Email has always been one of the most powerful marketing tools available to businesses of all kinds and scale. Why? Because,

• 87% of marketers utilize email marketing for content marketing.
• Effective email list segmentation yields a massive 760% increase in ROI.
• Customer engagement is increased through focused email personalization, according to 74% of marketers.
• Strategic email personalization leads to 50% more email open rates. 

With technological advancements, email marketing has evolved to offer diverse operations and features. Despite being an older strategy, bulk email marketing remains effective when executed carefully. It saves businesses time and effort, significantly when expanding or reaching a larger audience. 

What is a bulk email marketing service?

A bulk email service, also known as a mass email service or bulk email marketing service, is an email service provider that allows you to send a large volume of emails to a targeted audience. It is a valuable tool for campaigns and enables you to effectively reach a wide customer base. 

The best bulk email services offer features such as free bulk email options, email templates, drag-and-drop email builders, email tracking, and email analytics. They may also provide marketing automation, email delivery optimization, and advanced email marketing features. These services help you send mass emails, manage and grow your email list, and improve your marketing campaigns. 

List of Top 10 Free Bulk Email Services

1. Mailercloud 

Mailercloud is a robust and comprehensive bulk email service that stands out for its advanced features and user-friendly interface. It is designed to simplify managing and executing large-scale email campaigns effectively.

One of the key strengths of Mailercloud is its intuitive interface, which makes it easy for users to navigate and utilize its wide range of features. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced marketer, Mailercloud provides a seamless user experience and even offers a free plan that allows you to easily create, send, and track your campaigns.

Mailercloud provides a seamless user experience and even offers a free plan that allows you to easily create, send, and track your campaigns.

Here a some of the key features of Mailercloud is detailed to provide a clear understanding of its capabilities:

Drag-and-Drop Email Builder

Mailercloud’s drag-and-drop email builder is a powerful tool that allows users to easily construct emails by placing text, images, buttons, and other elements exactly where they want them within the email layout. This feature is particularly useful for those who want to create professional-looking emails quickly without any need for coding skills.

Benefits:

• Simplifies the creation of email campaigns.
• No technical skills required to design emails.
• Enhances the ability to personalize email layouts.

Advanced Automation

The advanced automation feature in Mailercloud enables the setting up of complex automated workflows. These workflows trigger specific email responses based on user actions or other conditions, such as time delays or engagement levels. This helps in nurturing leads and improving customer engagement with minimal manual intervention.

Benefits:

• Increases efficiency by automating routine tasks.
• Enhances customer engagement through timely and relevant communications.
• Allows for personalized user journeys based on specific actions.

Contact Tagging

Contact tagging in Mailercloud allows you to organize and manage your email lists more effectively. By tagging contacts based on criteria like demographics, behavior, or purchase history, you can send more targeted and relevant messages to different segments of your audience.

Benefits:

• Improves the relevance of emails through segmentation.
• Enhances campaign performance by targeting specific user groups.
• Simplifies the management of large contact lists.

AMP Email

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) email technology in Mailercloud enables the sending of dynamic and interactive emails. This feature allows recipients to interact with content directly within their email client, such as filling out forms or responding to surveys without leaving their inbox.

Benefits:

• Increases engagement through interactive email content.
• Provides a richer user experience directly within the email.
• Potentially increases conversion rates with interactive elements.

Each feature is designed to enhance the functionality and effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns, ensuring that Mailercloud not only serves as a tool for sending emails but as a comprehensive platform for achieving marketing goals.

2. Sender

Sender is an affordable (yet powerful) email marketing software that offers automated email and text marketing campaigns. Its intuitive drag-and-drop email builder and responsive templates enable you to create professional emails in minutes. On top of that, it offers advanced segmentation and personalization, high-converting popups and forms, and detailed analytics to track your campaigns. Sender also seamlessly integrates with other tools like CRMs and ecommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce.

3. Sendinblue:

Sendinblue is a popular bulk email service that offers a wide range of marketing tools, including email campaigns, SMS marketing, and marketing automation. It provides an intuitive email builder, contact management features, and powerful automation workflows to streamline email marketing processes.

4. Mailchimp:

Mailchimp is a well-known email service provider that offers both bulk email and marketing automation capabilities. It provides an easy-to-use drag-and-drop email builder, audience segmentation options, and advanced analytics to track email performance. Mailchimp also integrates with other popular marketing tools, allowing businesses to create comprehensive marketing campaigns.

5. SendGrid:

SendGrid is a cloud-based email service provider that specializes in marketing and sending transactional emails. It offers robust email delivery infrastructure, scalability, and advanced features like email validation and tracking. SendGrid’s user-friendly interface and flexible APIs make it a preferred choice for developers and businesses with high email sending volumes.

6. Constant Contact:

Constant Contact is a reliable bulk email service that caters to small businesses and nonprofits. It offers customizable email templates, contact management tools, and real-time reporting. Constant Contact also provides additional features like event management, surveys, and social media marketing integration.

7. GetResponse:

GetResponse is an all-in-one marketing platform that includes bulk email services. It offers a user-friendly email editor, automation workflows, landing page creation, and webinars. GetResponse provides comprehensive analytics and A/B testing features to optimize campaigns.

8. Campaign Monitor:

Campaign Monitor is a popular choice for businesses of all sizes. It offers a drag-and-drop email builder, customizable templates, and automation workflows. Campaign Monitor, lets you send personalized emails, segment their audience, and track campaign performance through detailed reports.

9. AWeber:

AWeber is a free email marketing platform that provides bulk email services for businesses and entrepreneurs. It offers an easy-to-use email editor, automation features, and responsive email templates. AWeber also provides list management tools and integration with popular third-party applications.

10. Moosend:

Moosend is an email marketing platform offering bulk email services, automation, and AI-powered features. It provides a drag-and-drop email editor, pre-built automation workflows, and advanced segmentation options. Moosend also includes features like landing pages, subscription forms, and real-time analytics.

Is Bulk Emailing Useful and Worth the Attention?

Is bulk email marketing becoming obsolete? Absolutely no.

Mass emails are typically sent to an unfiltered contact list who may or may not be interested in what you offer. Customers today expect personalized emails with information and unique offers tailored to their needs. As a result, marketers are turning to email automation and personalization to send bulk emails and fulfil their marketing objectives.

According to a McKinsey study, emails are 40 times more effective than social media at acquiring new clients.

In the last decade, especially after the pandemic, bulk email marketing has come a long way. Previously, opening and viewing emails required a desktop, but today we have mobiles that readily provide people access to emails.

• 1.7 billion individuals use their mobile phones to send emails. With so many people using their phones to check their email, it’s no surprise that the number of emails opened on mobile devices currently accounts for 60% of all email engagement.
• For 85% of users, smartphones have become the primary device for checking email. That rate is much greater for individuals aged 25-34, at 90%.

Therefore, bulk email marketing campaigns’ impact on your business is immense. It quickly reaches a broad segment of the audience, irrespective of where they are, what they do or which device they use to access their emails.

Today’s bulk email marketing strategy uses machine learning and automation to provide personalized information at scale. People are tired of hearing duplicate old emails. Thus, personalization and relevancy are now the top priorities. A marketing campaign’s visual diversity and accessibility are crucial to its success.

You can still send bulk emails to your list, but dynamic content tools allow you to substitute specific portions of a bulk email with content that varies depending on the recipient.

Challenges with Mass Emails

Deliverability: Ensuring that bulk emails reach the intended recipients’ inboxes can be a challenge. Factors such as spam filters, email reputation, and authentication protocols play a crucial role in determining deliverability. 

Email List Management: Managing a large mailing list requires careful attention to maintain its quality and relevance. It’s essential to regularly update and clean the email list to remove invalid or inactive addresses. Segmenting the list based on user preferences and engagement levels helps in targeting specific audiences and increasing campaign effectiveness.

Personalization: Personalizing bulk emails is key to engaging recipients and driving conversions. However, tailoring each email to individual recipients can be a daunting task. 

Email Content and Design: Creating compelling and visually appealing email content can be a challenge, especially when dealing with a large volume of emails. Bulk email service providers often offer customizable email templates and drag-and-drop email builders to simplify the process. 

Email Tracking and Analytics: Tracking the performance of bulk campaigns is essential for evaluating their effectiveness. Metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions provide insights into audience engagement and help optimize future campaigns. 

Compliance with Regulations: When sending bulk emails, it is crucial to comply with relevant regulations, such as anti-spam laws like CAN-SPAM or GDPR. Adhering to these regulations helps maintain a good sender reputation and ensures legal compliance. 

Reputation Management: Building and maintaining a positive email sender reputation is vital for successful bulk email marketing. High bounce rates, spam complaints, or being identified as a source of spam can negatively impact deliverability. Choosing a reliable bulk email service provider like Mailercloud, which actively manages sender reputation, can help maintain a good standing and ensure high inbox placement rates.

What’s the best time to send a bulk email campaign?

Determining the optimal time to send a bulk email is crucial for maximizing its impact and engagement. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, several factors can help guide your decision. Consider the following aspects when deciding the best time to send a bulk email:

1. Understand Your Audience: Take the time to understand your target audience’s preferences and behaviours. Analyze their demographics, geographic location, and time zones. This information can provide valuable insights into when they will most likely be active and receptive to your emails.
2. Test and Analyze: Conduct A/B testing by sending your bulk emails at different times and days of the week. Track the performance metrics for each test group, such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. Analyzing the results will help identify patterns and determine the optimal time for your specific audience.
3. Consider Industry Standards: Research industry benchmarks and best practices for email marketing. While these standards can serve as a starting point, remember that every audience is unique. Adapting and tailoring your strategies based on your specific audience’s behaviour is essential.
4. Time Zone Considerations: If your audience is spread across different time zones, segment your email list and schedule email sends accordingly. This ensures that recipients receive your emails at a time that is most convenient for them, increasing the chances of engagement.
5. Experiment and Iterate: The optimal time to send bulk emails may evolve over time as your audience and their preferences change. Continuously monitor the performance of your campaigns, and be open to adjusting your email schedule based on the insights you gather.
6. Leverage Automation: Utilize email marketing automation tools provided by bulk email service providers like MailerCloud. These tools allow you to schedule emails in advance, ensuring they are delivered at the desired time without manual intervention.

Remember that the best time to send a bulk email may vary depending on your industry, target audience, and campaign goals. Regularly evaluating the performance of your emails and making data-driven decisions will help you refine your approach and achieve better results.

How to Send Bulk Emails without Spamming?

The main reason why marketers sometimes dread bulk emailing is that there are high chances of them getting flagged as spam. However, if you know what are the main reasons behind it and take some mindful action while creating and sending bulk emails, you can easily achieve high email deliverability rates.

Reasons why bulk emails may land up in the spam folder

1. No permission from the email recipient to send email

Getting permission from the recipient is the best approach to ensure that your bulk emails do not end up eventually in the spam folder. This indicates that you respect the recipient’s privacy and ensures that you are only sending emails to people who have expressed an interest in hearing from you. Emailing people without authorization is against all major email marketing platforms’ acceptable usage policies. As a result, you may be banned from these platforms as well.

2. Subscribers no longer remember you or your business

Internet service providers (ISPs) follow a simple rule for marking your emails as spam: if the email recipients mark your email as spam, ISPs will also mark them as spam over time. Any next email you send will go straight to the spam folder once the spam complaints reach a particular threshold.

The question now is why would someone who has given you permission to send them emails mark it as spam?

The reason is straightforward: they have forgotten who you are and are unaware of your business. They have no recollection of signing up for your newsletters. Perhaps you’ve given up on email marketing and are now attempting to revive it. However, those who joined the email list a year ago are likely to have forgotten about you, leading them to believe your email is spam.

To avoid this, make sure your branding is clearly evident in the email. The name of your company should be visible so that the receiver knows who sent the email. Your “from” address should be a name they are familiar with.

3. Poor engagement rates

When it comes to spam filtering, ISPs consider email engagement rates as the basis to make this decision. You risk being reported as spam if your email open rates are low or if the majority of your emails are deleted.

The ideal way to boost the chances of landing your emails in the inbox is to improve the email engagement rates.

• Craft amazing and click-worthy email subject lines.
• Work out the optimal email delivery time and frequency in tune with your target audience’s behavior and receptivity.
• Tactfully implement email personalisation.
• Create segments of your contact list and send relevant emails.

4. High complain and bounce rates

A high bounce rate (more than 4%), on the other hand, usually indicates that the email list is old, of poor quality, or bought from random web sources. ISPs treat such senders badly, and their reputation suffers as a result.

The majority of email services allow users to flag emails as spam. If there are too many complaints reported, the email may be filtered away. Your complaint rate should ideally be less than 0.1 percent, or one out of every thousand recipients. This number is automatically recorded and displayed by most email marketing services for all senders in the same domain.

5. Unclear ‘From’ address

When the ‘from’, ‘to’, or ‘reply-to’ information is imprecise or deceptive, this is also regarded as a serious act of email spamming. Keep in mind that such behavior will automatically filter your email and mark it as spam.

To avoid all of these situations, include your or your company’s name in the ‘reply from’ section of the email, so that your subscribers may readily remember it for future communications. It would be easier for your subscribers to recall if you use the same name for all campaigns. You can use either your complete name or the name of your business, or a mix of both.

Strategies for Bulk Email Delivery without Spamming

• Regularly clean your email list to delete obsolete, stale and inactive contacts.
• Maintain a balanced image to text ratio in the emails. Avoid sending emails which contain only images.
• Do not create any deceptive or faulty email subject lines.
• Follow the best HTML practices in the emails.
• Include an easy-to-find unsubscribe link in the emails.
• Optimize the email content to improve its accessibility and readability across different screen sizes.
• Organically build your email list.
• Conduct rigorous spam tests before sending bulk campaigns.

Best Email Marketing Practices

Determine who is your target audience.

Marketers should identify which demographic groups are most interested in their business’s products and services. Before establishing a bulk campaign, consider factors such as location, interests, age groups, gender, culture, and other demographic traits. The goal is to personalize marketing emails for each category of the target market.

Concentrate on the benefits.

Clearly state in your bulk campaigns what your subscribers will gain from using the products and services offered by your business or from the emails they are going to receive from now onwards. You can easily drive the customers to respond by highlighting their interests in the bulk campaigns and how your business offerings resonate with their interests and choices. A good bulk emailing tool scales with your business, offering different thresholds such as 25,000, 100,000, or even 1,000,000 emails per month.

Keep the emails short, crisp and free of bluff.

A marketing email should be brief. This way, the email recipient will be able to notice the important information quickly enough to make a decision. When reading long or intricate emails, most individuals lose the plot. Worse, such emails might be deleted immediately after being opened. As a result, marketers should create succinct emails and deliver information that focuses on a certain brand’s product offerings as well as on the recipients’ problems and needs.

Offer exclusive discounts and deals.

Marketers could tempt email recipients by offering them special offers that are only accessible to them.

Clearly make the deadlines known to the audience.

Mention the offer’s expiration date to emphasize the need for a quick response. Customers will be deterred from procrastinating, which can lead to forgetfulness, as a result of this.

Provide enough lines of communication.

Allow customers to respond to your emails. For example, a marketer can provide a phone number, a URL, or other information that allows a potential consumer to easily contact the email sender with any questions.

Features to look for in a Bulk Emailing Tool

Testing and Optimization Supporting Functionalities

Competent bulk email systems should have enough tools and resources to allow optimization and testing of the emails and its components at intricate level. If you don’t test your campaigns comprehensively, you’ll be missing out on a lot of useful information.

Here are a few instances of how optimizing the emails and infrastructure might increase lead generation and engagement:

• As per different studies and research, over 60% of all emails are opened on mobile devices. Businesses who do not put out sufficient effort in optimizing emails as per the mobile devices lose access to large audiences.
• According to research, 47% of people open emails based on subject line, which is why marketing teams must optimize the subject lines. and other elements of the email content.

Extensive Tracking Capabilities

Comprehensive and large-scale data reporting is another important feature of an effective bulk mailing system. It doesn’t matter how well-optimized your bulk campaigns are if you can’t see the results of your efforts, let alone determine whether email is assisting you in meeting your objectives.

The ability to gain insight into precise and accurate statistics will assist you in becoming more familiar with the actions taken by your recipients, allowing you to learn more about their preferences. 

Some of the key metrics that you must be able to track with your bulk and targeted email marketing services are:

• Email open rates: Depending on the business niche, industry and campaign objectives, a healthy email open rate should be between 17% and 28%.
• Bounce rates: Acceptable range of bounce rate is approximately 3% to 5%, but this varies from business to business.
• Clickthrough rates: A good clickthrough rate will be in the range of 2 to 5%.
• Unsubscribe rates: Ideally, the unsubscribe rates should be below 0.5%.
• Spam complaint rates: Below 0.1% of spam complaints can be considered as acceptable.
• Unique opens
• Click to open rates
• Conversion rates

Segmentation

Look for a bulk email provider that lets you segment your subscriber list based on a variety of criterias. Proper list segmentation ensures that the right message reaches the right group of audience. It improves the overall success rates of the campaigns, as segmentation in the bulk email list management efforts receive 14.37% more openings and 64.78% more clicks than non-segmented campaigns, according to several  data.

Personalisation

People want to be treated as individuals, thus personalization is critical in bulk email marketing. Personalizing mass campaigns isn’t as difficult as it may appear, and it doesn’t necessitate personally responding to each and every one. Personalizing bulk campaigns is as simple as employing email list segmentation and customization tags, thanks to automation tools.

Simply said, all you have to do now is just launch the email campaign. Plus the benefits that you reap are immense:

• Personalized emails will generate six times more sales than generic email campaigns.
• Personalization of bulk campaigns lead to a reduction in the unsubscribe rates.
• Pick from different personalization scenarios that best suit your marketing and business objectives. These can include win-back, growth, customer retention, and product upgrade email campaigns.
• Personalized emails can have conversion rates that are four times higher than the average.
• Targeted personalisation, according to 74% of marketers, boosts customer engagement.

Drag and Drop Email Builder

Drag and drop email builders make the process of creating engaging and on-brand emails easy. You can drag a component from the sidebar, such as an image, quotation, or button, to a part in your email using this simple function. This can help you save time as you figure out the ideal email flow for bulk emailing and move things around.

High Email Deliverability Rates

Imagine spending a lot of time and effort on an email campaign that never reaches the inboxes of your readers. Isn’t it terrible?

That’s why it’s critical to double-check your bulk email service provider’s delivery rates to ensure that your emails reach all of the contacts in your email list. To accomplish this, it must perform numerous technological tasks on the backend. The delivery rate of a decent bulk email software should be higher than 90%.

Automation

Powerful email automation tools will drop your business brand in front of the right people at the most opportune time and at the most effective touchpoint. Most importantly, this will all be done automatically without the need of any interference or supervision.

An automated mass mailing system is an ideal choice if you are looking for avenues to scale. Such features will create automatic workflows for the processes that are repetitive and cyclical. Plus, they enhance the overall email experience for the contacts.

Wrapping-Up

In conclusion, selecting the best bulk email service is essential for successful email marketing campaigns. With a wide range of features available, it’s crucial to choose a service that aligns with your specific needs. Whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, several key features are indispensable for an effective bulk email service.

By considering these essential features and conducting thorough research, you can select the best bulk email service that aligns with your business goals and maximizes your email marketing success. Remember, finding the right service provider is a key step toward improving your email marketing campaigns and achieving higher engagement and conversion rates, be it a free plan or not.