Learn More About Email Software
What is Email Software?
Email is the main gateway for internal and external communication within a company. As such, it’s crucial to implement a software that is intuitive, organized, secure, and efficient.
Email software can achieve a variety of other tasks for your company, such as deploying marketing campaigns, engaging consumers, setting task reminders, chatting with other employees, keeping a schedule for meetings, and more. Considerations for what email software to use should depend on your company size, business industry, security requirements, storage space, and pricing.
Key Benefits of Email Software:
- Send and receive important business messages between employees
- Improve outreach with email marketing campaigns
- Keep a permanent record of all messages that are sent and received
- Send and receive important business messages from anywhere at any time
Why Use Email Software?
There are infinite reasons to implement email software at your company, but the most important one is communication. Whether this means conveying an important message to coworkers or delivering your brand message to prospective customers, the main function is to relay a message.
Email can also help with customer engagement. Customizable email platforms allow companies to illustrate their brand and communicate their company’s mission statement. When a client or a prospective lead receives an email from your company, you can deliver your marketing message with taglines, logos, and customizable email signatures. This helps keep your brand in the spotlight.
Email software is also the vehicle for all of your email marketing campaigns, which can help generate leads and drive more business to your company. Email marketing tactics such as customer targeting and calls to action can help gain more subscribers and translate to a higher ROI.
Who Uses Email Software?
All employees in your company can benefit from email software, since it’s the main form of communication for important documents and messages. However, some employees will be sending out more emails than others. Those employees may work in departments such as:
Marketing
Email has the built-in capability of being sent in bulk, which makes it the perfect software to use for mass marketing campaigns. Marketing teams often gather leads from the company’s CRM and send out marketing campaigns. This is a great way to elicit a meaningful call to action for prospective buyers. Oftentimes, email marketing is also integrated with AI software to automate email marketing on a scheduled basis. This benefits the marketing team by making the process less tedious and more efficient.
Customer Service
Customer service and success teams constantly answer inquiries via email. A business’ email software should include auto-generated responses these teams can use to alert customers that their inquiry will be answered promptly. Most email software will vary with their ability to customize auto-generated responses, so make sure to evaluate this before choosing an email software.
HR
HR teams use email to inform employees of any updates related to the office. This can include calendar updates, payroll changes, and much more. HR teams need a streamlined email solution so they can easily prioritize their schedules.
Kinds of Email Software
Email Client
An email client is a software platform that allows you to access your email without logging onto the web. Email client software works through POP3 and IMAP addressing. This means that you can access your email through your desktop programs. Email clients offer the benefit of extra security with more encryption to protect your emails. The main drawback here is that users will find it difficult to access their email from other computers, since an email client is usually installed on the user’s desktop.
Webmail
Webmail is a software platform that allows users to access emails through a web browser. The main benefit of webmail is mobile access. If you are travelling somewhere and forget to bring your laptop, you can easily access your email on any other computer as long as you have internet access. Furthermore, most webmail software has built-in suites that feature document creation, video conferencing, and other tools that can be accessed via the internet.
Email Features
Storage Space
Most email software offers a free amount of storage space just by signing up for the software. This can typically range between 15 and 50 GB. Depending on your budget and company size, email software will offer your company more or less storage space for varying prices. The main aspect to consider here is the amount of email you receive on a daily basis and how that quantity of email can overwhelm your server over time. If your email software only offers a limited amount of free space, this can easily burden the server and cause it to slow down.
Address Books
Having a list of all your client contacts is a great way for your company to stay organized. Client information and email lists can easily be kept within an email solution’s built-in address book.
Email Filters
A key feature of most email platforms is the ability to filter your inbox so you can easily find the most relevant messages. The main benefit for businesses is to block any potential threats from entering the company’s server as well as filter out any unwanted messages.
App-Based Integration Tools
Many forms of email software provide productivity and collaboration suites that are beneficial additions to signing up for their software. Lots of these features can help increase office efficiency with tools such as video conferencing, spreadsheets, and document creation. Depending on your company’s size, this can be a great way to centralize all of your office needs in one place.
File Attachment
Email software allows users to attach files when sending messages. Files can range from simple Word documents to detailed presentations and videos. The major benefit to businesses is the removal of the need for a USB to transport data. Instead, anyone can send large files via the internet to accelerate efficiency.
Email Automation
An example of email automation is when a new user receives a welcome email when they sign up, which may indicate instructions on how to start using the site as well as any new features that the company has been working on. This is a great benefit for businesses, as they no longer have to manually send out emails to every new user. It also helps grow your company’s subscriber list, which will help improve sales.
IMAP
An Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is responsible for the mobile access that virtually every email solution provides. This feature is vital to organizations with a remote workforce or employees who travel frequently.
Potential Issues with Email Software
Businesses looking for email software should be mindful of these potential issues:
Spam
Perhaps the biggest issue with using email software is the potential for receiving unsolicited emails, also known as spam. Spam emails can range from unwanted commercial emails to malicious emails that try to spread viruses to your computer. This issue can be harmful to the security of your messages.
Email Attachment Size
It is sometimes critical to send emails with large attachments. Some email software does not allow for emails to send attachments over 25–30 MB, while other solutions allow emails to be up to 300 MB. If your company sends emails that use lots of space, you may want to consider email software that allows for larger limits on attachments.
Security
The biggest issue with sending mail electronically is the potential for malware. This invasive and threatening software, also referred to as ransomware, is a type of virus that can only be eradicated through monetary payment. Companies should ensure they have an active security team in order to stay vigilant, or they need to install proper precautions.
Deliverability
Email deliverability is the number of emails you send that actually reach an inbox. This is important for business initiatives (like marketing campaigns) that need to reach a long list of prospective buyers. Reputable email software will be more likely to send emails through trusted ISPs. This will ensure emails are not bouncing and have a high deliverability rate.
Software and Services Related to Email Software
Email software is the starting point for a variety of marketing tools that can accompany the software. These can range from software that aid in user engagement, lead generation, and mass marketing campaigns.
Email Marketing
The marketing team at a company can use email to send out promotions, updates, and newsletter subscriptions to infinite prospective buyers. Without having email software already in place, email marketing software tools cannot be added into your company’s marketing initiatives. As stated previously, email marketing consistently provides the highest ROI, so it’s important for the marketing team to utilize this software.
Email Tracking
Email tracking software allows users to track emails and collect analytics, such as email open rates, the volume of clicks on links in emails, and the number of downloads of email attachments. This is most commonly used to improve customer engagement, increase sales, and maximize the potential for prospect engagement.
Transactional Email
Transactional email software refers to tools that send emails in response to pre-established actions taken by recipients. Some examples include a welcome email after creating a new social media account, an email receipt from an e-commerce transaction, or an email for a new newsletter subscription. Businesses use these tools for automating personalized emails as transactions occur. Organizations use transactional email software to track metrics such as emails sent, received, opened, and bounced. Transactional email tools are useful for customer retention, sales, marketing, and public relations teams.
A/B Testing
A/B testing software can be used to test which of the two email campaign options will be more successful. During this process, two variations of an email campaign are sent out to two different pools of recipients. Whichever pool has the higher click rate on your email campaign will indicate which one will be more successful. The results can indicate the open rate, click-through rate, and the number of subscribers that were influenced by your email campaign. This is a great tool to guarantee that you put out an effective marketing campaign that will generate more revenue and happier customers.
