At this point you are probably wondering what email marketing software features you should look for when shopping for email marketing campaign software. Here are the features that you should keep top of mind when searching for the best email marketing software:
Template options
In the early days of email marketing, the appearance of your email mattered much less than the content it contained. Now that consumers are deluged with emails every single day, aesthetics are more important than ever — if your emails are not arranged in a logical and visually appealing manner, readers will click out of it immediately (or even worse, unsubscribe from your email altogether).
Whether you’re sending cart abandonment nudges or confirmation emails, you should make sure that it looks great. Seek out a platform that offers aesthetically pleasing email templates that fit your branding. Most platforms also allow you to customize email templates; although, this feature may only be available to paid plans or premium account tiers, so a free plan might not cut it. Look for services with a drag-and-drop builder so that even employees with no coding experience can create beautiful emails.
Mobile optimization
Nearly 55% of global website traffic is generated from mobile devices (excluding tablets), so emails need to look great on mobile as well as desktop. This puts marketers in a tricky position, since visually rich content is more compelling than plain text, but doesn’t always render correctly on a smaller device screen, making your stunning emails look like a jumbled mess.
Many email marketing platforms offer mobile-optimized HTML templates that let users design attractive content (ads, newsletters, updates) and test readability without requiring extensive technical knowledge. The best email marketing platforms even offer the ability to automatically display a mobile-optimized email when viewed on a smartphone, while presenting the full email design when viewed on a desktop. This way you know that your company is putting its best foot forward in customers’ inboxes, no matter where or how they are checking their email.
Personalized content and segmentation
Commercial email traffic has accelerated at a dizzying rate in the past few decades. As a result, many consumers have grown numb to promotional content, especially when it’s generic or irrelevant. But there’s one way to cut through the noise: Personalization improves clickthrough and conversion rates, which is why 60% of retail, e-commerce, and consumer goods and services companies are personalizing emails based on past purchases, up from 38% in 2019.
Many businesses are using automated email tools that allow them to segment different target audiences based on interests and past behavior, then address each contact by name and present relevant, targeted information — for example, an email suggesting additional companion products based on a recent purchase. This can be accomplished through use of dynamic content, trigger rules, and list segmentation, which are standard features in most email marketing services. Just because you’re sending bulk emails doesn’t mean they should feel like bulk emails to the customer.