Email Marketing & Mailing List Manager on a Tight Budget
Small or home businesses can find it challenging to look polished and professional. The reality is, most budgets are small to non-existent. That doesn’t change the fact that marketers know they can’t afford to not compete – to not develop meaningful relationships – this includes email marketing tactics.
If done right, email can be a professional, essentially unobtrusive way to reach prospects, influential’s, and existing customers. Existing elements can be placed in a library and re-purposed for multiple emails designed to draw a reader in (along with well-written content of course) and lead them to key articles and landing pages.
I knew this. I wanted a piece of that pie – I just couldn’t quite get there.
Email marketing and a suitable email client is one area I have personally struggled with for a very long time. I know some very successful bloggers who manage just fine with Feedburner, but with all my effort, it just never seemed to work well for me.
I did, at one point, sign up for Aweber for a short period of time, but as I distanced myself from blogging and affiliate marketing, I found it difficult to justify that expense.
No doubt about it, Aweber is the gold standard in email marketing – IF you have the budget.
Before I finally decided on one client, I listed my own "essential requirements" then set out to find the email client I would ultimately partner with.
My Basic Criteria
- Low monthly cost (or free!) – I’m a tightwad, what can I say.
- Flexible design and layout formats – I like choices. I’m known to take 5 outfits on a 2 day trip simply because I have to have choices.
- Low-level coding requirements – I want to compose and send – not spend all day coding.
- Tracking and reports – I’m a stats addict. Your stats can be ever so revealing to what your readers like, want, need, and even dislike.
In a matter of minutes, I pulled together a sample email and sent it to a few people. Using a few graphics, my new email had a masthead, an intro paragraph, two articles (each with their own visual affects), and a footer.
It was easy to tell which of my recipients opened their email and who didn’t! I could even tell who forwarded it. Nifty, huh?
I can create separate campaigns for different purposes. I can maintain separate lists, and generate informational reports that tie into my own conversion funnel campaigns.
The best part of MadMimi is the ease of use. Rather then spending my time learning to use the client and actually composing a newsletter – I can spend my time devising a plan to provide my subscribers with quality, educational and insightful reports.
If you’re looking for an email client and have a tight(ish) budget – check out Mad Mimi. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.
Additionally – for those using WordPress – there is a nifty plugin that allows you to add MadMimi to your sidebar via widget. Easily activated through settings and customizable inside the widget itself. This was a big plus for me – simply because I couldn’t figure out how to make the darned form fit.
As I stated before – I am a person who likes choices. If you want to choose the email client that best suits your needs – I recommend you look at ALL the following options before making your decision
MadMimi of course
Do you use an email marketing client? Which one? What do you like or dislike about it?
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