Email marketing is a great way to connect with your visitors, customers and prospects. We have talked about how easy it is to start email marketing. In this article we will look at email marketing tools that will help improve your email marketing efforts and deliver an improved ROI.
Google Postmasters – Email Deliverability Monitor FREE
The first of our email marketing tools is probably the most important. Gmail is the most popular mailbox provider in the world. If you do email marketing you need to be able to reach Gmail inboxes, but do you know what Gmail thinks of your emails? That’s what Google Postmaster will tell you.
Email marketing tools to Monitor your domain and IP reputation
Domain reputation is a key factor that determine whether or not Google will allow your emails into an inbox. Every domain that sends emails to Gmail addresses has a reputation assigned. You can view your domains reputation in Google Postmasters.
It’s rather self explanatory, the higher your reputation the more likely you are to reach an inbox. The tool will also show you other metrics like IP reputation and your spam rates.
Google Postmasters is free to use and simple to setup. To learn more about the setup process and other metrics read how to monitor your deliverability.
Why use Google Postmasters?
Prevention is better than cure. If your domain reputation drops so will your open rates and that’s not easy to recover from. You should use Google Postmasters to keep an eye on your reputation and take action as soon as you see a drop. Also, there is no alternative!
MULTIRBL – Blacklist Lookup FREE
It’s always possible for your email sending domain to get blacklisted. That’s why email marketing tools that help monitor deliverability are vital. That’s where MultiRBL comes in to play. The tool is free and allows you to check if your domain or IP address is blacklisted.
Check your domain and IP address for blacklists regularly
Not all blacklists are created equally. You can be on several blacklists and not have any problems with reaching an inbox. However, some might cause your emails to bounce because your domain or IP address can’t be blacklisted.
If you are having problems reaching inboxes you can use MultiRBL to check if your domain or IP address is blacklisted. In my opinion, you shouldn’t wait until there is a problem. Keep an eye out for blacklists by doing regular checks.
The tool is free and there is no setup involved. Just put in your domain name or IP address and see results instantly.
If you send emails using shared IP addresses you can still use this tool to check for blacklists and if you find any raise it with your email marketing provider.
Why use MultiRBL?
There are several other websites you can use to check if your domain or IP are blacklisted. I prefer MultiRBL because their list is the most comprehensive I have come across. The tool is free and if you are struggling with low open rates checking for blacklists is a good place to start.
CoSchedule – Subjectline testing tool FREE
Moving on from email deliverability, another way of driving your open rates in the right direction is getting your subject line spot on.
CoSchedule offer a free (sign up required) subject line testing tool.
It’s very easy to use, you get a score out of 100 for your subject line and recommendations to improve it.
I would suggest testing your original subject line vs the improved one CoSchedule to see the difference in open rates. Here is a snippet of the information you will get:
Why should you use CoSchedule?
Your open rates are the first impression of your email. Using a Subjectline tester will help you increase your open rates. There are other tools available on the internet, however I found CoSchedule to be the most helpful.
Stripo – Email Editor FREE-ish
Email marketing isn’t hard but design inspiration can be when you’re not a seasoned designer. That’s why most email marketing platforms now come with a bunch of free templates. I do find some of the editors to be restrictive and the templates to be basic.
You could always hire experts like us to build you a custom HTML template but if you are tight on budget there is an alternative, Stripo.
Drag and Drop email Builder
Stripo is a drag and drop email builder that comes with a host of free templates. If you only need a couple of templates a month then you can get away with using just their free tier.
The drag and drop editor is easy to use and they haven’t compromised on functionality. You get lots of controls over your mobile view and even support for AMP.
You can get support from their team as well so if you are stuck there is someone to help out.
Stripo also connects to most of the major email marketing platforms, like Mailchimp and Sendinblue so you to move your template across, all you need to do is make a few clicks.
Why should you use Stripo?
There’s a lot of similar products on the internet so Stripo is not your only choice when it comes to email editors. However, in my experience Stripo has more features and templates than most.
If you’re looking to build your own newsletter, read our blog about how create a successful newsletter.
Unsplash – Royalty Free Images
Sticking to email content, another difficult part of putting together an email is finding images to go with your content.
Unsplash.com has a huge library of free images that you can use for commercial use without attribution.
Why should you use Unsplash.com?
If you Google royalty free images you will across hundreds of websites. Many of them take you through a long sign up process only to tell you the image is not free. Others serve you a million ads or popups that get out of hand. Unsplash on the other hand is nice and clean, simple to use and you can download images without creating an account.
ZeroBounce – Email Validation tool FREEMIUM
It’s important to keep your database clear of email addresses that are invalid, have typos etc. The more you send emails to invalid addresses the more damage you do to your sender reputation. If you follow our tips on building an engaged list your database should be in a good condition.
However, if your database has poor hygiene, tools like Zero Bounce can help clean it up.
Clean your data via an API or by uploading CSV files
Zero Bounce is an easy to use tool. You will need to familiarise yourself with some of their terminology but that’s easily done by reading their documentation.
If you have a developer to hand you can build an API integration to check your sign ups in real time.
They now offer more than just email validation, you can check your IP address for blacklists or get an email score.
An email score will tell you how many of your list are likely to have positive engagement.
Why should you use Zero Bounce?
Your sending reputation depends on how clean your list is. Using Zero Bounce will reduce your chances of getting blacklisted or ending up with a poor reputation. Again, there are other similar email marketing tools out there that do a similar job but Zero Bounce comes with a host of additional features and a good support team.
Substack.com – Email Newsletter Platform
Traditional email marketing platforms come with a host of features that you might not need. You also have to pay to use most email marketing platforms. If you need something that’s easy to use and free, Substack might be for you.
Gain a new audience through Substack.com
Substack lets writers publish content to their audience. You can also monetize your content by charging for it. Substack has over 500,000 paid subscribers so if your content is good this can be an additional revenue stream.
The platform itself is easy to use. You simply create a post and you can send it out to your subscribers via email and through the Substack app. The post will also be available on Substack.com, meaning your content is accessible to a whole new audience.
The tracking will show you how many subscribers were interested with your post.
It’s not a full email marketing tool, it’s more for blogging but if you just need something simple to send out blog posts Substack is great, especially if you want a whole new audience.
Why should you use Substack.com?
Substack isn’t just for beginners. Even if you do email marketing already, adding Substack to your marketing arsenal will help you gain more subscribers. Cross post your blog content on to Substack and try and attract new subscribers.
Zapier – Integrate Email Marketing Tools FREE-ish
If you use different business marketing tools it’s important to have them connected together. It saves you a lot of time and improves communications. Zapier is a tool that will allow you to connect your CRM with an email marketing platform without any code.
Connect business tools with your email marketing tools
Zapier has thousands of integrations. Not only can you connect your CRM and ESP but you can connect your ESP with Facebook or other social media platforms.
Communication can work both ways. For example, if you store your leads in a CRM, you can connect it to an email marketing platform and create email automation. That will you to send out lead nurturing emails with little additional work beyond building the automation. The results from your emails can be synced back to your CRM, of course depending on the specific CRM.
Why should you use Zapier?
Connecting your marketing channels together will not only save you time but also improve your ROI. If you use a CRM or do marketing across multiple channels, use Zapier to connect them together. You can start off on a free tier if you’re concerned about cost. There are other platforms available but not many with the same number of integrations Zapier offers.
Glockapps – Email Deliverability Tool FREEMIUM
If you’re struggling to reach inboxes you need start finding the cause. That’s where Glockapps comes in.
The tool allows you to run a ‘seed list test’, which involves sending an email to their list and seeing how many of them land in an inbox.
Improve your email deliverability with Glockapps
The Glockapps tool offers 3 free spam tests. This is a perfect way to understand what they offer. When you run a spam test, not only will you know what your inbox placement rate is but you will get a list of ideas to improve your deliverability.
Why should you use Glockapps?
If you are having issues with email deliverability, Glockapps is the place to start investigating where the issue is. Although, be proactive and run regular spam tests because pervention is better than cure. Don’t wait for your open rates to plummet before checking your deliverability.
Email On Acid – Email Render Test Tool
HTML emails render differently on different devices and in different mailboxes. When you create an email, looking at a web browser preview isn’t enough. It’s important to test your email to real inboxes. It’s difficult to run manual tests to several email addresses and devices. That’s where Email On Acid comes in.
Several email marketing tools in one place
Email on Acid will allow you to see how your emails look in different browsers, mailbox providers and devices.
The platform also includes a HTML editor, deliverability and verification tools. So if you need the full package you can get it all in one place. The price can be a little expensive though compared to using some of the tools we mentioned above.
Why should you use Email on Acid?
Email on Acid has been in the email marketing space for a very long time and during that time they have developed an amazing suite of products. If you send emails that rely heavily on good design, you should be running preview tests before send through Email on Acid or a similar platform.
If you want several email marketing tools in one place, Email on Acid can save you some time there.
There you have it, 10 email marketing tools to help supercharge your email marketing. If you do need any help with your email marketing, get in touch with us for a free consultation.
