16 Best Email Marketing Tools to Dominate Inboxes in 2021

So, you want to grow your business and need email marketing tools that are easy to use, affordable, and will turn your leads into customers, correct?

Lucky for you, we’ve narrowed down the more than 500 email marketing tools on the market to make up the best suite of email marketing software from email capture to inbox delivery.

Email marketing may be one of the oldest, non-sexy communication methods. However, it’s still highly effective and of paramount importance.

In fact, according to Emailmonday, for every $1 spent on email marketing, a return of $38 is generated on average. That’s an ROI that can’t be ignored and demands the careful selection of tools to obtain the same or better results.

We’ve broken down the 64 best email marketing tools to consider in 2021 by use case, which consists of the following:

1. Email List Building Tools
2. Best Email Newsletter Tool
3. Email Marketing CRM Tool
4. Cold Email Software
5. Email Marketing Automation Tools
6. Email Marketing Tools for Ecommerce
7. Best Transactional Email Service
8. Email Marketing Tools for Digital Agencies and SaaS Companies
9. Email Marketing Software for Small Business
10. Tools to Capture More Emails
11. Email Advertising Tools
12. Best Email Scraper
13. Email Lookup Tool
14. Bonus Tool: Free Facebook Lead Generator.

In addition to our bonus tool, we’ve also added six ways to use email marketing tools and chatbots in tandem!

#1. Email List Building Tools – Customers.ai

Lead magnets are the mechanisms that make capturing contact information and connecting with prospective customers easy, fast, and useful.

And there’s no better way to capture quality leads and emails than using a chatbot.

Chatbots like Customers.ai complement your email strategy. 

One of the reasons why chat and email aren’t competitors is the distinctly different communications style of each medium.

When prospects are chatting with a bot, they’re engaging with your brand, which is a great time to capture their email.

Chatbots are an excellent tool for email capture because they’re interactive, convenient, and instant. Additionally, bots can be connected directly to an email marketing platform to send contact data, including email addresses automatically.

Web forms, the way you probably grow your list at the moment [as opposed to chat forms] aren’t working as well as they used to. They have abysmal conversion rates. Most of your audience doesn’t want to deal with email sign-up forms.

However, chat still has a sense of “newness,” and your audience is more likely to engage in a chat versus filling out an email opt-in form.

If you ask somebody for their email address or their phone number on chat, they’re more likely to provide it to you.

With Customers.ai OmniChat, you can auto-capture emails across multiple channels, including your website and Facebook, with live chat.

Here are a few of the built-in Facebook Messenger lead generation tools to get more contacts:

• Free Facebook Lead Generator
• Facebook post autoresponders
• Click-to-Messenger ads
• Scan codes
• Facebook Messenger landing pages
• Checkbox opt-ins
• Link to Messenger

Learn more about how to grow an email list fast using webchat.

#2. Email Newsletter Tool – MailChimp

MailChimp is one of the most popular email marketing platforms due to its ease of use and ability to create great-looking emails with a drag-and-drop user interface.

And it’s perfect for your email newsletters.

For small businesses on a limited budget, the free version of MailChimp allows up to 2K contacts, one audience dashboard, segmentation tools, basic email templates, and basic reporting.

Another reason to consider using MailChimp as a small business is that the platform is scalable as you grow and can afford more of its features and services.

#3. Email Marketing CRM Tool – HubSpot

HubSpot is well-known as one of the leading CRM platforms. It’s as easy to use as it is powerful.

And the email marketing tool is no exception.

HubSpot is ideal for small businesses on a budget because you get a ton of value from the platform for free.

The email marketing tool allows you to send up to 2,000 emails per month and collect an unlimited number of subscribers. Then, the CRM logs all of your subscribers’ info and interactions with your business so you can tailor your entire marketing strategy to them.

And as for the free tools, they include a form and popup builder as well as a landing page builder that can help you grow that email list, live chat to help you communicate in real-time with your site visitors, an ad builder so you can connect your CRM data to your digital advertising efforts, a ticketing software for your support staff, and more.

But it is also designed for you to scale. Switching platforms can be a real hassle, so it’s important to use a tool you can grow into. When you upgrade your HubSpot plan, you unlock access to more features that enable you to scale. More automation, advanced analytics, and segmentation, etc.

#4. Cold Email Software – Woodpecker

When it comes to cold email software, we’ve seen the best results with Woodpecker.

Woodpecker is the best tool for companies who need to contact prospects with automated, personalized email drip campaigns.

The platform has specifically been designed for cold emails and follow-ups that you can send directly from your Gmail and other major email clients.

One of the most common issues with cold emails is being blacklisted or ending up in spam folders. I’ve found Woodpecker to be the most secure email client for automated campaigns to mass email lists. 

Furthermore, Woodpecker is a great marketing agency tool for sending bulk emails because it’s easy for agencies to switch between client accounts and track results.

#5. Email Marketing Automation Tools – Autopilot

Autopilot is a visual marketing automation tool that helps companies create journey maps for their customers. 

The software has multi-channel marketing capabilities, including email, in-app, online, and snail-mail communications.

With Autopilot, you can automate emails at the right time by using triggers based on behavior and interest. 

For example, when a website visitor submits a demo request form or abandons your shopping cart without making a purchase, you can trigger emails specific to that user and their experience.

The self-service tool comes with a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy for users to automate workflows and set up personalized messages.

Autopilot also includes features such as measuring campaign ROI and optimizing the revenue funnel based on real-time performance. The software integrates with Salesforce and other applications like InsideView, GoodData, Zapier, Slack, and Twilio.

#6. Email Marketing Tools for Ecommerce – Spently

Spently allows merchants to customize Shopify email notifications, automate post-purchase follow-up sequences, recover abandoned carts, and embed remarketing tools such as product recommendations, and discount codes to drive repeat purchases.

Using Spently, you can trigger event-based up-sells, discounts, and referral tools that are tailored to specific interactions that customers had with your brand via emails.

These emails have high open rates as well because they’re Shopify notification emails. 

Spently, users often use the platform to automatically follow-up with customers after purchases, shipments, and abandoned carts within a specified time-frame. 

Once your follow-up automation emails are ready to go, you’ll begin saving your business a lot of time while also increasing revenue.

#7. Best Transactional Email Service – Mailgun

Transactional emails need to find your users’ inboxes and are triggered by a user action on a website or mobile app.

Some common examples of transactional emails include 

• Password resets 
• Shipping confirmations 
• Invoices and receipts
• Account notifications 
• Social media updates
• Welcome emails.

Mailgun is an email service for developers. However, it serves the needs of your marketing and sales teams.

Sending transactional emails shouldn’t be hard with the right transaction email service. With an email service provider or simple email service like Mailgun, you can send and track emails like these.

Mailgun gives you insight into analytics and mailbox provider performance, so you can see how Google’s Gmail, Yahoo, and other providers handle your messages.

Their goal is to help you achieve high delivery rates and keep your transactional emails out of the spam folder.

#8. Email Marketing Tools for Digital Agencies and SaaS Companies – Leadpresso

If you’re looking to get emails and other contact information in bulk, Leadpresso is the place to be.

Leadpresso works for any kind of B2B SaaS and exceptionally well for all social media, marketing, POS, content, and accounting related software companies.

You can start personalized email marketing campaigns at scale using data from Leadpresso.

Leadpresso’s unique database is organized around the largest channel SMBs use to market themselves and communicate with customers – Facebook Business Pages.

Facebook Pages provide a useful structure when it comes to categorization, popularity, and general rating of a business. 

To make this database work for you, Leadpresso enriches the data using more than 50 sources like websites of businesses, other social networks, ad networks, and others.

With more than 1,400 categories that companies use to describe their business, you can easily target the most appropriate companies for your solutions.

Additionally, with the rollout of new Facebook Shops, Leadpresso’s database will become even more valuable.

#9. Email Marketing Software for Small Business – AWeber

Have you recently added a bunch of new subscribers to your email list? 

Well, instead of sending a barrage of your previously sent emails, you can use AWeber’s Follow Up feature to catch subscribers up to speed in a hurry. Additionally, AWeber’s autoresponder tool is a great way to engage your customers.

With AWeber, you’ll have access to over 150 email templates to make the email design process hiccup-free.

AWeber is also extremely flexible with many available integrations and an API o build your own apps and time-saving email marketing tools.

If you’re looking for a trusted email newsletter service that’s been around and has great support, AWeber is where it’s at.

#10 Email Marketing Copywriting Tool – Jasper

Jasper is one the best AI copywriting tools that can help you write better, more engaging emails. The app uses GPT-3 to analyze your email content and suggest ways to improve it. For example, Jasper can help you choose the right words to use in your email subject line, or to make sure your email body doesn’t sound repetitive or boring.

Although Jasper is still in its early stages, it has the potential to revolutionize the way businesses communicate with their customers via email.

#11. Email Capture Tool – GetEmails

Did you know you can capture the email addresses of people that visit your website without email forms?

GetEmails can identify up to 35% of your anonymous traffic. That means you can capture emails simply by having people land on your website.

All you need to do is install one snippet of code on your site.

You can use the data you capture from GetEmails for:

• Email marketing and retargeting
• Creating Facebook ad lookalike audiences
• Triggering direct mail to be sent

#12. Email Advertising Tools – Gmail Ads

People spend an average of 4.1 hours checking their work email every day — that’s 20.5 hours per week. 

Although we hope you don’t spend that amount of time dedicated to email, it’s easy to see why Gmail ads can be one of the best ways to target prospective customers.

Gmail ads, or Gmail Sponsored Ads, are interactive, paid advertisements that you can serve in prospects’ email inboxes.

Ads in Gmail display at the top of a user’s inbox within the social and promotions tab:

Although lead generation tools are one way to get inside a prospect’s inbox, it can be challenging for many businesses. 

Gmail ads provide a way around having to coerce leads to hand over their personal information.

#13. Best Email Scraper – Phantombuster

With all the growth hacking strategies that have become popular in recent years, one marketing automation tool has emerged as one of my favorites. And that’s Phantombuster.

Phantombuster provides over 200 code-free automation and data extraction tools for LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Zapier, Medium, Quora, and others.

Which means you can scrape emails and compare them for legitimacy across multiple platforms.

Each tool in Phantombuster can be used individually or combined with others to create full workflows.

For example, you can automate email scraping on LinkedIn, get noticed by Instagram users, hire developers from GitHub, get followed by your competitor’s Twitter followers, or find the Instagram accounts of all the restaurants in a neighborhood.

Use Phantombuster on your social media channels to automate the following:

• Email list building
• Lead generation
• Increasing social reach and engagement

#14. Email Lookup Tool – Prospect.io

Prospect.io has email lookup tools to build lists and automate your outbound lead generation campaigns.

Building mailing lists is the first step in sales prospecting. Prospect.io has tools to speed up the process while ensuring you create high-quality email lists.

Additionally, with Prospect.io, you can combine personal emails, follow-up calls, social touches, and tasks into a multi-channel campaign to reach your prospects wherever they are.

Lastly, Prospect.io has analytics and productivity tools that generate a list of tasks for you every day within campaigns. These tools help to make the most out of your sales efforts and to track your team’s performance over time.

#15. Email Signature Tool – mysignature.io

With MySignature, you can create branded and professional email signatures for Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, and Office 365. You don’t need any technical knowledge, as this mobile-friendly email signature generator makes it easy for you to create multiple email signatures from anywhere, while saving you time.

In MySignature, you can choose from a wide range of professionally designed free email signature templates. Find email signature examples that reflect your branding and corporate voice. Choose the formatting, elements organization, color, and create an email signature that promotes your business.

Allow clients to contact you through alternative channels such as your website or social media accounts. The tool allows you to add clickable email banners, landing page links, and interactive call-to-action buttons to your approach to marketing your brand and services.

#16. Bonus Tool: Free Facebook Lead Generator by Customers.ai

By far the easiest way to get email addresses from Facebook is to add a Facebook Lead Generator to your Facebook Page and Posts.

Customers.ai’s Free Facebook Lead Generator is a free tool that turns your Facebook fans into leads. These are people who follow and like your company’s page on Facebook.

And you capture their names, emails, and phone numbers – automatically!

Here’s how the free Facebook Lead Generator works:

• Fans and prospects message your Facebook Page and comment on Posts.
• Customers.ai auto-replies in Messenger to collect emails and phone numbers.
• Then Customers.ai sends you a daily email report containing all your new leads.
• Use Customers.ai to re-engage your leads at any time.

So, don’t let hot leads on Facebook fall through the cracks. 

Add a free, automated answering service to your Facebook Page and Posts to capture critical contact info so you can follow-up with prospects fast using the Free Facebook Lead Generator.

Using Email Marketing Tools and Chatbots in Tandem

Suppose you’re actively using a chatbot on your website or Facebook. In that case, you’ll be aware of the Facebook Messenger rules you need to follow. One of which is that you can only send promotional messages within 24 hours of the last time somebody interacted with you.

A great way to get your prospect back into that 24-hour fold is to include a link to your chatbot in the emails you send out.

This way, once they click on the link, they’ve engaged with your chatbot. Once a prospect has engaged with your Messenger bot, that means you can reach out to them again.

Here are six different ways that you can continue to grow your email list in the year 2021 and beyond using chatbots.

1) Grow your email list using live chat

You may currently use or are planning to use live chat on your website to answer visitors’ questions or get them responses quickly.

If so, start incorporating, “Can we have your email address in case we get disconnected?” into your conversations to ensure that the communication loop isn’t unexpectedly closed.

2) Ask for an email at the end of a survey

A fantastic way to engage your audience on chat is to ask them to complete a small survey.

Use short and entertaining surveys as an opportunity to obtain more email opt-ins and useful information from prospects.

3) Register prospective customers for events with a chatbot

If you’re hosting a webinar or an online summit, it’s a great idea to sign people up for events with a chatbot.

Additionally, you can easily send attendees calendar invites or event reminders through your bot as well.

4) Offer discounts and coupons to grow your email list

Next, grow your email list while you give away discount coupons.

For example, if a prospect demonstrates interest in receiving a discount, ask them for their email address in exchange.

5) Use a Facebook post autoresponder to capture emails

Using a Facebook Comment Guard is another beautiful way of building an email list using chat.

Essentially, this lets you grow your Messenger contacts and grow your email list by continuing to do what you’re currently doing – sharing great content on social media.

6) Capture emails with click-to-Messenger ads

Click-to-Messenger ads can supercharge your email list growth.

Not only do click-to-Messenger ads radically reduce your lead capture cost, but you can also use this paid traffic source as a predictable way to grow your email list.

Looking for More Marketing Tools?

If you need even more marketing tools, look no further. Browse through hundreds of more awesome tools in the following lists:

• Free marketing software
• Tools for digital marketing agencies
• Marketing automation tools
• Trending digital marketing tools
• Social media marketing tools
• Ecommerce marketing tools
• Instagram marketing tools
• B2B marketing tools
• Viral marketing tools
• Marketing tools for small business
• Growth hacking tools
• Conversion rate optimization (CRO) Tools
• Marketing automation tools for agencies
• Cross-channel marketing tools
• Free advertising sites
• Customer support chat tools
• Affiliate marketing tools

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