Best Newsletter Making Software: How to Choose?

7.5.2023
Read time: 13 min
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Best Newsletter Making Software: How to Choose?
Try Publicate For Free Today
7.5.2023
Read time: 13 min

Email newsletters are great for creating brand awareness, getting the word out about what’s fresh and new with your products and services, improving employee morale and productivity, and increasing your customer base.

Newsletter making software can make this task easier, but what is the best software for creating newsletters? We’re going to take a look at some solid choices for a newsletter creator.

Guide Index

What is Email Newsletter Making Software?

In short, email newsletter software is a tool to help you to create your newsletter, build contact lists, and personalize campaigns. Not all software is created equal but you should expect certain features. These include:

  • Ability to personalize your contact lists
  • A way to create campaigns for different audiences
  • Automations that eliminate the need to manually send out email newsletters.

The software enables you to choose an email newsletter template for each specific campaign or audience.

The templates will have an easy drop-and-drag HTML editor that has room for editing to fit your specific needs. The best newsletter making software can also have an analytics feature so you can assess the effectiveness of your email newsletters.

Email newsletter builders are the perfect solution to create and design email newsletters while allowing you to still keep your existing tool for sending emails, whether it be through Gmail, Outlook, or another preferred email service provider.

This way, if you’re happy with how you send emails, you can leverage an email newsletter builder to spruce up your design and create beautiful and professional emails using drag-and-drop functionality. That’s right- no coders or designers are needed!

What is the Best Email Newsletter Making Software?

It’s always a bit of a challenge to wade through mountains of information when you’re trying to determine the best of anything and email newsletter software is no exception.

However, certain key characteristics will help the best software to stand out from the others, and here are five that deserve mention.

1. Publicate

Publicate’s professional tools and easy-to-use features are perfect for the newsletter creator! Marketers can design and customize responsive emails with ease by using drop-and-drag editing tools then export and send on their favorite email service provider like Gmail or Outlook.

The HTML email builder saves time and allows users to create and build professional emails. Then, when you’re ready to send your email newsletter, you can use Publicate’s integrated tools to export your finished design to the email service provider of your choice to send it out!

Curated content, scores of templates, and analytics that drive engagement are among the reasons why Publicate is a great choice for businesses seeking the best software for creating newsletters.

Publicate allows users to add rich media, GIFS, tweets, and more with just one click. Users also have access to millions of royalty-free images.

Publicate offers a free trial period and plans begin as low as $12.50 per month.

2. Mailerlite

Mailerlite’s pricing is free for up to 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 sends per month. If you require software that offers audience segmentation and personalization, Mailerlite could be a good fit. Pre-built design blocks and easy-to-use drop-and-drag functions make mobile design quick and problem-free.

Another nice feature is built-in photo editing that eliminates the need to leave the platform. With Mailerlite, you can segment your audiences and add personalization. Premium plans offer unlimited sends, removal of the Mailerlite logo, and a custom HTML editor. It’s also possible to integrate Stripe to monetize your newsletter.

3. Mailchimp

Mailchimp, an all-in-one platform for small businesses, started as an email newsletter service. Their email newsletter software is ideal for small and medium-sized businesses who are just beginning their foray into email marketing.

Their newsletter creator offers a variety of templates with easy-to-use drop-and-drag features that enable users to rebuild designs. It can integrate with various third-party apps and services.

Their pricing is free up to 500 subscribers and 2,500 emails per month. Paid plans offer an email newsletter builder (without HTML), basic segmentation and reporting, and email automation.

4. Constant Contact

Constant Contact also ranks high for businesses needing software for newsletter creation. Their user-onboarding is helpful for people looking to get started quickly and their features are easy-to-use.

Error checkers, event promotion tools, and subject line and preheader recommendations based on previous campaigns are among the tools that Constant Contact offers. Users can also import PDFs into email.

Constant Contact is not free and pricing plans begin at $20 monthly.

5. Mailjet

Mailjet is a good choice if your organization has fast-moving teams (particularly in Europe) and for larger companies that need solid scaling opportunities.

The ability to create engaging content that can be personalized based on a recipient’s data like name or location makes this software attractive. The collaborative tools enable teams to work together and review newsletters before sending them out - a plus in a busy, fast-paced environment.

Pricing is free up to 6,000 email sends per month.

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Picture from Pexels

How to Choose Newsletter Making Software?

We make many decisions based on certain important criteria every day. We think about the options and then choose what works. Deciding on the best software for creating newsletters is no different and to assist you in your decision making, here are some considerations:

1. Features

Success involves a lot of trial and error. Look for software that is flexible for managing your newsletters, segmenting audiences, undertaking A/B tests, etc. If you’re just getting your feet wet, you’ll want email newsletter software that includes easy-to-use tools.

2. Price

Identify your budget and work within it. The best newsletter templates help you to see a good return on your investment. As your list grows, your costs increase so make sure that you are getting the best bang for your buck! Understand a plan’s limits and go for a test drive with a free trial if you can.

3. Segmentation Options

If your list is large, it’s good practice to divide your recipients based on demographics and behaviors. You might not be there yet, but when you are, is the software you’re thinking about capable of segmentation? Practice forward thinking.

4. Excellent Deliverability

There’s no point in crafting the best email newsletters in the world if they can’t be delivered and opened without glitches. You don’t want all your hard work ending up in recipients’ spam folders. Choose a software solution that promises good deliverability.

5. Ease of Use

The best software for creating newsletters should be easy to use. The interface should be user-friendly and allow you to create newsletters, view analytics, send emails, and manage lists seamlessly.

6. Analytics

Analytics is a valuable tool you shouldn’t be living without. This is a must-have too so that you can assess how your campaigns are performing (and make adjustments, as needed)!

How to Make a Newsletter

Don’t underestimate the power of the newsletter! Take all your latest news and put it into an engaging and eye-catching document for your audience to consume.

1. Choose an email newsletter template.

An email builder like Publicate offers extensive range of newsletter templates that you can customize to suit your brand. You can browse categories by type including eCommerce, internal communications, industry, and seasons.

2. Add Content

Once you’ve chosen your template, drag and drop your content into the placeholders. You can add content that you find online, royalty-free images from the extensive library, or your own images and files.

3. Add Visuals

After you’ve added content, you can edit by clicking on the title or the description to add or change text. Good images are key and help to break up text. Graphics, illustrations, borders, and backgrounds are also eye-catching but don’t get carried away. Too many visuals can make your newsletter area cluttered and unprofessional.

4. Add Branding

The next step is to add your branding. This is usually a logo and it can be linked so that when an email recipient clicks on it, they will be taken to your website. With Publicate, you’re able to save your brand kit and style so that you can save time having to adjust your newsletter every time to fit your company’s branding.

5. Review and Send

You did it! All that’s left is a final review and then send it out. Publicate works seamlessly with Gmail, Outlook, and 50 other email service providers.

What Makes a Great Newsletter?

Great newsletter making software helps you to design great email newsletters. With templates, drag-and-drop tools, a library of images and graphics, and an HTML editor, it means you don’t have to worry about coding or designing. You can focus on creating an informative, engaging, and visually appealing email.

Headlines and subject lines that grab the recipient’s attention are important. Resist the urge to fill up all of the white space with images and text - you’re striving for balance.

Effective newsletters are delivered with regularity. Determine how often you’d like to send one out and then evaluate if your timetable is reasonable. Don’t overextend yourself. Be consistent.

Keep your social media accounts active and current, particularly if you’re including those links in your newsletter. Highlight events and use eye-catching images. And, don’t forget your call to action!

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Picture from Pexels

What to Include in Newsletter?

You have a lot of creative leeway when it comes to designing a newsletter and while there are no hard and fast rules, effective and engaging newsletters have a few things in common. These include:

  • Header and tagline - short, simple, and memorable
  • Images that fit the weekly or monthly theme - it needs to make sense
  • Thumbnails and snippets from your featured articles - should link to the full stories
  • A call-to-action - e.g. event signup
  • Social media account links
  • Business contact information

How Long Should a Newsletter Be?

There are no hard and fast rules around the length of a newsletter, but there are a few guiding principles.

Generally, email newsletters should be short, engaging, and informative. Use links to guide readers to places where they can get more detailed information.

Roughly 20 lines of text, or 200 words, is a good rule of thumb that will net you the best click-through rate. Promotional newsletters will have less text and more images and calls to action. Scannable bullet points provide information without bogging down your reader in a wall of text.

The length of a newsletter also depends on the frequency you send one out. It’s a good idea to limit a weekly or monthly newsletter to one page. Quarterly newsletters can be three of four pages. Remember, less is more!

Ready. Set. Create!

Great newsletter making software can be a game changer for you and your brand. Email newsletter builders offer you access to responsive email templates, easy to use drop-and-drag tools, and extensive image libraries to name a few features.

Once you’re ready to send your newsletter, you can keep using your existing email service provider to do so. The upside is that your email builder will grant you analytics to assess how your newsletter performed and make it easy to create your next newsletter in no time.

Publicate is ready to use when you’re ready to get started.