Introduction Email Marketing Storytelling

When I asked you to name an email Marketing tool, what would you say? Email Marketing Storytelling

MailChimp? Aweber? ActiveCampaign?

Like most online industries today, email advertising continues to be Dominated by the same large players for the previous decade. Which means they get promoted very heavily and accomplish a great deal of mindshare.

Now and then, however, an Underdog disrupts the market, causing long-time users to question their loyalties.

MailerLite has done precisely that.

So today, in this short article, I’ll be tearing MailerLite from limb To limb to see whether it stands its own ground against the big boys…

…and, what’s more, whether youshould consider making the change.

MailerLite Gains

– Uses tag-based system (called Groups)

– Powerful Segmentation using principles

– Custom Fields for innovative email personalization

– Advanced Campaign kinds (auto-resend, A/B, etc.. )

– Simple to Utilize email builder/template editor

– Practical Email elements such as countdowns and merchandise boxes

– Intuitive Type, popup and landing page builder

– Supports Automations employing visual workflows

– Offers Both digestible and in-depth reporting

– A Fraction of the cost compared to most other solutions

Click here to begin your free account of Mailerlite.

MailerLite Cons

– Strict Approval process

– Few email Templates available

– Very few Form templates accessible

– Can’t Create mails without leaving the visual workflow builder

– No Support for site monitoring  Email Marketing Storytelling

Sign-up Process

Like most email marketing providers these days, You’ll Need to Go through a review process before being able to correctly use the software.

When you first register, you’ll be asked to finish your profile.

This includes information like your company name, website, Business, address, business size, record size and even the kind of content you intend to send.

Then, you need to confirm your Site (or domain name).

This is still part of this acceptance process, and MailerLite will Simply ask which email is associated to that domain in order that they can email you a verification link.

As Soon as You’ve completed those Steps, you’ll need to wait it out.

The MailerLite team will review your application, check your Site, and ascertain whether you are a good fit for their service.

(In other words, they are making sure you are not a spammer/scammer)

As revealed above, you’ll still be Able to use the software to make campaigns and perform with the attributes, but you will not have the ability to send anything before approved.

I was”partially” approved within a few hours, which gave me a Temporary limitation of 500 subscribers.

Here Is What the email said:

Annoying, certain.

However, while these steps aren’t ideal for getting started, it Does help prevent unscrupulous users from damaging everyone else’s deliverability.

Campaigning

If you are anything like me, you’ll rely upon automations to Deal with The majority of your email advertising.

(We will get to automations shortly, do not worry.)

But if it is a new blog article, podcast, or timely Announcement, there’s always a reason to send a more instant email.

That’s where’Campaigns’ come in.

Clicking the brand new’Create Campaign’ will give you several options.

– Regular campaign: A Conventional broadcast email.

– A/B split effort: Multiple email Versions, including subject line, from title and, yes, even content. (Woop!)

– Auto resend: Resend to readers who Do not open your broadcast email, together with the choice of changing the subject line and email content.

– RSS effort: Produce a recurring campaign That sends fresh content to subscribers using your site’s RSS feed.

Aside from a few additional options, most of these will follow Exactly the same step-by-step process of a standard campaign.

So let’s walk you through it.

As Soon as You click on to create your effort, you’ll be asked to Select a favorite editor, whether that’s the dragn’ drop, rich text or HTML.

You can change to the Templates tab and choose from one of their pre-designed email templates — which will move you into the dragn’ drop editor .

In the time of writing, you’ll find 21 email templates to select From which is somewhat on the low side, but the layouts are super modern.

And, of course, if you’d just Prefer to reuse a previous email, you can click the’Recent Emails’ tab.

For this example, I will select the first template in the library.

The editor is easy to work with, Making customizing these templates a 5-minute job.

You can also utilize the blocks in the sidebar to add distinct Types of articles to your email, including videos, product columns, and social connections.

After making your adjustments, simply click’Done Editing’ and you will Be carried to the recipients’ choices where you can select your groups or segments.

The advanced tab also allows one To build segment-like rules , in the event your targeting is not quite right.

Finally, right before sending, you’ll get into the’Program’ screen.

This is where you control if your broadcast email should go Out, if that is instantly, at a set time/date, or according to your readers time zones.

Impressive, right? Email Marketing Storytelling

Click here to begin your free account of Mailerlite.

Handling Your Subscribers

Possessing granular control over your subscribers is arguably among The most important facets of any email marketing software now.

Why?

Because highly personalized campaigns are necessary if You are searching to increase clicks, opens, and, most importantly, your conversions.

And while many providers Permit You to”tag” readers in order To target them more effectively, MailerLite utilizes a slightly different approach.

When you start up your subscriber dash, you’ll notice two Choices; Segments and Groups.

Segments are essentially principles.

Your subscribers belong to a segment only when they fulfill the Specified rules, and will be automatically added or removed so.

Here is what setting up a rule looks like:

Notice the way you can also combine Principles, in addition to another rule if the first does not exist.

Pretty smart, eh?

The following tab is for classes, and despite the difference in name, These act much like your normal”tagging” system.

(MailerLite even debated Changing the name to’Tags’, but finally decided against it.)

Unlike Segments, Groups are updated manually or through an Automation rule — that we’ll get into in a moment — and they have no value aside from what you actually call them.

As you start to use this stage, you’ll Start to understand At which Segments and Groups are typically used, but MailerLite delivers a hand in the event you’re unsure:

Basically, groups are much more of a Deliberate activity on a per-subscriber basis, whereas Segments allow you to bulge multiple contributors collectively according to a common denominator.

A tad confusing, I will admit… but I believe it is a fair trade-off For the additional flexibility. In any case, they’re optional.

Finally, the’Fields’ tab is used to personalize your email copy.

You will notice that MailerLite has Already populated this region with their own fields, such as name, company, and country.

If you want to create your own custom fields, you can do so by Clicking the’Add new field’ button.

So how do they really work?

You can either upload a CSV record of your readers along with Your custom field data in separate columns… or can simply add these fields to a forms which will only apply to prospective readers.

Here’s a screenshot of a test field I made and added to a form:

I will not go too much into the form Things here since I have an entire section on this below, but this is the strategy I would recommend if you wished to use this feature.

Again, as Soon as You’ve gathered your custom field data from fresh Readers, you can pull them into your email content and subject line.

Just click on the’Personalization’ drop down and choose your Custom field.

I am barely scraping the surface Of what’s possible with custom fields, but it’s important that you know that this is a feature you may use.

Overall, it’s fair to say MailerLite has their contributor Management and personalization features on stage. Email Marketing Storytelling

Landing pages.

If you’re not impressed by what you have seen up to Now, then perhaps The webpage builder will tickle your fancy.

After choosing’Landing Pages’ from the forms page, you will be Able to select from 8 pre-designed templates.

Again, while the template selection Is not winning any awards, it does offer a great foundation to work from if, for example the majority people, you do not have that pure eye for layout.

I went ahead and chosen the’Lead Generation’ template, though They finally do the same task; accumulate an email address.

This time, the editor will give you 17 building blocks to Further build or alter your landing page.

Now, I have used my fair share of Visual site builders, and this is better than a few dedicated solutions *cough* WPBakery.

Along with the fundamental building blocks, you can use components like Hero sections, popup buttons, reviews and countdown timers.

It won’t be replacing landing Page builders like Thrive Architect or even LeadPagesanytime shortly, but credit where credit due, this thing over-delivers on all three kind types.

Form Builder Tool

Unlike some email marketing tools, MailerLite really offers a Adequate set of form building tools.

Also, but you can also create popups and landing pages Through this same interface, so there is a whole lot to cover here.

Let’s begin with your Bog-standard embedded form.

These forms are first created inside MailerLite so as to get An embed code, which you can then place on your site to display it on particular pages.

Despite beginning super basic, the form designer lets you To personalize everything from the kind style, subjects, background, name, enter fields and, clearly, the button.

Form text can also be edited directly, which Provides you a Opportunity To envision your own backup in real-time.

It would’ve been nice to have Some templates, but as you know, there is more to a form than just its physical appearance.

Clicking the’Settings’ tab will allow you to configure the way the Form works, including adding extra fields and establishing a custom success page.

(There’s even a GDPR compliance option. Sweet.)

And talking of the success page…

…MailerLite also enables you to customize the default message, That will replace the embedded form also prevents users from redirecting.

Last but surely not least, you Can assess how your form displays on mobile by switching the toggle to reactive mode.

You won’t be able to make any layout changes here, but it makes Sense to check, nevertheless.

So that’s an Summary of the Embedded form but like I said before, you may even create popup forms in MailerLite.

While the majority of the setup process is identical, you will find A few differences I’d love to point out.

Unlike embedded forms, you can choose between a set of Templates:

While this isn’t the most In depth selection, they do provide a fantastic base to work from and the editor is at least as easy to use for this form type.

Clicking on the’E-commerce’ template requires me to a preview Before moving into the editor.

Here, you’ll notice there are some new options under form types Now around:

Contemplating paid tools like Thrive Leads exist for ribbons and slide-in forms, it’s pretty impressive to see this level of control over popup types.

And, like before, you can perform the styling options to get it Matched with your branding.

Last, you can Select the close Behavior of your form under the’Settings’ tab.

The default option is the X icon, but you can swap this out for A”No thanks” text option, or have .

This is really where most email Marketing platforms will render you, but MailerLite has yet another trick up its sleeve.

Click here to begin your free account of Mailerlite.

Reporting & Analytics

Like most tools, you’ll find a summary of your campaign Data in the dashboard.

Here you’ll see everything from effort open and click info, Subscriber growth, automation analytics, and form signups.

Clicking into any campaign will Give you specific reporting for that effort.

This is where you’ll discover a few more advanced statistics such as Unsubscribes, spam complaints, bounces, studying environment, email client and much more.

This should be plenty of Information for the average user…

…but if you really want To dig into the numbers, it is possible to click into individual areas of the report to get a more comprehensive breakdown.

You can find some real gems under These reports.

By Way of Example, the’View Mail’ tab also shows a click map, so It’s possible to see your subscribers interacted to another.

Reports for automations are Accessible under the’Automations’ tab, although I found these to be less insightful than effort reports.

Here’s a quick example:

Total, MailerLite does a Stellar job with their reporting interface, and most will find the available data more than enough to meet their demands.

Email Automation

What’s email advertising without a dash of automation?

For many reading this, MailerLite’s automation capabilities Could easily make or break this particular review.

The good news? If you’ve used a visual workflow builder, then You’ll instantly feel at home here…

Much like the rest of MailerLite, The automations interface is simple, clean and simple to navigate — something which certainly can not be said for every email advertising software.

After setting your trigger, you can Start adding measures to your workflow.

These measures can be anything from sending an email, including a Postpone, a bubble break, or an act, such as moving a subscriber or updating their records.

Here’s a simple workflow I put together, where readers Are unsubscribed if they don’t open my email within seven days.

There are countless Possibilities in regards to workflow automations similar to this, and MailerLite ought to have no trouble with the huge majority of use cases.

Granted, it is not quite as Feature-rich as something such as ActiveCampaign because it lacks a number of the conditional components. (Split, Visit, Goal, etc.. )

For example, there’s currently no automation for moving Subscribers directly into another automation.

That being said, the Majority of these actions can Nevertheless Be achieved by moving Subscribers into various groups that trigger new automation workflows. It is just not as effective…. yet.

Another matter of efficiency here is when creating new emails In the automation workflow builder.

After adding an email cube to The workflow, you will be asked to add your subject line that appears on the block itself.

From there, clicking the’Design email’ button will automatically fire up the Writer:

Now, you’ll be temporarily Redirected to the typical campaign creation wizard, which I covered previously in the critique.

This time, but once you’ve created your email, clicking on the ‘Done editing’ button will direct you back into the automations workflow instead of the usual sending options.

Finally, your email will be Loaded into your automation.

A Wonderful touch here is using a thumbnail preview of your Email inside your automation block, which means it’s possible to get an concept about what it contains at a glimpse.

While this procedure may seem like A grind on paper, it’s actually much quicker than what I am utilized to with other email marketing tools — ActiveCampaign being a fantastic example.

On the other hand, if you have come over from something such as ConvertKit where The editor is loaded within the automations builder, so you’ll likely find this a downgrade in performance.

It’s fast enough for me, Personally, however I guess it’s all relative.

Before I wrap up this section, there is one Kind of automation You won’t find in MailerLite, also I think it’s very important to highlight.

Site tracking.

The ability to trigger an automation (or step) based on how Subscribers interact with all the webpages on your website.

This Sort of behavioral targeting only is not available in MailerLite right now, so if it’s something you use or intend to use, you may want to skip this one. Email Marketing Storytelling

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Click here to sign up your free account of Mailerlite.

Pricing

The Price of MailerLite is undoubtedly one of the tools largest Selling things, and let us face it, most of us love a good deal.

For starters, they offer an unlimited free plan that includes All features (including premium) for as many as 1,000 subscribers.

While there is some subtle Branding on your emails using this plan, it is still an wonderful option for those starting out.

And what about the top programs?

It turns out, at approximately half of the Price of this competition on average, MailerLite is by far one of the cheapest options available on the industry. Additionally, if you are ready to pay yearly, you can also get an even greater discount.

In Reality, I haven’t been able to find anything that does exactly the Exact Same job, cheaper.

Conclusion

MailerLite is among those few email advertising tools The (very crowded) industry in recent decades, and that’s no easy feat.

While it’s not as quickly as ConvertKit, or as feature-rich As ActiveCampaign, or as template-heavy as MailChimp, it performs exceptionally well at virtually anything you can throw at it.

I find MailerLite strikes the best balance Between flexibility, speed and simplicity, and all at a price point you’ll seriously struggle to conquer.

Thinking about giving it a spin? Let us know how it works for you In the comments. Email Marketing Storytelling

Click here to sign up your free account of Mailerlite.