The Cost of Email Marketing — How to Budget for Your Campaign

If you’re considering the cost of running an online marketing campaign, odds are, you know what email marketing is, so we’ll keep this brief.

Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy that consists of sending emails to potential customers, or leads, to build a relationship with them.

The idea is to use emails to add leads to your sales funnel and turn each lead into a paying customer.

But is email marketing effective?

The short answer is yes, it’s very effective!

Around 4,6 billion people are expected to be using email by 2025, and 51% of shoppers prefer to shop online, so a well-thought-out email marketing campaign can be very profitable.

The average return on investment (ROI) for email marketing is around $42 for every $1 spent.

Consumers are more likely to buy from a company that sends personalized and relevant emails — in fact, your revenue can increase up to 760%.

Considering these statistics, email marketing is worth every cent!

To run successful email campaigns, you’ll need an email service provider (ESP).

An ESP is a service that allows email marketers to easily send email blasts to their subscribers.

Most email providers, like Gmail, have safeguards in place to detect, and protect, their users from unwanted spam.

Spam can be anything from annoying to malicious, and a credible ESP will help you make sure that your campaign doesn’t violate any regulations.

Ensure that you are compliant with the GDPR and CAN-SPAM act so that you don’t get flagged or, worse, fined!

Always get a lead’s consent before sending them marketing emails — building a good sender reputation with both customers and their email providers will improve your delivery rate.

More delivered emails mean a bigger chance of converting a lead into a customer!

Most email marketing platforms today include an ESP in their package, so when you start looking for business software, find an all-in-one platform, like systeme.io, that offers email marketing services.

Before we continue, let’s answer the obvious question — why not use Gmail? After all, it’s free.

Gmail is aimed at individual accounts, so it’s not a marketing platform.

According to Gmail regulations, you’re limited to 500 emails in a single 24-hour period.

On top of that, deliverability rates with Gmail aren't guaranteed.

If you send a mass email blast from a personal email address, your mail runs the risk of being identified as spam.

The last place you want your email to end up in is the spam folder!

However, the pricing starts at $12.95/month.

That might not sound like much, but it doesn’t offer any marketing tools, so you’d be paying that on top of the business platform you’re using.

If you’re just starting out, and you have a very small email list, you can use Gmail.

It’s technically free, but the time you’ll be spending on curating your list and the risk of your emails being marked as spam could end up costing you down the road.

With Gmail out of the way, let’s take a look at dedicated ESPs.

Most ESPs will charge you a monthly subscription fee based on the number of contacts you have on your email list or the number of emails you send.

Take careful note of this — some ESPs, like Mailchimp, will charge you per contact, even when they unsubscribe from your email list.

You could end up paying for inactive subscribers that no longer receive any marketing emails.

When choosing an ESP, you should also consider what additional features they offer.

At the very least, you need:

While text-based emails work, 67% of users state that they prefer image-based emails.

When it comes to adding graphics to your emails, you have 2 options.

You can use a graphic designer, either freelance or in-house, depending on the make-up of your company, or you can do it yourself.

The average rate for a freelance graphic designer in the US is between $24 - $30/hour.

However, you can pay as much as $150/hour.

The rate of the graphic designer is determined by several factors, such as:

Most designers will have an online portfolio, so you can find someone whose style will suit your brand.

Alternatively, you can do it yourself by using templates.

This is another reason why using a dedicated ESP is a good idea, as most come with an existing array of templates you can customize.

When it comes to designing and running your online campaigns, you have 2 options.

You can either use an email marketing agency, or you can invest in email marketing software and run your own campaign.

This will depend on the size of your company, the number of employees you have, and your employees’ expertise.

When you work with an agency, you get the complete package.

A good email marketing agency will provide:

Email marketing agencies will take the project from start to finish.

They usually provide a combination of services:

If you have the resources, investing in an agency is not a bad option, but it’s expensive!

Agencies usually don’t charge by the hour — getting to know a client and their product takes time, so charging per hour is simply not practical.

Instead, many agencies might charge per project, especially if they’re setting up an automated campaign.

Most commonly, agencies are put on a monthly retainer that can be between $2,500 - $7,500/month.

If you have a large business with complex campaigns, and the resources to do so, investing in an agency is worth considering.

If an agency is outside your reach, don’t despair.

With the number of email marketing platforms available, you can run a fairly complex campaign yourself with relative ease.

The pricing will depend on:

You can read our post on the top email marketing platforms, but let’s take a quick look at what you can expect to budget for some of the top platforms.

While systeme.io’s Free plan will give you all the tools you need to run a successful campaign for up to 2,000 contacts, the same isn’t true for other platforms.

So, when you start shopping, expect to pay between $25 - $195/month for 10,000 contacts depending on the email platform and plan you choose.

At systeme.io, we want to see your business succeed, so our plans scale with you as your email list grows.

Start with our Free plan, and build your email list up to 1 million contacts!

Keep reading for an overview of what exactly systeme.io has to offer.

Based on this, you can find an ESP that can handle the volume of emails you will be sending and comes with customizable templates (if you so choose).

Step 2 — Determine the cost of the graphics and content

This will be the hourly rate of a graphic designer and/or copywriter if you’re using freelancers.

However, if you’re using an in-house designer or copywriter, or doing it yourself, you’ll need to consider the time spent on designing or customizing templates and writing content.

The time an employee spends on the marketing campaign will be covered in their salary, so consider this as part of your email marketing cost.

Step 3 — Managing the campaign

The time any employee spends on sending emails, running tests, and analyzing analytics to determine effectiveness is time you pay for, so keep this in mind when calculating the cost of your campaign.

To determine your email marketing costs, you need to add the cost of the:

Your campaign is ready to launch, but what metrics should you consider when it comes to measuring your success?

Let’s take a look at the key performance indicators (KPIs) that’ll give you a clear idea of whether or not your campaign is on the right track.

There are a lot of marketing services available today — from true all-in-one platforms to basic platforms that allow for sending emails but little else.

However, for the best platform to run your email marketing, look no further than systeme.io!

With systeme.io, you’re not only limited to email marketing, you can also:

With the Freemium plan, you also get access to:

As your business grows, you can easily scale your business with our 3 paid plans:

Are you ready to create and launch email marketing campaigns that convert?

Join the systeme.io family today!

An effective email marketing campaign can greatly boost your sales, so it’s a worthwhile investment.

You can use an agency or do it yourself — and with all the options available, tailoring a campaign to suit your needs, and your budget, is entirely possible.

Using an all-in-one marketing platform, like systeme.io, will make the process easier and more cost-effective.

So visit systeme.io today to launch your first campaign for free!