Email marketing is one of the most powerful forms of marketing with $42 ROI for every $1 spent. But to achieve that level of ROI, you need well-designed emails and a robust email marketing strategy that will entice customers to open.

Thankfully, there are a variety of online tools out there that enable even a complete beginner to run successful email marketing campaigns. From designer email templates to drag-and-drop builders, email personalisation and automation features — check out these 7 powerful email marketing tools and templates to create attractive emails and manage your email marketing campaigns.

 

screenshot of the Campaigner email marketing tool homepage

#1. Campaigner

Campaigner promises its users basic and advanced email marketing features at a fraction of the cost. The app makes it easy for complete beginners to create professional looking emails with its visual drag-and-drop builder and over 900 email templates to choose from. There’s even a HTML editor to build emails from scratch if you’re more technically inclined.

Out of all the email marketing tools available on the market, the real differentiating factor is the platform’s focus on email and SMS marketing automation. With features such as an automated workflow builder for multi-channel customer journeys as well as email personalisations based on customer data, Campaigner offers plenty of features for scaling beyond simple email campaigns.

Key Features:

  • Pre-built email templates
  • Visual drag-and-drop email builder
  • Automated email workflow automation
  • Email personalisation
  • 30-day free trial

Pricing Plans:

  • Starter: From USD$59/mth for up to 5k contacts
  • Essential: From USD$179/mth for up to 25k contacts
  • Advanced: From USD $649/mth for up to 100k contacts

Suitable for: Small to medium-sized businesses looking to scale email campaigns

Explore Campaigner.

 

screenshot of the Colorlib email marketing tool homepage

#2. Colorlib

Colorlib is a website that primarily offers free and paid WordPress themes. However, they are on this list because they offer a comprehensive blog post with over 38 free mobile-friendly and responsive HTML email marketing templates.

This makes them an excellent resource for solopreneurs or small businesses on a tight budget. Colorlib has created free email marketing templates for businesses in various industries from restaurants to travel agencies, design companies, photographers, retail and more. There are even templates for typical website functions like verification and shopping carts. All you have to do is pick one that meets your needs and download it for free.

Key Features:

  • Mobile-friendly and responsive email templates
  • Wide selection of free email templates
  • Designs for different industries and email purpose

Pricing Plans:

  • Free to use? Yes

Suitable for: Solopreneurs and small businesses on a tight budget looking for free designs to use.

Explore Colorlib.

 

screenshot of the Mailchimp email marketing tool homepage

#3. Mailchimp

One of the world’s leading email marketing tools, you’ve probably seen Mailchimp on every online list of email marketing resources. The brand promises to help you win new customers by recommending ways to get more opens, clicks and sales through email marketing and automation.

Rather than tell you how your campaign is performing, Mailchimp sets itself apart from other email marketing tools by analysing data from the billions of emails they send to give you personalised recommendations for improving your content, targeting and automation workflow. This feature makes it one of the best email marketing tools if you’d like to take a “set and forget” approach by relying on Mailchimp’s smart recommendations feature to optimise your marketing efforts.

Mailchimp also has a variety of email marketing templates and a drag-and-drop email builder to design your own.

Key Features:

  • Easy-to-use
  • Fully featured free plan and pay-to-scale model
  • Robust automation and segmentation tools
  • Integrated with popular e-commerce tools like Shopify
  • Smart optimisation with AI and analytics

Pricing Plans:

  • Free: From SGD$0/mth. Send up to 2,500 emails every month.
  • Essential: From SGD$15/mth. Send up to 5,000 emails every month.
  • Standard: From SGD$25/mth. Send up to 6,000 emails every month.
  • Premium: From SGD$420/mth. Send up to 150,000 emails every month.

Suitable for: Businesses of all sizes. Great for small businesses that are scaling.

Explore Mailchimp.

 

screenshot of the Omnisend email marketing tool homepage

#4. Omnisend

Omnisend is one of the most fully-featured email marketing tools for e-commerce businesses. Besides email, the platform also has automation tools for SMS which makes it ideal for e-commerce businesses looking for an all-in-one solution to manage marketing for multiple channels.

Omnisend promises to help customers save time with pre-built automation for the entire e-commerce journey from welcome series to cart recovery and post-purchase campaigns. There is also a built-in audience segmentation feature that lets you segment your audience based on campaign activity, shopping behaviour and other data points. Finally, Omnisend claims their platform is so easy to use you can get up and running in 30 minutes.

Key Features:

  • Up and running in 30 minutes
  • All-in-one tool to manage email and SMS marketing
  • Pre-built automation for the entire e-commerce journey
  • Built-in audience segmentation based on campaign data
  • Able to be integrated with popular e-commerce tools like Shopify

Pricing Plans:

  • Free: From SGD$0/mth. Send 500 emails every month.
  • Standard: From SGD$16/mth. Send 6000 emails every month.
  • Pro: From SGD$59/mth. Send unlimited emails every month.

Suitable for: Medium to large e-commerce businesses with email and SMS marketing campaigns.

Explore Omnisend.

 

screenshot of the Sendinblue email marketing tool homepage

#5. Sendinblue

Sendinblue offers over 60 responsive email marketing templates you can customise with no knowledge of CSS or HTML. To create your own emails, simply pick a template and use the platform’s intuitive drag-and-drop tool to rearrange elements or add new ones. There is also the option to add dynamic text such as the email contact’s name for greater personalisation.

Sendinblue offers more than just email marketing resources. They also have a variety of other marketing tools such as sales CRMs, SMS marketing and chatbots. However, you don’t have to pay for features you don’t use. Sendinblue offers flexible plans that allow you to pick and choose the features you need, which makes it great for small businesses that might not need all its features up front, but gives them the option to add more as they scale.

Key Features:

  • Over 60 responsive email marketing templates to choose from
  • Intuitive drag-and-drop email builder
  • Offers additional marketing features alongside its email marketing tools
  • Flexible pricing plan that let you pay only for features you need

Pricing Plans:

  • Free: From SGD$0/mth. Send 300 emails/day.
  • Standard: From SGD$28/mth. Send 20k emails/month.
  • Pro: From SGD$74/mth. Send 20k emails/month with multi-user access, marketing automation and advanced statistics.

Suitable for: Small to medium businesses that want to start small but gradually grow the scope of their marketing campaigns.

Explore Sendinblue.

 

screenshot of the Stripo email marketing tool homepage

#6. Stripo

Compared to the other fully-featured email marketing resources on this list, Stripo is hyper-focused on email marketing templates. The platform makes it easy for any user to design their own emails by customising pre-made templates for a variety of industries. There are a whopping 1150+ free HTML email templates to choose from, making Stripo one of if not the biggest collection of marketing email templates on the internet. Whatever you need, there’s probably a suitable pre-designed template for you.

Customisation is easy via Stripo’s drag-and-drop email builder. You’ll be able to customise every element of your email message without having to code. There are even pre-built modules and content blocks to help you streamline the process.

Key Features:

  • Over 1150 free HTML email templates
  • Multiple designs for different industries and email purposes
  • Drag-and-drop email builder lets you customise designs without code

Pricing Plans:

  • Free: From USD$0/mth. 4 email exports every month.
  • Basic: From USD$15/mth. 50 email exports every month.
  • Free: From USD$45/mth. 300 email exports every month.
  • Free: From USD$95/mth. Unlimited email exports every month.

Suitable for: Businesses and marketers looking for unique marketing email design ideas.

Explore Stripo.

 

screenshot of the Zoho campaign email marketing tool homepage

#7. Zoho Campaigns

Zoho is a company that is well-known for their suite of work productivity tools. Zoho Campaigns is their email marketing software designed to help businesses reach, engage and grow their audience.

It allows users to create responsive designs, customise email messages and make use of automated triggers to connect with new and existing customers. The full list of features includes: contact management, signup forms, email template builder, automation, campaign management and send time optimisation.

Zoho Campaigns features over 240 fully responsive email template styles for any occasion and business types. Editing is easy with a drag-and-drop email builder and completely customisable layouts.

Key Features:

  • 240 fully responsive email templates
  • Drag-and-drop builder to customise templates and create your own email designs
  • Comprehensive list of email marketing features to run any type of campaign
  • Feature-rich free model

Pricing Plans:

  • Free: From SGD$0/mth. 6,000 emails every month.
  • Standard: From SGD$5.32/mth. Unlimited emails every month.
  • Professional: From SGD$8/mth. Unlimited emails every month.

Suitable for: Small businesses looking for an affordable email marketing tool.

Explore Zoho Campaigns.

 

Bonus: Learn Email Marketing In-person From Industry Professionals at FirstCom Academy

From full-featured email marketing software to collections of email marketing templates for design inspiration, the tools, templates and resources compiled in this article are some of the best to drive excellent results from your email marketing campaigns.

If you’re a complete beginner to running your own email marketing campaigns, there is often a steep learning curve you have to overcome before you start seeing results. This is true no matter which email marketing tool you choose. Rather than take weeks or even months to see a return on your email marketing efforts, why not accelerate your learning and become competent at email marketing in just a few days?

You can do so by learning from experienced industry professionals who can guide you and answer your questions as they come up.

FirstCom Academy’s Building Successful Email Marketing Campaigns Through Mailchimp is a WSQ-certified and SkillsFuture Credit-eligible course that is ideal for complete email marketing beginners. Taught by expert digital marketers with real-world email marketing experience, the course provides learners with an in-depth understanding of Mailchimp’s email marketing tools and includes hands-on practice on how to set up successful campaigns.

Interested? Sign up for FirstCom Academy’s email marketing training course today!

 

Read also: