In this post we will be talking about Email Marketing tools that are open source. We will discuss the pros and cons of Email Marketing and cover some of the best open source tools for you to use that are free.
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is the use of email to promote products or services, but it can also be used to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. It is basically newsletters sent out to your customers via email. The goal of these messages is to get your customers to buy a product or service from you by creating a sense of urgency or by offering them a discount on their first purchase. This type of advertising has been around since the beginning of time and will continue to be around for many years to come because it works!
The Pros and Cons Of Email Marketing
Email marketing has many pros and cons, but the main pro is that you can reach an unlimited number of people without spending any money on advertising campaigns or traditional media outlets like television commercials or radio ads. You don’t need a website either! All you require is an internet connection so if someone opens up your email, they can see what you have sent them immediately which means faster responses from potential customers who may want something now rather than later (or never).
Email Marketing Tools Open Source
Email is one of the most popular points of contact between businesses and customers in the modern world. Customers resort to emails and social media these days to communicate their queries or grievances regarding products and services. On the other side, businesses and enterprises use email very effectively to advertise and market their products among potential customers as well as to solve issues within the existing customer base. Email marketing software is key to achieving optimum utilization of all resources when it comes to using email as a point of contact.
Email is just the start. Social Media is a whole another dimension where customers are resorting to communicating their queries. But still, Email remains the primary contact point for businesses even today. Sending bulk emails in a jiffy, categorizing them according to target groups and keeping subscribers in the loop daily was a torrid task a few years ago, but now, email marketing software has made all these tasks simple and achievable every single day. Even if you are a small business owner, Software tools are extremely vital to maintaining your internet presence.
What is an Email Marketing Software Tool?
The Software helps you in conducting email marketing and advertising campaigns and helps you get in touch with customers and potential customers directly. Writing emails is quite tasking as time has become a very valuable resource when it comes to businesses and enterprises. The tools help integrate all email functions in one place along with automation of the mail sending process as well as responses for common replies and queries from customers and subscribers. The software also helps create and manage campaigns and events based on the mail platform which might involve advertisements, products and even direct sales of your products and services. An email is a direct form of communication with people and even organizations which makes it extremely vital for businesses to have a huge ecosystem on the mail platform. Email Marketing tools help manage this ecosystem, keeping all vital elements under constant supervision and trying to improve the output as much as it can.
Features of an Email Marketing Software Tool
Email Automation: The software will automate and simplify the whole mail sending and receiving process. Mails can be scheduled and categorically sorted. The tool can also respond to certain queries and emails from customers. The user can set template responses to similar mails and queries using the software, and from there on, it will respond to emails of such profiles automatically.
Analytics and Metrics: Ths software is in most cases integrated with Google Analytics or some other analytics platform. Analytics is a very important part of business metrics and statistics these days. Analytics help you to keep a check on responses and alerts and keep track of daily activity on your mail platform. Analytics will help you judge the execution and success of your advertising and marketing campaigns and also how the future campaigns should be carried out. Having statistics and figures at your disposal will always make your job easier running any business.
Social Media Management and Integration: Email is the stepping stone to a social media connection. The email marketing tools integrate the power of mail with social media marketing. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are very vital tools if you want to promote your brand or service in today’s world. Tools integrate the power of direct emails to social media platforms and create a proper webbed ecosystem for your product to be viewed and advertised over multiple platforms.
WYSIWYG: WYSIWYG stands for ‘what you see is what you get. This is a very important factor when it comes to email marketing, especially in the region of direct sales. While marketing and advertising your product or service through mail servers or even social media, you need to be transparent about what you offer. Tools make this simple by providing direct access to customers with queries and suggestions regarding your products and services. Mail is a very closed and personal point of contact for the customer and they prefer contacting over email rather than social media in most cases if they have grievances and queries about products. This has changed with the younger generation a bit, but still, the mail is very important.
The Top 7 Free and Open Source Email Marketing software tools are:
Mautic
List Messenger
phpList
OpenEMM
MailChimp
SendBlaster
GNU Mailman
comparative analysis of email marketing software
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS CHART
Let us look into these software tools with further details.
Mautic
mautic
(Source: Mautic)
Features
Automated Email Responses
Personalized Emails
Mobile Optimized
Search Tracking and Optimization
Automated Alerts and Tasks
Budgeting
Ad Management
Analytics
Mautic is one of the most advanced software tools available on the Internet today. It has a wide range of features that automate almost all advanced functions and enable seamless functioning. The response system and task management systems are completely automated. All the searches can be tracked and Mautic even optimizes searches for future uses. Mautic is integrated across almost all major platforms and is even mobile friendly which makes it extremely convenient. Mautic helps you manage Ads over Google and Facebook as well. Mautic also uses Google Analytics and gives use daily and weekly reports regarding responses and alerts you about irregularities. Mautic is extremely customizable and is a complete package when it comes to email marketing. If you have a small to medium enterprise, Mautic is a great option to have at hand.
List Messenger
list messenger
(Source: List Messenger)
Features
Automated Subscribing/Unsubscribing
Message Archive System
Integrated Subscriber History
Spell Check
Automated responses
Analytics
Database Management
List Messenger is one of the most basic tools out there. It has a simple and extremely customizable UI. But being simple does not make it devoid of an array of features. It has a completely automated subscriber management system. Along with this, it has a vast message archive system which makes it easy to manage similar responses and alerts. Subscriber history enables tracking of vital information and helps you manage messages and campaigns accordingly. It also has a very convenient spell check feature that keeps your emails precise and error-free. List Messenger is integrated with Google Analytics which helps keep track of important information regarding subscribers and important alerts and responses on a daily and weekly basis.
pHpList
phplist
(Source: pHpList)
Features
Personalization
Extremely Scalable
Automated email responses
Subscriber Management
Analytics
Bounce Processing
Campaign Scheduling
pHpList is a great software tool that enables seamless integration over a range of platforms. It is very scalable and can be used from the smallest of businesses to even large enterprises. The response and alert systems are automated which makes it very time-saving. It has an excellent subscriber management system that helps sort them, and adapt and respond according to their activity. It is fully integrated with Google Analytics, keeping you in the loop with overall activity daily. Bounce processing and management is another very important feature that helps avoid delivery errors and keep a check on invalid email IDs and accounts. pHpList helps in creating and managing campaigns as well, from scheduling them to planning them. pHpList is a complete package when it comes to email marketing and can be used by small and medium enterprises.
OpenEMM
openemm
(Source: OpenEMM)
Features
Fluid and Simple UI
Bounce Management
Mail and Link Tracking
Automated data import and export
Scripting and personalized emails
Target Group management
Analytics
OpenEMM is a very simple and customizable email management system. The UI is very fluid and user-friendly. It has a great bounce management system which helps avoid delivery errors. Email and link tracking help keep track of regular responses and alerts from subscribers. OpenEMM can import and export data and manage a huge database regarding users and subscribers. OpenEMM can help you script and personalize emails in context with the user’s needs. OpenEMM can also keep track of your target groups, segregate them and automate your responses regarding those target groups. It is integrated with Google Analytics which helps keep track of responses and alerts daily.
MailChimp
mail chimp
(Source: MailChimp)
Features
Personalization
Segmentation
Analytics
Google and Facebook Ad Management
Multi-Platform Integration
Automated responses
Campaign Management
MailChimp is one of the most advanced software out there. It is extremely customizable and the dashboard can be personalized according to the user’s needs. The response and alert system are automated, wherein MailChimp starts sending bulk responses to a similar set of subscribers. Another great feature is the Ad management feature which enables advertising over various platforms, mainly Google and Facebook. MailChimp is integrated with Google Analytics which helps track responses and subscribers daily. A major feature of MailChimp is its campaign management system which helps plan and schedule mail campaigns regarding any event or occasion. MailChimp can manage small to medium enterprises very easily, which makes it one of the most popular email marketing platforms on the market.
SendBlaster
send blaster
(Source: SendBlaster)
Features
Layout Editor
Personalization
Categorized Templates
Campaign Management
Segmentation
Subscriber Management
Bounce Management
Analytics
SendBlaster is an extremely customizable software tool. The dashboard and regular activities or actions of the software can be personalized according to the user’s needs. The layout and the templates of the emails can be edited and framed to your need. SendBlaster has a huge database of templates that are categorized according to events, responses and subscribers. It has a very convenient campaign management system that helps plan and schedule email and Ad campaigns when needed. Another great feature is its bounce management system which helps avoid delivery and response failures. SendBlaster is integrated with Google analytics, keeping you in the loop with statistics regarding mails and responses daily.
GNU Mailman
gnu mailman
(Source: GNU Mailman)
Features
Simple UI
Subscriber Management
Bounce management and processing
Archive system
Content Filtering
Personalization
Analytics
GNU Mailman is a very basic software tool, very convenient as starter software. Although the UI is very basic and simple, the feature list is not. Mailman has a very good subscriber management system enabling the user to automate and schedule responses and emails to subscribers according to their needs. The bounce management feature is also a very convenient feature that helps in avoiding delivery and response issues. Mailman has a huge message archive system as well. GNU Mailman is integrated into Google Analytics which helps keep track of responses and issues daily. Mailman is perfect as a starter software for small and medium enterprises.
We have added one more popular software for discussion-Active Campaign.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign Email content Marketing
(Source- Active Campaign)
Features
It builds a history to store all edits in case users want an older email.
With its multi-user feature, users can edit campaigns together in a team
Track your contacts location for geo-targeted campaigns
Segment and group your audience based on the information you have.
It makes emails look good both on mobile and desktop
Add a tag, create deals, and get notifications when an email link is clicked
Custom data fields to collect the contact information
Personalize each email
Track your campaigns on popular social media sites.
Upload unlimited images
Sitetracking allows connecting your email marketing strategy with the audience’s behavior on your website.
It manages delivery to reach as many people as possible
It integrates and connects your email marketing service to other external apps.
Active Campaign is a popular software to create email marketing campaigns and email newsletters. It lets users plan and executes email campaigns with its robust set of features. Users can send welcome emails, auto-responses, triggered and targeted emails, and scheduled emails to the broadcast list. It has a drag and drops options with beautiful prebuilt templates to let users design appealing emails for their respective audiences. It makes email marketing engaging and optimized.
Conclusion
An email has evolved a lot through the years and has found its uses for different purposes from time to time. The email began as a personal messaging medium and gradually found mass usage among businesses and organizations. Email found its uses in advertising and marketing posts that very quickly and still is very vital in that department for businesses worldwide. Email maintains to be one of the most important points of contact between customers and businesses even today and that does not seem like decreasing any time soon.
Email Marketing Software Tools are extremely vital for business owners in the Internet age, where keeping regular contact with customers is important and email is a pretty direct medium to market or advertise your product amongst a target group. The discussed software in the blog is very well equipped to handle all your requirements if you have a small or medium-sized business, some even excellently handle large-scale businesses and customer bases. And the most important factor being all of them are free of cost and open source, making them extremely customizable and adaptable according to the user’s needs. There are paid and premium software available in the market as well, which might have some more added features to the mentioned above, but overall, almost all the mentioned software tools should be sufficient for your requirements.
examples of email marketing tools
Marketing trends and channels evolve over time. While some trends come and go quickly, one of the channels that has remained more or less the same is email. In fact, email continues to be the top channel for content marketing with both B2C and B2B marketers. 87% of B2B marketers and 77% of B2C marketers use it to nurture their audience.
It can even help you amplify your other marketing channels such as social. With that said, marketers still face a ton of challenges in their email marketing efforts. One of these key challenges is simply the amount of time it takes to create a great looking email from scratch. Without efficient tools, marketers may end up spending a lot of time creating and sending out emails that don’t exactly look stunning. This hinders productivity while dragging down your email marketing ROI.
A lot of companies settle for this situation because they’re not ready to invest in a tool to simplify the process. However, email marketing tools don’t necessarily have to be expensive. You can find plenty of free email marketing tools that can help you save time and money.
If you’re looking for a social management solution to complement your email marketing, test out a free 30-day trial of Sprout Social:
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Read on for our list of the top free email marketing tools:
- HubSpot Email Marketing
HubSpot, probably best known for their marketing automation platform, recently launched a free email marketing tool that can support a lot of a small business’ transactional email needs.
Whether you need to send kickback emails from lead offers, thank you emails after purchase, or just promote current campaigns, HubSpot Email Marketing’s free version can do that. One of the best parts of HubSpot’s free email tool is its ease of use. The tool features a handy drag-and-drop visual editor, and it also comes equipped with ready-made templates to get you up and running immediately.
What makes HubSpot Email Marketing stand out is, of course, its native integration with other HubSpot tools, such as the free-forever CRM. Once you start an account, you get access to both tools so you can create a centralized contacts database, organize it in lists, and manage and track email performance.
hubspot email marketing tool
- Sender
Sender is one of the best free email marketing tools in the market with features to ensure deliverability. It lets you create stunning newsletters without any HTML knowledge. Just choose from a template and customize it with elements like images, videos and text. You can even personalize your newsletters for each recipient to create an even bigger impact.
Sender dashboard screenshot
Sender’s robust analytics feature is one of the top reasons why it’s on our list. It lets you track who opened your emails and clicked on the links, when they were opened and more. It even helps you build accurate buyer profiles based on your subscriber actions, so you’ll be able to optimize your existing email strategy and craft compelling offers.
- Sendinblue
Sendinblue is a marketing communication platform that features both email marketing tools and additional functions such as customer relationship management and landing page creation. With over 70 design templates, Sendinblue’s email design functions make it easy to create a great-looking email. Plus, all of these templates are responsive, and you can preview your results to can ensure your design looks the way you want on any screen format.
After you design your email, you can use features like A/B testing and segmented recipient lists to take the manual effort and guesswork out of optimizing your campaigns and targeting your ideal audiences.
sendinblue email editor
- Omnisend
Omnisend is a sophisticated ecommerce marketing platform that integrates all your communication platforms in one place. Its free plan includes only email, but it’s more than enough to support the email marketing efforts of small and medium businesses. It allows you to automate your email delivery using behavioral triggers and easily time your communications based on your customers’ convenience.
You can utilize its comprehensive audience insights to send out more relevant email marketing messages. Design attractive newsletters using time-saving features like the Product Picker, which lets you select all the products you want to include in your email. You can also include scratch cards, discount coupon codes and gift boxes to further optimize your email performance.
Omnisend dashboard screenshot
- SendPulse
SendPulse advertises itself as a multi-channel marketing platform, but its email marketing feature is the most popular. It comes with a ton of professionally-designed email templates that you can easily customize using a drag-and-drop editor. You can then set up these customized emails to be automatically sent out at the right time based on user behavior, event trigger and other variables.
SendPulse’s subscriber rating feature is an excellent way to identify your most valuable subscribers. It lets you analyze the open and click rates as well as the read and unread rate of each subscriber. You can even set replaceable text fields to personalize your emails by name, gender, date of birth, age and job role.
SendPulse subscriber rating
- Benchmark Email
Benchmark Email is a great option for an email marketing tool to design responsive emails that look great no matter which device they’re viewed on. If you need to add images to your email, you can even edit the image right on the platform. The email editor lets you add effects, stickers and text to effectively send across your message.
You have the option to choose from tons of pre-designed templates based on industry, type and occasion. For the more HTML savvy, you can even use the code editor to build emails from scratch. The dual view feature lets you see your email design as you’re editing it, which simplifies the whole email creation process.
Benchmark Email responsive design templates
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- Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a leader in email marketing tools that you’ve probably heard of. Their free plan provides you with basic email marketing features such as email creation and scheduling. What makes this a great email marketing tool is its smart recommendations feature, which provides you with valuable audience insights to optimize your marketing efforts.
Designing emails on the platform is easy using the Content Manager, where you can store your images and files for easy access. Mailchimp lets you automate your emails at crucial steps of the buyer journey, so you can easily send out welcome emails, order confirmations, abandoned cart reminders and more.
Mailchimp content manager screenshot
- MailerLite
Sophisticated features like the landing page builder and the pop-up customizer make MailerLite stand out among free email tools in the market. In addition to the basics like the drag-and-drop email builder, the tool comes with a rich text editor and a built-in photo editor to create stunning emails.
MailerLite email customizer
You can create responsive landing pages to match the emails that you send, which will improve your chances of driving conversions. You can run split tests on different variations of your email to see what works best to drive clicks and conversions. MailerLite also provides you with a comprehensive campaign report that contains important stats like click rate, unsubscribe rate, open rate and more.
- Mailjet
Mailjet comes with intuitive and collaborative tools to help you build effective email marketing campaigns. Customize any of the pre-designed templates and create responsive emails to impress any recipient no matter which device they’re using. If you work with a team, you’ll love the platform’s real-time collaboration feature that allows for seamless collaboration.
This email marketing tool also lets you add dynamic content so you can create personalized and relevant emails for each recipient. This helps you get much better results out of your email marketing campaigns. You can also integrate the platform into your CRM and easily manage your mailing list through a single dashboard.
Mailjet contact statistics
- Moosend
Moosend is an excellent email marketing tool that lets you automate repetitive tasks and saves you time. You can design behavioral email campaigns based on your subscribers’ information and/or activities. You can use its advanced segmentation feature to send highly accurate emails to each recipient, increasing open rate and click-through rate as well as ROI.
This tool provides you with a detailed campaign performance report so you know exactly how to optimize your campaigns and get even better results. You can even integrate it with some of your favorite apps to seamlessly pass on vital information between different tools. It’s also one of the only free email marketing tools that won’t include its logo in your emails.
Moosend email performance report
- EmailOctopus
EmailOctopus is a simple email marketing tool that runs on the Amazon SES infrastructure. While the free plan doesn’t offer as many features as some of the other free email marketing tools on this list, it does allow a lot more emails per month than most of them.
You can send out unlimited emails from as many email addresses as you like. This makes it the perfect solution for a small agency or entrepreneur representing other brands. It also integrates with third-party apps like MailOptin, WordPress and Zapier so you can seamlessly exchange customer data between different tools.
EmailOctopus email performance report
Bottom line
Most of these free email marketing tools come with robust features even without the need to upgrade to a paid plan. Small businesses and marketers should be able to make the most of them while saving time and money. Even if you need to upgrade to accommodate your business needs, you’ll find that many of the paid plans are affordable and flexible enough to fit your budget.
Conclusion
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