Benchmark email Review

Full review

Benchmark is used by a number of large companies and non-profits and is a well-regarded, professional email marketing service. We looked into what the company offers the small business and the multinational alike, to see how successful Benchmark is at delivering your campaigns.

Setup

The plans at Benchmark are priced according to whether you want to pay on a send-based, list-based or high volume basis. Send-based means you are charged per month depending on how many emails you send. The List-based option charges you depending on how many people are in your mailing list. The High Volume plan is, as the name suggests, for businesses that do a lot of marketing by email and if this applies to you, you can save money by taking out this plan. You get access to the complete set of features with all these plans, which makes it easier to see exactly what you are getting with Benchmark email. There's a free account option too.

Email creation

Start your email newsletter creation with one of the Benchmark pre-designed email templates. The templates are grouped by event/theme and purpose, such as real estate or industry, and there is plenty of choice available. Some of the templates are a little dull but there's enough variety so that you'll be able to find what you are looking for. For non-coding customization, use the drag and drop editor where you can change background colours, font type and size, and add images or surveys. Or you can upload your own code and customize the HTML in the editing program.

Campaign creation

By using the Benchmark email system you can create numerous lists by importing contacts from existing email lists, or by adding individual contacts as they come in. The segments feature, where you create custom fields that add extra data about customers to their profile, allows you to send mailings to certain targeted groups according to demographic, likes and dislikes, buying history and even things like income and household size. The segmenting and targeting features are easy to use with a search function that allows you to find the lists you are looking for. You can also print out your lists in Excel or text format.

Deliverability

We like the Benchmark email cleaning tools that allow you to get rid of bounced email addresses and duplicate addresses, and optimize how you use your mailing list. These editing tools are easy to use and you end up with a cleaner list that produces better results. Benchmark uses the SecureSubscribe system which means using best email practice when delivering mail to customers or subscribers.

Tracking & reporting

Find a good selection of reporting tools within the Benchmark email package. One of the best ways to see how a campaign is doing is with real-time tracking – view click-throughs, open rates and bounces as they happen. In this way you don’t have to wait until a survey or offer is closed in order to see who is interested, making it easier to get a head start on follow-ups. You can go into more detail in your tracking by looking at open rates geographically, and comparing past email campaigns with current mailings.

Features

Personalization – Make your campaign personal with your own logos, graphics and images as well as custom backgrounds and fonts. Be more effective at mailings by addressing customers by name and by using the segmentation features to send mail to different groups of customers.

Archive – Here’s an interesting idea – make a campaign archive using the Benchmark tools so that customers have access to all your emails in a webpage format. You can set this up as a homepage to make it easy for customers to find past emails.

Image hosting – With Benchmark you can store up to 10MB of images to use in your campaigns, cutting down the frustration of searching multiple files for the pictures you want. You can also buy extra storage if you need it. Once stored, drag and drop images from the store into your email. There’s also the facility to embed video into your emails.

Ease of use

Using this email marketing system you’ll find it easy to manage lists and handle hundreds of contacts and personal details on your contacts. Benchmark also makes it easy to customize emails and look at the success of campaigns with reports and statistics. We found Benchmark to be simple and easy to use across all the features.

Help & support

If you do need any help in creating a campaign, importing mailing lists, looking at statistics and any other aspect of sending out email marketing, call the customer support team at Benchmark or use the live chat function. You can also email questions to the team, and look online to find answers in the FAQ section. Benchmark provides a good selection of webinars and video tutorials for users, which makes the process easier.

Overall

Overall, the Benchmark email marketing service is a complete, rounded and easy to use system that covers all bases. If you are looking for a way to send emails to clients, customers or subscribers then you won’t be missing anything if you sign up with Benchmark.