The specific features that appeal to you will depend on the needs of your business. However, there are a few things to look out for when selecting an email marketing service:
- Are email templates included for free? And are the designs attractive?
- Does the free plan include landing pages and what are the designs like? (These can be very useful if you don’t have a website yet, and there are many free marketing tools that offer this as part of their platform.)
- Is email automation included? And can I segment my contacts into different lists?
- Will the reports offered give me the data I need?
- Is there a limit to the number of forms I can create?
- Are transactional emails included (if that’s something you need – also check our study of the best free SMTP servers.)
- Most often, the provider will include its own logo in your email, you might want to see what this actually looks like as some are more subtle than others
- What other tools does it integrate with? (Especially worth considering if you have an ecommerce site.)
- What kind of support do you get? Mailchimp, for example, is notoriously difficult to get in contact with on the free plan