Top Benchmark Email Alternatives and Overview

Many of the email platforms are somewhat complicated to use. Benchmark Email provides the tool so that you don't have to waste your time in setting up the email platform. It makes it very easy to customize the platform as per your ideation so that you can invest your time in the more important stuff. 

Features of the Benchmark Email

The automated tools of Benchmark Email provide you with a detailed analysis of all the actions taken by your consumers. Hence you can set up multiple actions that take place automatically whenever any incident happens. For example, whenever new customers join, you can send up an email of welcoming him to the network and add that subscriber to your email lists. It also provides many more such tools to improve the marketing strategies and skills to make your business grow and become more consumer-centric. 

Email List Management

Users are entitled to arrange their contact list, clean useless email addresses and add or remove contacts. You can arrange the lists according to demographics, needs and demands of the customers, etc. Benchmark Email also allows its users to import contacts via .txt, .csv and .xls file formats. You can also import your Hotmail or Gmail contacts.

Custom Autoresponders

Users can schedule a list of emails that are sent automatically or create mini-lists for the subscribers, before a special event or sale. Benchmark Email allows you to send multiple emails, each targeting a different area of your email list.

Built-in and Custom Template Designs

Benchmark Email provides all the necessary features required to insert your unique custom template. If you are well versed in CSS and HTML codes, you can add them to the editor. Benchmark Email’s visual formatting tools also let you design your custom template. You can add images, social media elements, surveys, links, and documents, etc.

Benchmark Email provides numerous template designs, spread across 20 categories including event invitations, newsletters, holiday greetings and seasonal wishes along with special templates for religious organizations, real estate offices, and restaurants. These designs can be customized in the drag-and-drop editor.

Online Surveys

The benefits of micro targeting are not new. Benchmark Email offers online surveys that point out exactly the location of the target recipients, allowing you to focus on the related groups. With the help of Benchmark Email, users can create professional surveys using the related templates. Provisions for response tracking and reporting are available.

A/B Testing

Multivarient tests allows marketers to test what is the best title, content or design and much more. Benchmark Email allows you to create various From Names or Subject Lines and test them on smaller test groups. Users can also opt for a campaign vs. campaign test to realize the potential of each.

Manage Events

While Benchmark Email has a dedicated, separate service for extensive management of events, they also have the option of setting up events with basic features as part of the email marketing suite of services. IF you are looking to handle promotional events on a budget, this tool can be a nifty feature to work with.

What's the Email Designer by Benchmark:

Benchmark provides you with a very easy Email designer where you can just edit and create very unique and responsive emails that catch the attention of your consumers, and it's not a complicated process you can just drag and drop to get your Email ready in just a few minutes. It also provides you with photo editing software so that you don't need to install heavy software like Photoshop. The photo editing software provided by the Benchmark will do the same job. 

You can also use the already available templates of emails that can be used to send across at different opportunities. You can also give your Email the personal touch by adding your favorite colors. And if you are a techie and want to build your Email using HTML from scratch then it also provides you with the code editor so that you can implement your coding skills to format a great email. 

You can try the benchmark services for free to get an idea of how it works. The free service lets you work with unlimited subscribers but has a limit of 250 emails for each month. The premium and paid version provide you with all the automation tools and premium features and that too with very minimal costs. 

Useful Plug-ins

Benchmark Email has numerous useful plug-ins that help connect your account to numerous popular services and websites, giving you direct access to all marketing data. For example, you can integrate tools like Easy List, Highrise, Zoho, Shopify or Salesforce. These plug-ins save valuable time and energy that would otherwise be used to manually integrate each account individually. Benchmark Email also offers plug-ins to include a SignUp form on your Facebook page or website, which is an important way of building your contact list. Benchmark Email also offers users the scope of designing and inserting their own plug-ins or tools, using the Benchmark Email API.

High Volume Users

Benchmark email offers dedicated email server for users who use email marketing a lot. Typically, if you’re sending 10,000 or even 50,000 emails, you can rely on shared email servers to send emails and that’s really affordable. However, when you started sending more than 1,00,000 emails every month. With dedicated email servers, you can expect to receive better deliverability of your emails.

They also provide dedicated server with dedicated IPs which are also whitelisted with major anti-spam organization which can offer better deliverability of your emails.

Plans and Pricing

Benchmark offers a relatively different pricing template. While they offer the usual contact based pricing, they also offer the option of paying based on the number of emails sent. This allows you to weigh out the requirements of your campaign and choose the option that would be more cost-effective for you. As a side-note, you might find some packages of the list-based pricing to be relatively slightly pricier, but the additional features should make up for that.

Benchmark also offers a free-for-life plan where the users can send up to 10,000 emails per month for zero expenses. Free-for-life customers are entitled to every tool and virtual assistance that is offered by the company, although, the only downside is that you can send email to people who have subscribed using the SignUp form linked to your account. Hence, you cannot add you pre-designed contact list, which you can with a premium account. This deal is still a steal for beginners. Benchmark Email also provides a flat 25% discount to the monthly rental plan of non-profit organizations, if they open a fee-based account.

Final Verdict

Benchmark Email uses an interactive tracking and reporting interface, which displays extensive information in a graphical layout for clear understanding. Their templates and layouts are well-designed and can be used for most campaigns, and the same can be said about their social media integration.

Good:

Allow clients to opt for additional features, notable visual editor tools, convenient integration capability, informative learning materials, non-profit discount with free-for-life offers.

Bad:

No discount for paying annual fees upfront, User interface could be better.

Overall:

Benchmark Email is set up in a fairly simple manner, helping amateurs comprehend while integrating extremely powerful features that are capable of alluring the taste buds of even the most sophisticated users.

Benchmark Email has been a useful email marketing tool for online marketers. The company was founded back in 2004. Benchmark combines email marketing with event management and social media to create a powerful marketing platform for any business.

Company Name: Benchmark Internet Group

Company Address: 10621 Calle Lee, Building 141, Los Alamitos, CA, USA

Founded in: 2004