Introduction Email Marketing Training Online
If I asked you to name an email Marketing tool, what would you say? Email Marketing Training Online
MailChimp? Aweber? ActiveCampaign?
Like most online businesses now, email marketing continues to be Dominated by the same large players for the last decade. Which means that they get promoted very heavily and accomplish a lot of mindshare.
Now and then, however, an Underdog disrupts the marketplace, inducing long-time users to question their loyalties.
MailerLite has done exactly that.
So now, in this review, I will be ripping MailerLite from limb To limb to see if it stands its ground against the big boys…
…and, more importantly, whether youshould consider making the change.
MailerLite Advantages
– Uses tag-based system (called Groups)
– Powerful Segmentation using principles
– Custom Fields for innovative email personalization
– Advanced Campaign kinds (auto-resend, A/B, etc.)
– Easy to Use email builder/template editor
– Practical Email elements for example countdowns and merchandise boxes
– Intuitive Form, popup and landing page builder
– Supports Automations using visual workflows
– Offers Both digestible and in-depth reporting
– A Fraction of the price compared to most other solutions
Click here to sign up your free account of Mailerlite.
MailerLite Drawbacks
– Strict Approval procedure
– 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 Training Online
Sign-up Procedure
Like most email advertising providers Nowadays, You’ll Need to Go through a review process before being able to properly use the software.
When you first register, you’ll be asked to complete your profile.
This includes information like your organization name, website, Industry, address, business size, record size and also the kind of content you plan to send.
Then, you need to verify your Website (or domain ).
This remains part of the approval process, and MailerLite will Simply inquire which email is associated to that domain so they can email you a confirmation link.
Once you’ve completed these Steps, you ought to wait it out.
The MailerLite staff will review your application, assess your Site, and determine whether you are a good fit for their services.
(Quite simply, they’re making sure you’re not a spammer/scammer)
As revealed above, you’ll still be Able to utilize the software to make campaigns and play with the attributes, but you won’t have the ability to send anything before approved.
I had been”partially” approved within a few hours, which gave me a Temporary limit of 500 subscribers.
Here’s what the email said:
Annoying, sure.
But while these steps are not perfect for getting started, it Does help prevent malicious users from hurting everybody’s deliverability.
Campaigning
If you’re anything like me, you’ll rely on automations to handle Nearly all your email advertising.
(We’ll get to automations shortly, do not worry.)
But if it is a new blog article, podcast, or timely Announcement, there is always some excuse to send a more immediate email.
That’s where’Campaigns’ come in.
Clicking the brand new’Create Campaign’ will provide you several options.
– Regular effort: A traditional broadcast email.
– A/B split effort: Multiple email Versions, including subject line, from name and, yes, even content. (Woop!)
– Auto resend: Resend to readers who Do not open your broadcast email, together with the option of altering the subject line and email articles.
– RSS effort: Produce a recurring campaign That sends fresh content to readers using your site’s RSS feed.
Apart from a few additional options, the Majority of these will follow The exact same step-by-step procedure of a normal effort.
So let’s walk you through it.
As Soon as You click to create your campaign, you’ll be asked to Pick a preferred editor, whether that’s the dragn’ drop, rich text or HTML.
Otherwise, you can change to the Templates tab and choose from among the pre-designed email templates — which will move you to the dragn’ drop editor by default.
At the time of writing, you’ll find 21 email templates to choose From which is a little on the low side, however, the designs are super modern.
And, of course, if you would just Like to reuse a previous email, you can click on the’Recent Emails’ tab.
For this instance, I will choose the first template from the library.
The editor is easy to use, Making viewing these templates a 5-minute job.
You can also utilize the cubes in the sidebar to add different Kinds of content to your email, including videos, product columns, and societal connections.
After making your changes, simply click’Done Editing’ and you’ll Be carried to the recipients’ options where you can choose your groups or sections.
The tab also allows one To develop segment-like rules on-the-fly, in case your targeting is not quite perfect.
Finally, before sending, you’ll get into the’Program’ screen.
This is where you control if your broadcast email should go Out, whether that’s immediately, at a set time/date, or in accordance with your readers time zones.
Impressive, right? Email Marketing Training Online
Click here to sign up your free account of Mailerlite.
Handling Your Subscribers
Having granular control over your subscribers is arguably among The most important facets of any email marketing program now.
Why?
Because highly personalized efforts Are Essential if You’re searching to increase opens, clicks, and, above all, your own conversions.
And while most providers allow you to”label” subscribers in order To target them more effectively, MailerLite utilizes a slightly different approach.
When you open up your subscriber dash, you’ll see two Options; Segments and Groups.
Segments are essentially principles.
Your readers belong to a segment only when they fulfill the Specified rules, and are automatically added or removed accordingly.
Here’s what setting up a rule looks like:
Notice how you can even combine Rules, as well as an alternate rule when the first doesn’t exist.
Pretty smart, eh?
The next tab is for groups, and also the difference in title, These behave much like your usual”tagging” system.
(MailerLite even debated Changing the title to’Tags’, but finally decided against it.)
Unlike Segments, Groups are updated manually or via an Automation rule — that we’ll get into in a moment — and they don’t have any value besides what you actually call them.
As you Begin to use this stage, you’ll Start to understand At which Segments and Groups are generally used, however, MailerLite delivers a hand in the event you’re unsure:
Basically, groups are more of a Deliberate action on a per-subscriber basis, whereas Segments allow you to bulge multiple contributors collectively based on a common denominator.
Somewhat confusing, I’ll admit… but I feel it is a fair trade-off For the additional flexibility. In any case, they’re optional.
Last, the’Fields’ tab is used to customize your email copy.
You’ll notice that MailerLite has Already populated this region with their own fields, such as title, company, and nation.
If you want to create your own custom fields, you can do this by Clicking the’Add new field’ button.
So how do they actually work?
You can either upload a CSV record of your subscribers along with Your custom field data in separate columns… or may easily 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 into a form:
I won’t go too much to the shape Things here because I have a whole section on that below, but this is the strategy I would recommend if you wanted to use this feature.
Again, once you’ve gathered your custom field data from new Subscribers, you are able to pull them into your email content and subject line.
Just click 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 can use.
Overall, it is reasonable to state MailerLite has their contributor Direction and personalization features on point. Email Marketing Training Online
Landing pages.
If you’re not impressed with what you’ve seen so far, then perhaps The page builder will tickle your fancy.
After selecting’Landing Pages’ in the forms page, then you will be Able to pick from 8 pre-designed templates.
Again, while the template choice Isn’t winning any awards, it does offer a great foundation to work from if, like the majority people, you do not have that natural eye for design.
I went ahead and selected the’Lead Generation’ template, though They ultimately do the same job; accumulate an email address.
This time, the editor will give you 17 building blocks to Further construct or change your landing page.
Now, I have used my fair share of Visual page builders, and this is already better than a few dedicated alternatives *Infection * WPBakery.
Along with the basic building blocks, you can use elements like Hero sections, popup buttons, testimonials and countdown timers.
No, it won’t be replacing landing Page builders like Thrive Architect or LeadPagesanytime shortly, but credit where credit due, this item over-delivers on all 3 form types.
Form Builder Tool
Unlike some email marketing tools, MailerLite really offers a Decent pair of type building tools.
Not only that, but you can also create popups and landing pages Through this exact same interface, so there is a whole lot to cover here.
Let us begin with your Bog-standard embedded type.
These forms are created inside MailerLite so as to get An embed code, which you can then put on your website to display it on particular pages.
Despite beginning super fundamental, the form designer lets you To personalize everything in the kind style, subjects, background, title, input fields and, clearly, the button.
Form text may also be edited directly, which gives you a Opportunity To envision your own backup in real time.
It would have been nice to have Some templates here, but as you know, there is more to some form than just its physical appearance.
Clicking the’Settings’ tab will Make It Possible for you to configure how the Form works, such as adding extra fields and establishing a custom success page.
(There’s a GDPR compliance option. Sweet.)
And speaking of the success webpage…
…MailerLite also lets you customize the default message, That can replace the embedded form also prevents users from redirecting.
Last but certainly not least, you Can assess how your form screens on cellular by switching the toggle to responsive mode.
You won’t be able to make any layout changes , but it makes Sense to check, nevertheless.
So that’s an overview of the Embedded form but as I said before, you can even create popup forms in MailerLite.
While the Vast Majority of this setup Procedure is identical, there are A few differences I’d like 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 offer a fantastic base to work from and the editor is at least as simple to use for this form kind.
Clicking the’E-commerce’ template takes me to a preview Before moving to the editor.
Here, you’ll notice there are a few new choices under form types This time around:
Contemplating paid tools like Thrive Leads exist for both ribbons and slide-in forms, it is pretty impressive to see this amount of control over popup types.
And, as before, you can perform the styling options to get it Matched with your branding.
Last, you can Select the near Behavior of your type under the’Settings’ tab.
The default option is that the X icon, but you can swap out this for A”No thanks” text option, or have both.
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 many tools, you’ll find a summary of your effort Statistics in the main dashboard.
Here you’ll see everything from campaign open and click info, Subscriber development, automation stats, and form signups.
Clicking into any effort will Give you special reporting for this campaign.
This is where you’ll discover some statistics such as Unsubscribes, spam complaints, bounces, studying environment, email client and more.
This should be plenty of Information for the average consumer…
…but if you really want To dig into the numbers, you can click into individual areas of the report for a more comprehensive breakdown.
You can find some real gems beneath These reports.
By Way of Example, the’View Email’ tab also shows a click map, so It’s possible to see your subscribers interacted to another.
Reports for automations are also Accessible under the’Automations’ tab, though I found to be less insightful than campaign reports.
Here’s a quick example:
Total, MailerLite does a Stellar job with their reporting interface, and most will get the available statistics more than sufficient to fulfill their demands.
Email Automation
What is email marketing without a dashboard of automation?
For most reading this, MailerLite’s automation capabilities Could simply make or break this review.
The good news? If you have used a visual workflow builder, You will instantly feel at home here…
Much like the rest of MailerLite, That the automations interface is simple, clean and simple to navigate — something that certainly can’t be said for every email marketing program.
After establishing your trigger, you can begin adding measures to your workflow.
These measures could be anything from sending an email, including a Delay, a conditional split, or an act, like moving a subscriber or updating their records.
Here’s a simple workflow I set together, where readers Are unsubscribed if they do not open my email within 7 days.
There are countless Possibilities in regards to workflow automations similar to this, and MailerLite should have no trouble with the vast majority of use cases.
Granted, it’s not quite as Feature-rich as something like ActiveCampaign since it lacks a number of the conditional components. (Split, Visit, Goal, etc.. )
For example, there’s now no automation for transferring Readers directly into a different automation.
That being said, most of these actions can Nevertheless Be achieved by moving Subscribers into various groups that activate new automation workflows. It is just not as efficient…. yet.
Another matter of efficacy here is when creating new mails In the automation workflow builder.
After adding an email cube to The workflow, you will be asked to put in your subject line which then 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 standard campaign creation wizard, which I covered earlier in the review.
This time, however, as Soon as You’ve established your email, clicking on the ‘Done editing’ button will direct you back into the automations workflow instead of the usual sending alternatives.
Ultimately, your email address will probably be Loaded into your automation.
A Wonderful touch here is using a thumbnail preview of your Email inside your automation cube, so it’s possible to find an concept about what it contains at a glance.
While this process may seem like A grind on paper, it is actually much quicker than what I’m used to with other email marketing tools — ActiveCampaign being a fantastic example.
On the other hand, if you’ve come over from something like ConvertKit where The editor is loaded inside the automations builder, you’ll probably find that this downgrade in functionality.
It’s fast enough for me, Personally, but I guess it’s all relative.
Before I wrap up this section, there’s one type of automation You won’t find in MailerLite, and I think it’s important to highlight.
Site tracking.
The ability to activate an automation (or step) based on the way Subscribers interact with all the webpages on your site.
This Sort of behavioral targeting only isn’t accessible MailerLite right now, so if it’s something you use or intend to use, you might want to skip this one. Email Marketing Training Online
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Click here to sign up your free account of Mailerlite.
Pricing
The Price of MailerLite is undoubtedly among those tools biggest Selling points, and let us face it, most of us love a fantastic bargain.
For starters, they offer an infinite 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 ends up, at around half the Price of this rivalry generally, MailerLite is by far among the least expensive options on the market. Additionally, if you are ready to pay annually, you are also able to get a much better discount.
In Reality, I haven’t been able to locate anything that does exactly the Exact Same job, cheaper.
Conclusion
MailerLite is one of those few advertising tools The (very crowded) industry in the last couple of years, which is no easy feat.
While it is not as quickly as ConvertKit, or as feature-rich As ActiveCampaign, or as template-heavy as MailChimp, it works exceptionally well at just about 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 will seriously struggle to beat.
Thinking of giving it a twist? Let us know how it works for you From the comments. Email Marketing Training Online
Click here to sign up your free account of Mailerlite.