Paid email services have become one of the most utilized marketing tools today for their ability to reach potential clients, and unlike other marketing methods, don’t heavily rely on search engine ranking. With email marketing, you can always send updates about your latest product directly to a potential customer’s email inbox and engage quickly. Although you will find plenty of email marketing services these days, none competes with the top three contenders i.e. iContact, AWeber, and MailChimp. All these services are used for more or less the same purpose but have varied requirements. Before subscribing to any of the service, you need to compare them for features and cost. This will help you determine which service will possibly suit your business and budget.
iContact
iContact costs $10 a month to cater for 0-250 subscribers in this service, a fee not so different from other services. The email marketing service allows the use of both HTML and TXT messages. You can also track every message individually with iContact, and can see the sent messages, opened mails, and unsuccessful ones as well as those marked spam by the receiver.
As opposed to other services where affiliate sales are done according to levels, iContact commissions are fixed at 25% on all affiliate sales.
Upon subscription to iContact, there is a trial fee of only $1, which is refundable in case the user doesn’t like the service.
AWeber
AWeber costs $20 to cater for between 0-500 subscribers at this service. Uses both HTML and TXT messaging formats and has an easy-to-use width of sentence wrap for quick captioning unlike the iContact which requires editing to achieve similar results. AWeber also has a more personalized tracking system, which is tied closely on each individual subscriber.
It is quite easy to track spammed messages with AWeber and hence it is easy to establish any realistic measures to curb spamming.
When it comes to AWeber pricing, subscribers are given a free one-month trial where unsatisfied customers are guaranteed a hassle-free refund.
MailChimp
MailChimp is an ideal way to get started for businesses with less than 500 subscribers because it is free to join and clients are given a free monthly trial period. It is easy to use and new users can learn quickly using the user guide. You should choose MailChimp if you love graphics since you can easily edit and decorate your emails in this smart email marketing service.
Conclusion
While MailChimp does not present the most exclusive email marketing tools, it is certainly an ideal way to get started. However, as you subscribers grow, you’d probably want to switch to either AWeber or iContact to enjoy more exclusive email marketing features.
