Email marketing campaigns have higher click-through rates and reach in comparison to their social media counterparts – making it a popular, and powerful, marketing tool for creative businesses. On the other hand, email marketing is typically unfamiliar for most business owners, particularly creatives who are running their business by themselves.

Between learning what email marketing is, how to utilize it, and when to email, even choosing the best email marketing platform for your creative business can be difficult. 

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is exactly what it sounds like – using emails to market to your audience. Creative businesses can begin email marketing by legally collecting emails from their audience using a lead magnet or freebie or encouraging them to sign up for their newsletters, another common term for recurring emails.

You can collect these emails through sign-up forms created through an email marketing platform. These platforms provide a form that your audience can fill out that collects their name and email address.

Depending on the platform, you can create additional form sections to collect information such as social media handles, preferences, and business name. Email marketing platforms then allow you to design newsletters to send out to the email addresses you’ve collected. This can vary by sending to your entire list, or you can sometimes segment it depending on you audience’s interests and send emails that suit their preferences.

How Do I Chose The Right Email Marketing Platform for My Business?

Before deciding on the exact email marketing platform to invest in for your creative business, you need to determine what you need from the platform. Most email marketing platforms have different features depending on how much you pay – and not all offer the same features at the same price points. For example, Flodesk maintains a recurring fee of $19 per month with no free level but no caps on features while ConvertKit offers a free version, but has tiered pricing depending on how many subscribers you have.

You may not know exactly what you need until you get started, here are a few questions that may help you determine which platform is right for you:

• How many subscribers do you currently have, if any?
• How many subscribers do you expect to have in the first three months?
• Are you planning on embedding your forms onto your website?
• What is you budget for email marketing?
• Do you need something that is user-friendly or are you willing to learn?

Also, you are not stuck with the first email marketing platform you chose. Most, if not all, platforms allow you to export your list as a CSV file and import said file into your new platform.

The Top 4 Email Marketing Platforms to Consider for Your Creative Business

Over 100 email marketing platforms exist with different features, price points, add-ons, and subscriber limits. Instead of having to research every one, here is a list of the top three platforms you should consider for your creative business:

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the oldest email marketing platforms available, but is also one of the most expensive. Mailchimp offers a free plan and moves up to $11, then $17, and eventually $299 per month as your subscriber list grows. Although Mailchimp offers the most integrations, it provides less in features when compared to their newer competitors. 

Flodesk

Flodesk is my second favorite platform. At $19 a month when using a friend code, they never increase their price no matter what size your list grows to. All of their features are included in addition to customizable email templates for a ready-to-go email marketing strategy. The main downside of Flodesk is that they do not offer a free tier.

ConvertKit

ConvertKit is the most versatile platform for your budget. ConvertKit does offer a free version, but also offers a Creator ($15 per month)  and Creator Pro account ($29 per month). These prices are not set and do increase based on the number of subscribers you have.

ActiveCampaign

Activecampaign is my personal favorite and the email marketing service I use for Âme Creatives. They do not offer a free version, but have a similar tiered program like Convertkit. Their tiers include: Lite ($15), Plus ($70), and Professional ($187). Their tiers do increase in price based on the subscribers you have. 

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