Email marketing has the highest ROI than all other online marketing methods. It delivers a particularly good ROI in the UK, according to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). Specifically, the rate is 42:1 – which means that you get £42 for every pound spent!
However, it’s not as simple as template-recipient-send. It needs thought, planning, an up-to-date contact list, and high-quality content geared towards goal conversions. A good email marketing platform can provide all this and more. The trick is how to choose the best email marketing platform for the B2G market.
We’re going to look at the features necessary for a successful B2G marketing campaign, and the top five email marketing management platforms that deliver optimum ROI.
Why The Email Marketing Platform You Choose is Important
The email marketing platform is literally the foundation for all your B2G email marketing campaigns. If the foundation is weak, the strength of your campaigns will be compromised. So, it’s important to choose a stable, reputable platform which is flexible enough to support your changing needs.
For example, changing focus from a sales-orientated campaign to product/service promotion, or scaling up or down according to the size of the target market in your area of specialisation in the public sector.
It’s also important to note that various platforms work best for various business types. For example, some platforms might suit SMEs in the public sector while others specialise in email marketing platforms for agencies.
The upshot of all of this is that you need to do some research before settling on a specific platform. But what features do you need to compare?
How To Choose An Email Marketing Platform
The type of platform you choose depends on your needs, but in general, you need to consider the following.
What do you want to achieve?
What are your goals? What features do you need to achieve your goals? You can get away with a relatively simple system if all you’re going to do is send product/service catalogues or order confirmation and delivery notification.
However, you’ll need greater functionality that allows personalisation if you also intend to foster business relationships and keep your contacts engaged.
What’s your budget?
You must know what you can afford. Some platforms have a free option but with limited features. Paid packages usually provide the correct range of services, but remember the more features or the deeper the insight, the more expensive the package.
Bear in mind that price isn’t everything. You need to consider the features or functions when you compare your options. It could very well be that the cheapest email marketing platform is the one that provides the best value for you.
Pricing
Platforms have different types of pricing models.
- Pay-per-user: how many people in your business have access to the platform?
- Usage-based: how many emails you send, as well as how many contacts you have on your list.
- Fixed fee: a set monthly fee that doesn’t change regardless of how many people use the platform, how many contacts you have, and how many emails you send.
Again, it’s important to compare the package features because platforms mix and match pricing models. For example:
Platform A uses a pay-per-user system that costs £1000 for 10 users.
It’s also usage-based with up to 1000 emails per month for £500.
The total: £1500.
Platform B uses a pay-per-user system that costs £1000 for 15 users.
It’s also usage-based with up to 500 emails per month for £500.
The total: £1500.
It’s up to you to decide which has the greater value for your email marketing campaign, the number of users or the number of emails.
Does it have automation?
Automation is a fantastic time-saver as it takes on many tasks that used to fall on employees’ shoulders, for example, logging and categorising new contacts from social media, and then adding them to the correct email list. You can schedule updated promotional emails once or twice a month.
Some of the best email marketing automation platforms also integrate with your existing systems, including your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and social media data.
What’s its deliverability rate?
Some emails won’t make it through email protection firewalls and some will be considered spam. You want to keep the bounce/spam rate as low as possible and the deliverability rate as high as possible. Cadence Marketing, for example, has a deliverability rate of 95%, which puts it among the best UK-based email marketing platforms.
Top 5 Email Marketing Platforms
iServe
iServe is Cadence Marketing’s email platform that was designed specifically for the B2G market. It provides some of the best and most essential features for public sector email marketing. It uses advanced drip-sending techniques that can pass through public sector firewalls, which is why it has such a high deliverability rate of 95%.
The user interface is intuitive, making it easy to build engaging emails on the platform. iServe also provides in-depth engagement reports that determine the aspects of the email that served their purpose and which require more work.
Furthermore, iServe users have the option to purchase BiP’s database, which bolsters iServe’s offering. When it comes to numbers, BiP’s database boasts:
- 192,157 contacts
- 102,025 key decision-makers
- 80,315 job titles
- 31,258 organisations
- 122 job functions
The inclusion of job functions is especially important because it enables users to refine their search by role and not just title.
Moosend
Moosend has an easy-to-use interface, including a simple editor and templates to help you build your email campaigns. It’s got integration and automation features to provide a seamless transfer of data and free up employees who would otherwise spend hours on tedious and time-consuming tasks.
Like iServe, it provides reports on the success of email marketing campaigns, revealing strengths and weaknesses.
Pricing is competitive and is based primarily on the usage model, although there are some aspects of the pay-per-user model thrown in.
Omnisend
The Omnisend platform works well for those in procurement, especially when it comes to management and automation. Its automation features not only take on repetitive tasks but also enable businesses to automatically send personalised “Welcome” emails to people who have subscribed to newsletters or registered for monthly catalogues.
Like iServe, the interface is user-friendly and provides reports to help businesses analyse the success of individual email campaigns and keep abreast of market trends.
Packages include a contact list, SMSes, and push notifications. Compared to other platforms, its services are fairly limited, but this can benefit SMEs.
Pardot
Pardot is part of Salesforce and provides a well-rounded suite of marketing services, including email marketing. The email platform has a user-friendly interface with templates to help businesses customise and personalise their email marketing campaigns. It works well for procurement and purchasing as its features simplify the procurement process, from lead identification to nurturing relationships.
Particularly beneficial are its one-off email blasts to promising leads and scheduling sequential emails timed to have the biggest impact and the most success.
It’s best to contact Salesforce for accurate information regarding price.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is particularly well-known for its automation, which can be applied to various aspects of marketing, including follow-up emails. It provides in-depth reporting but at 90%, its deliverability rate is lower than that of Cadence Marketing.
It has several handy features, including easy integration with various systems (like Google Analytics) and optimisation for mobile devices. As with other platforms, it enables email personalisation for greater engagement with contacts.
Price-wise, it’s a bit more expensive than other platforms, especially when you consider the number of users each package allows – its Enterprise package is limited to 10 users.
Don’t Leave Email Marketing to Chance
We’ve seen how important it is to choose the best email marketing platform for your business in the public sector. It’s essential to match their service offerings to your marketing needs. A bit of research is needed to get it right.
Hopefully, our list of the top five email marketing platforms will help you with your decision. Cadence Marketing’s iServe platform tops the list of B2G marketing tools for good reason. The extent of its database and its incredible deliverability rate make it stand out from its competitors.
You can stand out from your competitors when you choose iServe. Find out more about iServe’s benefits and how they fit into your business model by contacting us for a free consultation.
