The Ultimate Guide to SaaS Email Marketing Tools

Email marketing is a potentially lucrative type of digital marketing for any business. And no wonder: according to OptinMonster, 99% of email users check their inbox daily, some even checking a whopping 20 times a day. 

Let’s dive into SaaS email marketing tools. You’ll learn why email marketing tools are important, what they do, and tips on how to choose one.

What Are Email Marketing Tools and What Do They Do?

Email marketing tools are a type of SaaS sales marketing tool that will help you increase your company’s revenue. Keep in mind that we’re not referring to something like a CRM system that often helps with sending cold emails to small batches of people. An email marketing tool’s basic function is to enable you to send business emails to your list of leads, customers, and/or clients — these are warm leads that have already had some contact with your business. If you were to send an email out to hundreds or thousands of people using your own personal email address and service provider (e.g., Gmail or Outlook), these emails would be flagged as spam, and your personal account could be shut down. 

What Makes Email Marketing Tools Essential for Marketers?

Email marketing is an essential part of your content marketing strategy. “Email marketing is the king of the marketing kingdom with a 4400% ROI and $44 for every $1 spent,” according to Campaign Monitor. Emails sell. Plus, sending email newsletters to your audience is a wonderful way to connect with them and get them to know, like, and trust you.

How To Choose an Email Marketing Tool

There are so many email marketing tools to choose from. Here are some things to consider when deciding which is the best one for you.

• Drag and drop email editor for ease of use
• Deliverability rate of emails
•  Email templates (to make it easier to create attractive emails)
• Can grow with you without breaking the bank (big jumps in price between plans can make it difficult to grow your list affordably)
• Has the features you need (a feature may sound exciting, but is it something you need?)
• Integrations work with your current tech stack

5 Email Marketing Tool Examples

Here are five SaaS email marketing tool examples to give you an idea of what software is out there.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a popular email marketing tool because it offers a free plan, not just a free trial. The free plan includes a list of 2,000 subscribers and up to 12,000 emails per month. It is popular with WordPress users as it offers a plugin that makes it much easier to use. Another thing that makes it easier to use is its drag-and-drop email editor and over 100 templates to create beautiful emails. In recent years, email marketing tools have been adding the ability to create simple landing pages, and Mailchimp was one of the first to offer this feature. Don’t expect them to look as impressive as a dedicated landing page tool, though. 

ConvertKit

ConvertKit was initially created to send only simple text emails. The intent was to imitate personal emails to get more potential clients to open and read your marketing emails. Studies show that simple text outperforms emails with designs and images. As a result, creating templates isn’t easy, so it isn’t ideal for marketers desiring fancy templates that require drag-and-drop capability. Like Mailchimp, ConvertKit offers simple landing pages and a free plan (although it only includes 300 subscribers).

Constant Contact

Constant Contact has been around since 1995; it is one of the original email marketing tools created. It doesn’t offer a free plan but a 60-day trial for U.S. users and 30 days if you’re outside the U.S. Constant Contact is in the top three in deliverability performance, so you’ll have the peace of mind that your emails are landing in your audience’s inboxes. It is slightly more expensive than other email marketing tools, but it packs a lot of value into even the lowest-priced plans.

Gist

Gist offers drag-and-drop email building and a free plan (only up to 200 contacts). It is not only an email marketing tool but also a full sales marketing tool suite. This comes with some advantages. For instance, live chat is integrated into your contacts/leads and email list. 

WordPress users will especially enjoy Gist since, like Mailchimp, it offers a plugin to integrate with WordPress. In addition, any time a potential lead opts in on your WordPress site, Gist automatically detects it and adds the lead to your list.

Other marketing tools the Gist SaaS offers include:

• Knowledge base
• Chatbots
• Meeting scheduler
• Event tracking
•  Forms

This means no worrying about how to integrate different tools and potentially needing to use a program that connects them (such as Zapier or Integrately). Everything works together automatically. This offers more opportunities for email marketing automation than other tools.

GetResponse

GetResponse offers a 30-day free trial. It includes a visual autoresponder — a beautiful and easy-to-understand calendar — so you can see when those pre-scheduled emails are going out to subscribers. It includes a whopping 500 email templates to create attractive email designs. However, GetResponse can be a little pricey once you need to scale up to a higher plan, and it doesn’t offer a free plan, only a 30-day trial.

Pros and Cons

Here is a handy pros and cons chart to help you choose between these email sales marketing tools.

Email Marketing Tool	Pros	Cons
Mailchimp	Free plan available up to 2,000 subs, WordPress plugin, drag-and-drop editor with 100 templates, landing pages	UI isn’t user friendly
ConvertKit	Free training courses, visual email marketing automation, landing pages, free plan available	Free plan includes only 300 subs, no drag-and-drop editor
Constant Contact	A lot included, even at the lowest level, terrific email deliverability	Slightly more expensive, no free plan
Gist	Wide range of sales tools, WordPress plugin, drag-and-drop editor, free plan available	Does so much that it could seem overwhelming, free plan includes only 200 subs
GetResponse	Visual autoresponder, 500 templates	Pricey once you need to scale up, no free plan

The Bottom Line

Contrary to what you may have heard, email isn’t dead. In fact, email use is increasing. More than half the population of the world is using email. If you aren’t already taking advantage of email marketing, now is the time to start by choosing an email marketing tool. Remember that no SaaS tool is perfect, so try to choose the one that has the features you need.