Did you know that email marketing can generate up to a 3,900% ROI for small businesses?
When you see email marketing service providers with fees as low as $20 per month, you may think you're getting a nearly criminal deal.
But, if you've ever attempted to do email marketing yourself or have hired an agency, you've likely discovered that it costs more than $20 a month to generate record-breaking ROI.
In fact, the prices for email marketing services are all over the place.
What gives?
Here's what you need to know about the true costs of email marketing.
Understanding the Cost of Email Marketing
Email marketing isn't as simple as sending a monthly newsletter.
It can also include lead generation, website design, graphic creation, branding, and several other things.
Successful digital marketing is rarely done in isolation.
There is usually some degree of overlap between the different disciplines of inbound.
Integrative strategies are a good thing, but they can make getting a clear-cut cost of one thing difficult to provide.
There are key aspects of any email marketing campaign or strategy that will directly impact the overall cost of services.
Let's cover those.
The Number of Emails You Plan to Send
Monthly newsletters are different than sending emails for a specific campaign.
The intention of the latter will likely be to generate leads and convert qualified leads into sales.
Newsletters, however, are usually geared towards brand awareness.
Different strategies create different types of emails sent in differentiating volumes.
The State of Your Contacts
Costs will vary depending on how much you need an email marketing service to do.
Simply signing up with an email marketing provider is only one part of the process.
There's also a huge difference between an in-house team who needs help with email fulfillment and needing someone to create a strategy.
If you have lead-generating strategies you're happy with, your email marketing service may not have to help with this.
If you don't have any strategies for this, or worse, are purchasing email lists, you'll need a more high-level agency to help.
Email marketing services can do things like make sign-up forms, plan and manage giveaways, and more.
The Quality of Your Existing Digital Assets
Even if you hire the best email marketing help, sending qualified leads to a poorly run site or a wishy-washy brand limits your potential.
By investing in email marketing services without investing in other essential digital marketing assets, you're limiting the ROI your efforts can generate.
If your website needs to be refreshed or you need to create a landing page to send qualified leads to, this will also increase the cost.
The Design of Your Emails
It's one thing to use a template where all you need to do is swap out some of the colors used in the scheme, and add a photo or logo.
That's easy.
What's not easy is complex and custom design.
A lot of small, service-based businesses like to keep their emails simple, and don't invest too much in the design of their emails.
This makes sense, because a plumber, for example, isn't necessarily trying to evoke some kind of emotion from its target audience the same way a community coffee house might.
But, if you do want colorful, graphics-heavy emails with sophisticated branding, understand this is going to add to the cost of your services.
If you already have branding logos, HTML, or Pantone colors and imagery available, this will lessen the cost of your design.
But if a digital marketing agency will need to produce these items themselves, it will add to the cost of services.
Your Company's Existing Software
If you are already using an email marketing provider like MailChimp or Constant Contact, it should be fairly easy for any agency to provide email marketing services to organize your assets and launch your campaigns.
But if you don't use a provider at all or are using a lower-end tool that doesn't support your needs, the team you hire to help will have to either start from scratch or they will have to move over your data.
These can be very time-consuming tasks that can add to the amount your email marketing efforts will cost.
The Features You Need From an Email Marketing Service
Some data is easier to track than others.
If you only expect to see reports that show basic data like open and click-through rates, reporting shouldn't impact your budget too much.
But, if you are expecting to see complex breakdowns of user behavior on your landing pages in relation to email or high-level analysis of your audience, this will likely cost more.
There are also features to consider like support, split testing, and optimization.
Accessibility to features like this is usually dependent on the email marketing provider you're using and the level of your subscription.
All these things influence the overall cost of email marketing services.
Time to Hire Email Marketing Services
Those low rates for email marketing service tools might sound like the best solution for your team at first.
But, you'll soon realize that without direction and know-how, you'll likely waste resources and time trying to do it yourself.
The best way to know what type of email marketing your business really needs is to work with a knowledgeable team.
A successful agency that specializes in email marketing services will be able to audit your business and deliver the best solution.
What's even better, is that when you work with an accredited agency, you'll be working with a team that puts your needs and success above just making a quick dollar from offering solutions that don't deliver.
Want to learn more about our done-for-you email newsletter services? Click here!
Brian Horwitz is a co-founder of Online Visibility Pros, a certified digital marketing firm that specializes in online lead generation for home services businesses, trade contractors, construction companies and a handful of a few other select niche markets. OVP gives these businesses the power to leverage the Internet to generate a steady flow of targeted online leads. 
