions and behaviors. Image courtesy of E-goi.

Take your email marketing to the next level with automated workflows that engage customers based on their real-time interactions and provide them with the content they need next. 

Here’s what you’ll get with E-goi:

• Premade templates to make newsletters and standard email creation easier than ever before
• A partner who follows all email regulations to help keep your emails out of the spam folder
• Automation to reach customers based on their life cycle stages from the moment they opt-in through completing a purchase
• Reporting that lets you know exactly how your campaigns are performing in real-time

What makes E-goi stand out? The ability to create automated workflows to move your customers through their journey without any manual intervention needed. 

5. Cakemail

Cakemail is an email automation platform that allows you to manage customer relationships, deliver personalized messages, and much more. 

With an easy to use, plug and go template, Cakemail makes creating professional emails easier than ever before. Image courtesy of Cakemail.

With the help of the Cakemail platform, you can make email creation easy, include dynamic content to improve engagement, and manage your subscriber list all in one central location. 

Here’s what you’ll get with Cakemail:

• An easy to use responsive email creator to ensure your messages are optimized for all devices
• The ability to use dynamic content to add personalization to every message to improve reader engagement
• Advanced segmentation using customer data including real-time behaviors and interactions
• Automated subscriber list hygiene to ensure your only reaching out to contacts who want to hear from you and filtering out unsubscribes to stay compliant 

What makes Cakemail stand out? It’s a simple platform that allows you to automate your email processes from list management to advanced segmentation and dynamic content. 

6. Leadsquared

Leadsquared is a marketing automation platform that allows you to easily engage with your prospects and customers across various channels. 

Start by selecting a template and personalizing content, then all you have to do is send your campaigns out to all the relevant recipients on your list. Image courtesy of Leadsquared.

Leadsquared will help you understand what is working and what isn’t in your current email marketing strategy with advanced analytics across the board. 

Here’s what you’ll get with Leadsquared:

• Pre-made, responsive email templates ready for you to turn into your own
• An email subject line analyzer to help you understand what subject lines are outperforming the rest
• The ability to pinpoint what days and times are most likely to result in higher opens, clicks, and responses
• Advanced analytics to understand what campaigns are working and easily replicate them

What makes Leadsquared stand out? The ability to learn and understand exactly what your customers are engaging with and what isn’t working through advanced analytics — from the subject line to the time customers are engaging with your content.

7. Customer.io

Customer.io is an automation platform that allows you to send targeted messages to better engage with your customers and build stronger relationships. 

Make email automation simple with workflow options to engage customers through their entire journey. Image courtesy of Customer.io.

The Customer.io platform allows you to create automated campaigns without having a technical background or coding knowledge.

Here’s what you’ll get with Customer.io:

• Data integrations that use real-time data from your customers to drive future automated messages
• Improved segmentation by identifying customer attributes and how they are interacting with your website and products
• Rule-based workflows to create high-performing campaigns that run on their own based on customer interactions once setup is complete
• Various email templates and a drag and drop builder to make email creation simple

What makes Customer.io stand out? The ability to automate campaigns that evolve with the needs of your customers all without manual intervention.

8. Keap 

Keap is a sales and marketing automation platform for companies that work directly with clients that allows you to get valuable time back by automating your daily tasks. 

Interacting with your leads has never been easier. Create automated follow-ups and triggered messages to send at the right time — without you having to initiate it. Image courtesy of Keap.

Don’t miss a chance to engage with your leads on a personal basis, Keap helps you stay connected and automate common messages and requests. 

Here’s what you’ll get with Keap:

• Automated follow-up emails to new contacts with pre-written messages to move them towards the next step in their buying process
• Create email sequences that are sent based on timed or behavioral triggers to engage with clients at the right time
• Pre-existing templates that you can easily select and send to customers
• Develop automatic emails to be sent to leads when they move from one stage to the next to ensure a consistent experience

What makes Keap stand out? It’s designed for companies that interact with leads on a more one-to-one basis but still allows them to automate their process and do more with their time. 

9.  ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is an automation platform that lets you integrate all of your email, marketing, and CRM data into one central location. 

Send your customers only the most relevant content based on their previous behaviors through automated workflows. Image courtesy of ActiveCampaign.

When it comes to email automation, ActiveCampaign provides you with everything you need from broadcast emails to moving users through the funnel. 

Here’s what you’ll get with ActiveCampaign:

• Segmentation and dynamic content capabilities that will allow you to send the content your customers actually want to receive
• Personalized experiences by tailoring the experience based on their interactions and behaviors
• Split testing capabilities to help you identify what works and what doesn’t and continue to improve your emails
• The ability to send broadcast emails and reach larger audiences with one message

What makes ActiveCampaign stand out? It offers a wide variety of email automation tactics and allows you to do more with your current strategy. 

10. ConvertKit

ConvertKit is an email automation platform that provides an easy to use and visual platform to help you get the most out of your email efforts. 

Know exactly where every lead within your cycle is at a glance and see how they are progressing through their journey at any time. Image courtesy of ConvertKit.

Reach your contacts when and where it’s most relevant to their personal journey with your brand.

Here’s what you’ll get with ConvertKit:

• Rule-based automation so you determine exactly what your customers do and see next
• Segmentation that is based on each customer’s journey and relevant to their needs
• Triggered emails that allow you to send the right content at the right time based on customer interactions
• Visual tools to let you quickly identify everything that’s happening within your campaigns  

What makes ConvertKit stand out? The visual tools and ability to quickly glance at your dashboard and know exactly what’s going on across your email campaigns.  

Does your current email automation platform stand up? 

So what do you think? Does your current email automation platform stand up to the competition? Or is it time to start looking at new ways to improve your current process and find a new partner to help take your automation to the next level? 

If you read through these email automation must-haves and felt like you might be missing out, then now’s the time to reevaluate what you’re currently doing. While it might just be a process or strategy change needed to get you where you want to be, it’s also a great time to take a step back and look at the platform you’re currently using. 

In a technology-driven world, things change faster than you can keep up — and that goes for email automation as well. It’s always a good practice to take a step back, look at what you’re doing, and make sure it’s still the right path for your company goals.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. I’m always available to help young hustlers like you.

Keep hustling!