An honest review of MailerLite
As a massage therapist or wellness provider, you probably understand that you need to email your clients.
If you're still not emailing your clients on the regular, these blog posts might convince you.
Have you heard you shouldn't group email from your Gmail account en masse due to legal reasons? Using an Email Service Provider that allows you to create an attractive email (maybe you want to send photos or videos?) helps you do just that.
What you need to know when choosing an email service provider
For a small massage therapy business, an email service provider should offer the following key features:
📧 Essential Email Marketing Features for Massage Therapists
Core Functionality:Easy Contact Management: Ability to collect and organize client email addresses
Automated Email Campaigns: Capability to create and schedule emails in advance. This is a perfect "set it and forget it" option when you want to schedule emails about special holiday offers and the like.
Personalization Options: Ability to customize emails with client names and specific content. Studies show that emails are more likely to be read when you include the reader's name.
Segmentation Tools: Option to divide email list into different client groups. For instance, maybe you send out different emails to your massage members than you do to your other clients.
What you need as a massage therapist-the basics
Automated Welcome Emails: Send initial communications to new clients
Appointment Reminder Capabilities: Create automated reminder sequences (although your booking provider probably handles this).
Promotional Campaign Tools: Easily create and send special offers or seasonal promotions
Simple Design Templates: User-friendly email design options
I've been using MailerLite for close to 2 years, so let me share with you what I've learned.
Overall Experience using MailerLite
I have found MailerLite to be an exceptionally easy-to-use platform for managing my email campaigns.
The process of importing contacts and designing emails is straightforward, making it accessible even for those who may not be tech-savvy.
While the free version allows only one template, the paid version offers a wide variety of options, enhancing the creative possibilities for my campaigns.
Ease of Use
Scheduling emails is a breeze with MailerLite. The platform allows you to schedule emails for different time zones, which is a useful feature, although my audience as massage therapists may not require this functionality. Overall, the intuitive interface makes it easy to send out weekly emails to my list.
Email Campaigns
In my campaigns, I typically send out weekly newsletters. While I occasionally include photos, I primarily focus on text content. MailerLite makes it simple to add calls to action, such as scheduling a massage or linking to additional resources.
Automation Features
Although I haven't yet utilized the automation feature that sends emails upon importing names, I see its potential value. For instance, sending a welcome email or a series of follow-up messages could enhance client engagement by thanking them for their visit, requesting reviews, or offering helpful tips like stretches. Including links to my scheduling system in these communications would be beneficial.
Pricing
MailerLite offers a free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers, which I used for quite some time before upgrading.
The pricing for the paid version is reasonable and provides good value considering the features available.
While it may not compete with more complex systems like ActiveCampaign or HubSpot, it excels in ease of use and straightforward mailing capabilities.
Customer Support
I’ve only needed to contact customer support once, and I was impressed with the quick response time. They efficiently addressed my issue by escalating it to their tech team, and I received a solution within a day.
Comparison with Other Tools
Here's what I've learned from experience with other email marketing tools:
Mad Mimi: Although Mad Mimi had its merits, MailerLite offers more features and flexibility.
I used MM for close to 15 years, primarily because I was grandfathered in with a free version. They no longer offered that when they sold out to GoDaddy in August, 2024.
In the free version, you could upload a total of 25 images. This was great until you wanted to add more, so you'd have to delete the ones you may not want again.
MM was probably the simplest and lowest feature of all the services I've provided.
Mailchimp: Ok, here's an embarrasing honest opinion. Why? My experience with Mailchimp was less favorable but I can’t recall specific reasons now. I know a lot of people do like it, but I had some issues that apparently, I've blocked from the old noggin.
I'm adding a chart about features - MailerLite does allow up to 1000 email contacts in the free version versus 500 for MailChimp. And ML is less expensive than MC once you do pay.
ActiveCampaign: Though ActiveCampaign provides robust features, it was more complicated and expensive than necessary for my requirements. I found it complicated to use. The data offered is in depth, but I didn't need that much.
I even drove 2 hours to take an AC class for a day. I need hand holding (or someone else more techy than I am) to use Active Campaign. It might work well for a multi-therapist spa or salon that offers many services to a variety of types of clients. You can tag, sort, and run a complex array of email campaigns.
The self-employed solo massage therapist, hair stylist, wellness professional, etc. likely has no use for the expense or in-depth reporting available.
MailerLite aligns perfectly with these needs for massage therapy and small service-based businesses:
1. Free Plan: Offers free service up to 1,000 subscribers, ideal for small practices
2. Easy-to-Use Interface: Straightforward design and scheduling tools
3. Automation Features: Allows creation of automated email sequences
4. Cost-Effective: Reasonable pricing for paid plans
5. Template Options: Provides email design templates
6. Scheduling Flexibility: Enables scheduling emails for different times
Conclusion
MailerLite provides an excellent balance of features, ease of use, and affordability for small massage therapy businesses looking to implement email marketing strategies.
In case you want more info, here's a comparison chart of email service providers
This comparison highlights how MailerLite stands out in terms of ease of use and affordability while still offering essential features for effective email marketing.
Feel free to modify any sections or add additional details as you see fit!
