Why you should use email marketing software instead of webmail

Im often asked if there is any need to pay for email marketing software to run email marketing campaigns. There is always a temptation to cut costs, maybe webmail or outlook will do the job? Lots of people tell me that outlook sends emails, they just want to send emails, so what is the point paying for software? Well, thats fine, but you can apply the same logical to lots of things.

These are just a few of the numerous reasons that you should use email marketing software:

Lists can be managed automatically.  As your list grows this can be a massive time saver. Recipients can add and remove themselves from your list without you having to do anything, dead email addresses arent a problem either as they will be automatically removed.

Emails can be sent automatically, welcome emails when someone joins your mailing list are a great example of why you would want to do this.

You can track the performance of the emails you send. You will probably want to be able to measure unsubscribe rates as well as who opened your emails and followed your links. If you want to improve future campaigns this is the sort of thing you need to know.

If those things havent already made up your mind how about all of the help and advice that you can get from an email marketing company when you use their specialist software? You will need tools to make sure that your emails are delivered rather than ending up in the spam box, that allow you to personalise and customise each email and to make sure that your emails comply with all legal requirements.

So there are likely to be all sorts of useful tools, if you chose the right email marketing company they will also be able to advise you on making the most of your campaigns.

How much of that can outlook do? Probably not unless you are the sort of person who still uses an abacus because it helps you add up!

Of course clever tools arent everything. If you dont actually use the tools provided by your software you wont benefit from them. The first thing most marketers latch on to is the reporting functionality. If you are not constantly learning from your email marketing then you will never see improvements in results. Are open rates lower than you hoped for? Try changing the subject line of your email and send it again. Are open rates better or worse? Unsubscribe is one of the best ways that your readers have to tell you if they are interested in your emails or your offers. Use the information to tailor your offering.