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To email or to text? That doesn’t have to be a question. There are several software solutions that include email as well as SMS marketing features.
Sure, you can invest in a platform for your email marketing and then in another tool for your SMS marketing. But that’s basically like getting a social media management platform for each social network. It’s completely unnecessary and definitely not the best approach if you want to streamline your marketing efforts — the reason for investing in this type of tool in the first place.
Now that you know that you can easily communicate and promote across both channels, here’s a quick look at why you should:
- According to SMS marketing stats, SMS has an open rate of as high as 98%. What’s more, the majority of buyers will view your brand more positively if it sends SMS notifications.
- While the average open rate is much lower for email, email marketing statistics reveal that email marketing can generate a return on investment (ROI) of over $40 per dollar spent. That’s massive!
- If you’re operating in the B2B space specifically, email can be an invaluable tool for communication too. About half of B2B buyers email their order, while more than 40% use it for purchasing decisions, according to B2B email marketing stats.
To sum up, with email and SMS, you’ll know that your message will get opened without having to spend too much. It’s not a social media post lingering in someone’s feed that might get scrolled past. It’s this direct line of communication that email and SMS offer that make it an essential part of your communication and marketing strategies.
9 Leading Software for Email and SMS Marketing
1. Campaigner
Campaigner is almost as old as email itself. Founded in the late 1990s, it has grown to become one of the leading email marketing tools with several offices across North America and a client list that includes several Fortune 500 companies and names like Whirlpool, Xerox, and TripAdvisor.
Needless to say, if you’ve been that long in business, you should’ve received countless online reviews to back up your capabilities. Not only does Campaigner have hundreds of reviews on Capterra, but they’ve also been featured in several of their recent shortlists as a noteworthy product and established player.
As for features, Campaigner includes several automation features to help you reach your target audience at the right time in the customer journey. What makes it such a great tool for email and SMS marketing is that you can use it to send text messages directly via its platform as part of a standalone SMS marketing campaign or as part of your email workflow.
Key features include:
- Geolocation targeting
- A free phone number
- Segmentation
- Autoresponders
- Recurring SMS campaigns
- Personalized SMS content
Plans and pricing: Campaigner offers a number of subscription plans. For the ability to use email and SMS marketing, pricing starts at $104 per month after a generous free 30-day trial.
2. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)
Unlike Omnisend that zooms in on eCommerce sellers, Brevo also serves as a marketing partner for businesses operating in the B2B and B2C space as well as marketing agencies. It describes itself as an all-in-one digital marketing platform that can help growing SMBs with their marketing tasks.
It’s trusted by half a million users for sending millions of emails every single day. Notable email marketing features include its automation and personalization. Both these features have been rated as above average.
In addition to emails, it also supports SMS marketing. You can use it to send bulk SMS marketing campaigns, WhatsApp campaigns, or important transactional text messages like order confirmations or shipping updates. As transactional messages are often time-sensitive, it offers real-time deliverability reporting and engagement stats, helping you to monitor results.
All in all, it’s one of the most reviewed products. It boasts thousands of online reviews on popular review sites like G2 and Capterra.
Key features include:
- Customizable email templates
- A drag-and-drop editor
- Email and SMS personalization
- A/B testing
- Advanced segmentation
- Customizable sign-up forms
Plans and pricing: Brevo offers a number of subscription plans, including a free plan and custom pricing for enterprise clients. Pricing starts at $25 per month and SMS credits can be purchased for as little as $1 for 100 mobile text messages in the US.
3. Omnisend
If you’re running an eCommerce business, be sure to check out Omnisend. It’s an eCommerce-tailored SMS and email marketing automation platform that integrates with a long list of popular eCommerce platforms and tools like Shopify, Yotpo, and Typeform.
It started out as an email marketing tool, but, as its name suggests, it expanded its scope to help users launch and implement an omnichannel marketing approach. Fast-forward three years after it was founded and it added SMS as another channel for automation and marketing campaigns. Over the years, it has also received a lot of recognition and has been included for many consecutive years in several of Capterra’s shortlists both as an emerging favorite and top performer.
What makes it such a great tool for eCommerce purposes is that it offers several features aimed at this niche specifically. It, for example, includes pre-built eCommerce workflows. These workflows can be used for key tasks like cart abandonment and post purchases, helping to save time. Templates that you use to share personalized product recommendations to help with upselling are also included in its email templates selection.
Key features include:
- Email and SMS automation
- Several sales and performance reports
- Unlimited segmentation
- A/B split testing
- A dedicated toll-free US sending number
Plans and pricing: To access both its email and SMS features, pricing starts at $59 per month. A free trial (no credit card required) is also available.
4. Keap
Entrepreneurs and small businesses can keep an eye on Keap. It’s one of the leading CRM software solutions for small businesses and has helped hundreds of thousands over the span of two decades.
Included in its list of features are email and text marketing. It offers stunning email templates, but you’re also welcome to come up with your own design. Then, to help your emails reach the right audience you can automatically segment your contacts that you can store in its CRM using criteria like behavior and industry.
The same applies to its text marketing functionality. There are templates to get you started quickly and you can personalize messages with segment broadcasts and customer data. Plus, your recipients can also reply to your automated broadcasts to ensure effective two-way communication. However, unlike some of the other tools on our list, Keap’s text marketing is currently available only in the United States.
Key features include:
- Sales and marketing automation
- Lead and client management
- A/B testing
- Reporting and analytics
- Built-in compliance
- Customizable opt-in messaging
Plans and pricing: After a 14-day free trial (no credit card required), pricing starts at $189 per month when billed monthly for up to 1,500 contacts and two users. The text service is available as a paid add-on with pricing starting at $9 per month for 500 messages. However, if you choose to pay annually, you can save a generous 20%.
5. Klaviyo
Klaviyo has been automating customer retention for over a decade. It’s a great tool and, as we mentioned in our dedicated Klaviyo review, the choice to use Klaviyo for customer retention should come to you as automatic as the text and email messages that it sends.
Compared to some of the other tools on this list, the learning curve involved is slightly steeper. That being said, it shares a number of email marketing best practices during the setup phase. Plus, its email templates have also been created with these best practices in mind.
One standout email feature that deserves special mention is its advanced segmentation. You can set up various rules and conditions, such as customers who’ve bought a product in the last month, to reach specific segments. Combine that with its automated flows and 300+ available integrations and you have one super powerful tool for eCommerce marketing. Plus, as it offers a number of pre-built flows, there’s no need to start from scratch (though, you’re welcome to do that too).
Klaviyo SMS allows for two-way texting, which can delight customers who receive human responses when they reply to messages. Additionally, the built-in contact cards ensure that businesses appear with their recognizable identities rather than as anonymous numbers.
Key features include:
- A drag-and-drop automation builder
- A/B testing
- Marketing reports and benchmarks (for email as well as SMS)
- Pre-built sign-up forms
Plans and pricing: Klaviyo bases its pricing on the number of contacts. It offers a free plan that includes 500 email sends per month and 150 free monthly SMS credits. If you want to reach your customers by means of SMS and email, pricing starts at $60 per month.
6. GetResponse
Aimed at businesses of all sizes, GetResponse is a comprehensive email marketing platform that also includes SMS marketing. It’s one of the most popular alternatives to Klaviyo and is used by hundreds of thousands of brands across the world that include major names like Zendesk, IKEA, and Stripe.
It can help you to send bulk SMS campaigns automatically, but not at the expense of personalization. You can use conditions like use behavior as triggers to refine your campaign. Then, to improve open rates, you can, for example, personalize the sender name or use its Time Travel and Perfect Timing tools (these tools can also help you to send emails that are perfectly timed).
As for its email features, it offers all the standard features that you’ve come to expect like a drag-and-drop builder, templates, and action-based automated emails. It’s the automated email responses in particular that users have rated as one of GetResponse’s best-rated features.
Transactional emails are also available as a paid extra.
Key features include:
- Landing pages
- AI-powered product recommendations
- Segmentation
- A/B testing
- Automated email and SMS campaigns
Plans and pricing: GetResponse offers several subscription plans, including a free plan. However, to be able to use its email and SMS marketing features, you’ll need to sign up for its MAX plan which offers custom pricing that’s available upon request.
7. Zoho Campaigns
Zoho is another email marketing software solution that you can check out if you operate in the eCommerce niche. From automated workflows to responsive designs, it offers several tools to improve your email marketing strategy. It’s also straightforward to use, thanks to its intuitive drag-and-drop editor which lets you personalize your content for better engagement. In addition to personalization, it also includes autoresponders to ensure that engagement doesn’t drop during the nurturing process.
While it classifies itself mainly as an email marketing tool, Zoho Campaigns also include SMS marketing to help you reach more of your contacts and double the efforts of your marketing strategy.
Key features include:
- Interactive elements such as surveys, videos, and polls
- A/B testing
- Email send-time optimization
- Segmentation
- Email templates
Plans and pricing: Zoho Campaigns base their pricing on the number of contacts that you manage. Not only do they offer a free 14-day trial and free forever plan, but their pricing is also very reasonable. Pricing starts at only $4 per month for up to 500 contacts. This, though, excludes SMS marketing which is available as an add-on. If you’re planning to send about 1,000 SMS messages per month, you’re looking at about $10 extra.
8. MessageBird
MessageBird’s mission is to simplify communication between businesses and customers (and they don’t do this by limiting the number of communication channels). As it’s an omnichannel automation platform for marketing, it can be used to automate all touchpoints across various channels. In addition to email and SMS marketing, it also supports WhatsApp, Instagram Direct, Facebook Messenger, and Google Maps.
As for email marketing, they’re rated as one of the most reliable email senders and help brands to send trillions of emails each year. In addition to their reliability, enterprise clients also turn to them for speed and security.
Their SMS service is equally reliable. MessageBird has direct connections with more than 240 carriers to ensure impressive deliverability across the globe.
Then, to help you leverage the power of both email as well as SMS marketing, it offers an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop builder that you can use to create automated flows. This means that you can customize the journey without needing to write a line of code.
Key features include:
- Real-time email delivery monitoring
- SMS and email insights
- Real-time email campaign tracking and reporting
- Bulk messaging
- Email health score alerting
Plans and pricing: MessageBird offers flexible pricing. Instead of charging you a monthly fixed fee, you pay only for the messages and interactions that you need. Its SMS pricing is about $0.008 per message in the United States. Its email pricing starts at about $20 per month for up to 50,000 monthly emails.
9. Campaign Monitor
Not to be confused with Campaigner, Campaign Monitor offers equally impressive email marketing and automation tools. It’s trusted by thousands of businesses, including names like Rip Curl and Digiday. For more social proof, Capterra has recently also shortlisted it as an emerging email marketing software favorite.
Included in its list of features are a drag-and-drop builder, visual journey designer, and real-time performance metrics to mention only a few. It also includes a few team management features that you can use to set up roles and permissions helping you to ensure that your branding gets applied consistently.
In addition to email marketing, it also recently added SMS functionality. With Campaign Monitor in your MarTech stack, you can launch a new SMS marketing campaign in a matter of minutes. Then, to help ensure that your copy is effective and in line with industry regulations, it includes a link shortener and automatically added opt-out copy.
Key features include:
- Customizable, responsive email templates
- Segmentation tools
- An image gallery with millions of free Unsplash photos
- Real-time reporting
- A/B testing
- Transactional emails
- Send-time optimization
Plans and pricing: Pricing starts at $9 per month. Alternatively, if you know that you’ll be sending emails only occasionally, you can also sign up for its pay-per-campaign option that charges only $5 per campaign and 1¢ per recipient. For more info about its SMS pricing, you’ll need to reach out to Campaign Monitor’s sales team directly.
Wrapping Things Up
If you’re a regular reader of yours truly, you would be quite familiar with email marketing by now. We often cover tips and tools. SMS marketing, though, is an area that we haven’t paid the same attention to.
There are many great email marketing tools, but surprisingly few actually also include SMS marketing features. That being said, the nine that we’ve included in this list are more than capable. Keep in mind usability when testing these different tools. After all, the goal of these types of tools is to save time.
