Email Service Recommendations Based On What You Need
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In this episode I go back and look at each email service provider I have talked about in previous episodes. Mailerlite, Convertkit, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Active Campaign, and Klaviyo.
Be sure to read our recent article - Mailerlite Vs. Converkit
If you are a podcaster like me you may find this article interesting as well -
3 Best Email Services For Podcasters
**Transcript**
Speaker 1: (00:02)
This is digital marketing tool talk, never miss out or fall behind on the latest digital tools for social media, SEO content reviews, and the entire digital marketing space. I'm your host, Brandon Hughes. Welcome back everyone. I've been doing this email platform series for a little over a month now and I've reviewed several different email platforms all today. I want to wrap it all up. I want to give you some recommendations on which one you should use based on the needs that you want or need from your email platform. I do hope all of you are being safe out there. I know this quarantine, stay at home where your mask thing is really getting on people's nerves and really testing our ability to be good community citizens. So I hope you're doing your best out there wherever you're at. I've had a couple of close family and friends who've been affected by this and so I just want to let all of you know that even all the way out here in the middle of the Pacific, I'm thinking about all of you no matter where you are on this planet and I hope you're being safe.
Speaker 1: (01:20)
With that said, it's a great time to be doing research, looking at things and making decisions so that when we all get through this, which we know we will, we'll be ready to rock and roll. So let's get into the reviews. Let's talk about the platforms so that hopefully I can help you pick the right one to get you started, get you through the midterm of your business or maybe take you up a notch and you can really knock it out of the park. Let's take a look. Okay, so just a quick review. If we go way back, let me review all the platforms that I went over. I went over constant contact, MailChimp, convert kit, Klayvio active campaign and MailerLite. Now, I know there are a ton of other email platforms out there that you can be using for newsletters and platforms, but part of this whole process is it's just, it's just too much.
Speaker 1: (02:23)
There's just too many out there. And I think that's, that's a problem. It's just too many options. And that's kinda why I'm doing this podcast is just to help you Wade through all that information that's out there. Now, several of these platforms that I'm recommending to you, uh, I have an affiliate association with. So if you were to click through a link on my podcast notes, then I would benefit financially. Some of them, I don't, if you just go to them direct from the podcast, it doesn't matter. You're just going through direct. And the reason I bring this up is one disclosure, but two, for those of you that don't know, you should realize that when you go to a lot of these review sites where they're comparing different platforms, the reason why they're putting so much time and energy into making these posts and promoting one platform or the other is because they have an affiliate program.
Speaker 1: (03:23)
So it's good and it's bad one, you know, it helps get the word out there as far as which platform to use. And on the other hand, you know, if there's a financial incentive, maybe they're not looking at the true needs of you and what you should be using. So in the end, definitely do your own research. Compare, get your information from a couple of different resources and just see where it goes. And hopefully you will pick a platform that will stick with you for a long time. Now speaking of that, I want to remind all of you that all of these platforms allow the ability to export your content ex export your contacts to another platform so you don't have to worry about being locked in. All of them have a per month option so that you can pay per month. So you're really, you're really not backed into a corner with any of these platforms.
Speaker 1: (04:21)
So I encourage you, if you feel like one might be the right choice, just go for it. Just pick it up and run with it and don't be afraid to change on the other. On the other hand. Um, the other thing I want to point out is if you're out there and you're in these groups, these Facebook groups, uh, read it maybe in Twitter and you're asking the question, Hey, which email platform should I use? You're going about it completely wrong because I see these questions all the time. Hey, what's the best email platform? And people just immediately start saying, Oh, use this one here, use this. Or Oh, here's my affiliate link. Use this one. How can you, how can you make that recommendation? There's no way anyone can make that recommendation on what's the best email platform without asking you a whole bunch of questions.
Speaker 1: (05:16)
So with that said, I'm going to recommend not to you, but to those who are in certain areas or certain types of businesses, platforms that they should look at. Okay, that's how I'm going to make my recommendation for you. So let's start, let's start at the very basic. You're just, you're a beginner. You've been looking at all these platforms and you're not sure which one you're kind of getting into the whole thing. You, you know, you, you don't know too much about automation, you're just totally beginner. You just maybe have a brand new website. Maybe you have a new eCommerce store, maybe you have a uh, a brick and mortar and you just want to send a newsletter out about something that you're doing. The two platforms that I'm going to recommend that I've gone over in the past month, a little over a month is definitely going to be MailChimp and constant contact for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1: (06:15)
Both of them seem to have great tutorials, a wide selection of templates. MailChimp has a great free offer. I think it's up to 2000 emails, although they're limited on the sens, but if you're just getting into it and you want to kind of Wade through everything that's going on out there, then definitely I would S I would recommend that you start with MailChimp and constant contact. They're like the generalist of email platforms. You, you can get the paid version. You can go on to some of the more higher level options that they have and definitely do more advanced things, but they seem to be able to hand dish through training, tutorials, the ease of use, the interface, et cetera, for those who are just getting started. Okay, so for those of you out there just getting started, MailChimp and constant contact, definitely look at both of those.
Speaker 1: (07:14)
That would be my first place that I would start. Now let's jump to the other end of the spectrum. Okay. You've been using an email platform for awhile. You know about newsletters. Maybe you even have a welcome series, you know that you put out, you know, you know, you know that there's tagging and segmentation, but maybe you're not really using it. You know that they're a, and B testing is critical, but you're not using that as well and you really want to take it up a notch. You want to be dropping people into different lists, different auto automations. You want to get complex, you want to really Polish off your email marketing. The two platforms that I recommend for that would be Klayvio and active campaign. They have the most advanced features of the few that I've reviewed here, and that's where, that's where I would look.
Speaker 1: (08:10)
If you're looking to take the next step, they have a lot of unique features. Go back, listen to that show again and, and you'll see you can really do advanced stuff to the point where Klayvio if you go to their website, they even have a section where they can connect you with professionals who work on that platform. Now you can go to Fiverr, you can go to all op work a bunch of other outsourcing platforms and have somebody do emails for you on any of these platforms. But Klaviyo has brought that in and I think, and I'm just guessing, but I think they've brought that in and made it a focal point of their website is because they know one is a steep learning curve and two, there's so many amazing things that you can do. Same with active campaign. Okay. Just amazing things that you can do.
Speaker 1: (09:02)
So if that's where you're at, like I'm not a beginner, I'm intermediate to advanced and I really want to step it up. I know that there's some potential here. Those would be the two that I would recommend you look at. Okay. Now some of the other ones, and where do they fit in? I mentioned this when I did the convert kit, a podcast and I mentioned that this platform is really generated or really you know, focused in on content creators, so who are content creators, bloggers, you tubers, those of you who are creating courses, webinars, maybe you have online lessons, you know, anything from guitar lessons to SEO, lessons to gardening lessons, any of that type of stuff. Convert kit is just really carved out a niche and they've partnered with another amazing podcast or that I recommend you listen to. His name is Pat Flynn and he does some really amazing stuff and I'm not sure if that's his influence, but he's a mega content creator.
Speaker 1: (10:13)
So whether you're connecting your emails with, with courses you want to provide with free offers, you want to link PDFs in there. All of these types of things that you as a content creator will find extremely useful in an email platform convert kit that that's where I recommend you start. That's work where I recommend you look. You will be pleasantly surprised at all of the amazing things that they can do. Now with that said, convert kit has a lot of simple text-based emails. They don't get too much into the newsletter templates if that's a big turnoff for you. Okay. And I encourage you to look at the difference between text, email and these templates. Text, email there. There's a lot of, there's a reason for it now. People read it, they look at it, they treat it differently. It's more personal. People know when they're getting a newsletter via a template or some sort of custom layout.
Speaker 1: (11:11)
So, so don't shy away from using texts. There's a reason why convert kit does it that way. But if you have to have the email template, okay, you need, you want to have, you know, the cool looking, uh, you know, graphics in there or links or pictures and et cetera. Then the platform I would recommend for you is mailer, light mailer light in my opinion of all of these platforms seems to kinda be a little bit above average in almost every area. And they're really focused on the email platform. So segmentation, the availability of templates to use also their segmentation and their tagging can be quite advanced. I love the double recent option. So with that said, if at the end of all of these you're just like, okay Brandon, just tell Mary which one that you want to use a tired. I don't know.
Speaker 1: (12:14)
I don't know. I'm just information overload. First of all, I feel you, I totally feel you. So my recommendation would be mailer light, give that platform or try start there and remember, if it doesn't work out and it's, you know, you don't like it, your contacts, you can always export them to another platform. I do know that's kind of the worst case scenario. You know, you want to find one and you want to and you want to stick with it. With that said, just to back up a little bit of what I, what I've been saying, I've been doing quite a few YouTube videos lately lately, tutorial type YouTube videos on, on how to use these different platforms. So if you get a chance, go to YouTube, go to Hoku marketing, um, that's my YouTube channel and I'm going to be putting out some tutorials on how to use mailer Lite.
Speaker 1: (13:07)
I will also be working on convert kit as well. Both of these, uh, I have affiliate partnerships with them. So that's part of what's driving me cause I got to pay the bills. But also because I'm going to be integrating mailer with my platform as I move away from constant contact. And I want to just share that with, with all of you. So if you go over there and you see one drop a note in the comments, if you want me to do a tutorial on something different with a mailer light, I'd be happy to do it. I can jump around quite easily. I bought a program called Camtasia. It is a video editing software but it is focused on doing tutorials. So that's a kind of what I'm looking at. Hey, this series is wrapping up after this with the email platforms I'm not going to be doing anymore.
Speaker 1: (13:58)
Um, but uh, going forward, I'm going to go back to the old way. I'm going to be jumping around looking at different unique little tools that are out there. Cause in the whole time that I've been doing these emails, I've come across so many different digital marketing tools from the different podcasts and blogs that I read. So be jumping around doing some different little things. I found some really cool things. So stay tuned for that. If you have any questions on the email or anything else that I do or you know, have a tool that you think I should highlight or focus a podcast episode on, go ahead and email me brandon@hokumarketing.com. I'd be happy to check it out. Stay safe. If you like what you heard today, please rate review and subscribe to this podcast. If you have a digital marketing tool that you like or you use, or even one that you've created, let me in the comments or send me an email@brandonmarketing.com I'll see you on the new school flip side.
