1. Facebook Marketing Specialist – Businesses are gradually realizing the importance of creating a presence on Facebook; however, they need support for marketing themselves on Facebook.  If you are an expert at Facebook and know marketing well then this can be a great business opportunity for you.

2. Tutoring Business – Due to lack of time and skills parents usually face difficulty teaching their kids; however, they do want their kids to score well.  Tutoring can be a great business opportunity for someone with required qualification and expertise in a subject.

3. Coupons Business – The year 2011 can be easily called the year of coupons and deals as it saw companies such as Groupon, LivingSocial and others growing exponentially.  There is still scope left for lots of such businesses which can help connect local businesses and customers by distributing their coupons.

4.  Senior Care – A growing number of seniors presents a tremendous business opportunity in terms of providing care to these people.  The senior market in itself is really huge as it involves not only providing care but other services such as catering, assistance with tasks such as paying bills, shopping etc.

5. Copywriting Business – Everyday thousands of new websites are created and all of them need great copy to convert site visitors to customers.  If you think you have the ability to write content that can persuade a site visitor, starting a copywriting business can be a great idea.

6. Mobile Apps –  The huge popularity of iPad and introduction of several new tablets has created a new market altogether; the market of apps.  Put this along with mobile phones and you have a giant market opportunity that is waiting to be exploited.  Mobile phone and tablet users use apps for just about everything be it business or entertainment, learning or fun.  As a mobile app developer you can create and sell your apps directly to the users or provide app development services to people who want to create an app.

7. Kids Photography – While photography is a hobby for a lot of people it can also be a great business opportunity.  The need is to find your niche and one such area is kids photography.  People cherish memories and are ready to pay for the right kind of services that can help them preserve precious moments.

8. Videography Business – The rise of YouTube as a marketing platform presents a great business opportunity for people who know how to shoot great quality videos.  As with photography businesses, you will need to find your niche in videography business also as it may involve anything from shooting an event such as a seminar to shooting a product demo.

9. Online Business – Starting an online business can never go down in popularity as everyone wants to make money online.  Blogging is one such online business that is easy to start and manage and with people always on the lookout for information and great content one can make some good money blogging.

10. Pet Business – People love their pets and are ready to spend on them because they are so special.  Pet business ideas range from pet grooming to training and food to pet photography.

So, that was our list of small business ideas for 2012.  If you have more small business ideas that you want others to know do share them with others by leaving a comment.

Business Plan Outline

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary is the first section of the business plan, but, you will usually write it last after writing all other sections of the plan.  The Executive Summary provides the reader an overview of your business, its history and future plans.  The success of your business plan often depends on how interesting the Executive Summary is.

Market, Opportunity & Competition Analysis

In this section, you will describe the business opportunity, define the target market including its size, demographics, trends and special characteristics.  You will also need to provide an overview of the industry at large, analyze the competition and understand regulatory and other market conditions.

Business & Product and Service Lineup

In the business description part, you will give the reader an overview of the business you’re in and what will make the business successful.  You will also describe the products and services that the business offers to the customers along with the details like the development stage of the product or service, its benefit to the customers and its competitive strengths.

Management & Organization

The management and organization structure provides details about the key members of the management team, organizational hierarchy and key positions in the organization.  You will also describe the key roles and provide details of who is going to man those roles.  Apart from the management and ownership of responsibilities, you will also need to provide the legal structure of your organization and details of its ownership including the business type, owners and type of ownership.

Marketing Plan

The Marketing Plan section will provide the reader insight into your sales and marketing activities.  You will need to provide details about each element of marketing mix in your business i.e. the Product, Price, Place or Distribution and Promotion.  You will define how you are going to reach out to the potential customers and how you will make sure that the product is available to the channels accessible to your target market.

Operating Plan

The Operating Plan section of the business plan is used to define the business operations process, describe the location of the business and land, building, plant, machinery, equipments and human resources required to successfully deliver products and services to the customer.  This section also provides details about other elements of the delivery or manufacturing process such as the suppliers and the core delivery process itself.

Financial Plan

The financial plan or financial management section provides the reader an insight into the financial history of the business, if available, and the future financial projections.  You will need to include your detailed financial statements such as the balance sheet, pro forma profit and loss account and cash flow statement for the next three to five year depending on the requirements.

Apart from the core elements of the business plan outline mentioned above, you will also have other data, information, and research reports that you will need to keep handy.  You can use the appendix section to provide all the additional data and information.

A good business plan outline is just meant to guide you on how to write a business plan; however, each business plan is unique and you will need to decide on the importance and relevance of each section according to the needs of your business.

While there are several ways to create an operating plan, we recommend starting with a SIPOC which is a handy tool to understand the entire business process starting from the source of inputs to the receiver of output.  SIPOC is an acronym for Supplier, Input, Process, Output and Customer.  You can use a SIPOC to draw a process that shows your business activity at a high level as well as break it down to each activity level.  Creating a SIPOC is fairly easy; see an example of a Pizza business below (click to enlarge the image).

Writing a Business Plan: Operating Plan Essentials

Once you have created the SIPOC for your business, you will know some of the most essential components of your operating plan and answers to questions like:

• Who are the suppliers?
• What goes into making the final product or service?
• What equipments, machinery etc. are required to create the product or service?
• How each unit is produced?
• Which activities are performed on a daily basis?
• What are the human resource requirements of the business?

Apart from these, you can also find out several other aspects of your business, for example, the time taken to complete the production process, people involved in each stage of the production process etc.

What Should be Included in an Operating Plan

An operating plan is a unique description of your business’s production process and should only cover issues specific to your business.  While we have provided an operating plan outline, you may not be able to include all the parts or some of them may not be applicable to your business at all, for example, describing how the inventory will be managed is critical to a retail business; however, it may not be required for a consultancy business at all.

Another point to consider here is the purpose of the operating plan.  If you are going to use the operating plan as an internal tool, you should try to make it as detailed as possible.  However, if you are going to use it as part of the business plan to raise funds then you need to make it easy to understand and avoid getting into complexities of business.

Business Plan Writing: Operating Plan Outline

After SIPOC, the next stage is to describe all the findings in your operating plan for the reader.  An operating plan, depending on the type of business, needs to cover some or all of the following:

Production or Manufacturing Process

Every business, irrespective of whether it manufactures something or not, produces or provides an item of value of that the customer pays for.  In this part of the operating plan, you may want to explain the process of producing a unit of output, the time required to produce each unit, the labor requirements, etc.

Plant, machinery and equipments

In some business, the physical plant, machinery and equipments play a major role.  For non-manufacturing businesses such as a retail outlet, the plant is the space used to attend customers and store and display products.  In all cases, you need to describe the land, buildings, machinery, tools etc. that are required to run your business and why they are important.  Explain how your business will obtain all these things, for eg: lease for land and building, financing for machinery etc.  For some business such as a restaurant, the location itself is very important and you may want to describe the benefits associated with the location of your business in the operating plan.

Production capacity

Describe how many units your production facilities and human resources can produce in a given period of time.  Is  your production process scalable to produce more units, if required?

Human resources

How many people do you need to employ and are there any special skills required in them.  What is the availability of skilled labor and how are they employed by your business, full time, part-time, contract basis?  In case your business offers some kind of services, for example, auto repair, it is important to explain in your operating plan how do you ensure consistent supply of skilled labor.

Materials and Suppliers

Explain in your operating plan, what materials are required to produce your product or service, who are the suppliers, are there any special arrangements with suppliers, do you have a backup source in case a supplier fails to provide the raw material, and what terms you have negotiated with the suppliers.  It is important to keep a healthy relationship with your key suppliers and also maintain a backup for times when your primary supplier fails to deliver the required materials.

Inventory

Explain how you will manage the inventory.  Inventory management is critical for businesses, and trivial too, as maintaining high inventory levels can be a huge cost in itself and maintaining low inventory levels sometimes leads to missed sales.  In your operating plan you need to describe how do you ensure that optimum levels of inventory are maintained at all times.

Customer Service and Support

Some business types need to provide support and customer service after the product or service has been sold.  This becomes essential in case of technical products or services.  In some cases, the support and services become revenue generating mechanisms for the business, for example, a company selling CRM software may also sell implementation and training services.  In all such cases where customer service and support is the core differentiator, a revenue stream or a necessity, you need to include it as part of your operating plan.

The objective of creating an operating plan is to let the reader know that you understand the requirements and methods of producing your product or service.  A good operating plan should introduce the production process and essentials to the reader in a way that is easy to grasp.

Financial Plan: The Essentials

The financial plan for an established business will need to include the historical financial data, usually for the last three to five years, depending on the time business has been in operation.  This will include the profit and loss statements, cash flow statements and balance sheets for each year.  It will be good idea to include the externally audited statements because that will add credibility to the numbers that you are going to present.  The potential investors want to look at the past financial data to understand how the cash is managed in the business, for how long the business has been in profit (or loss), major expense lines, the assets owned by the business, and the liabilities of the business.

In addition to the historical data, the investors also want to know how the business will perform financially in the future.  For this you will need to provide financial projections for the next three to five years.  The projections data will be provided in the same format as the historical data i.e. you will need to provide the Pro forma profit and loss statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements for the next three to five years.

A startup’s financial plan will be different as it will only show the projected data.  The projections should be based on your research about the cost of setting up the business, major capital expenses, cost of operations, expected revenues etc.

Tips for Creating a Financial Plan

• If you don’t know how to crate financial statements you should hire a skilled person to do that for you.
• Do a through research before making assumptions for your projected financials.  Mention the assumptions clearly along with logical reasons within the financial plan so that the reader also knows what your assumptions are and why they are correct.
• The first year projections should be broken down to monthly levels.  The projections for second and third year can be given on a quarterly basis.
• The projections, especially the cash inflow and outflow, should match up your funding requirements.
• It is advisable that you don’t project for more than three years unless you are asked to do so by the potential investor because it will involve too many assumptions.
• Try to include some charts because visual representation highlights the facts in a better way.  This should be done especially if your financials are in good shape.
• You should learn how to read and create financial statements in case you don’t know that because you will needing this skill on a regular basis.

If you are just starting to create a financial plan without any prior experience, it will be good idea to look at a sample financial plan from a related business before moving ahead.

Creating a small business marketing plan is also important because it forces you to think about the existing offerings in the market and how you will differentiate your product or service from them and then how you will convince prospective customers to make a purchase.  While there are some standard approaches to marketing, your small business marketing plan should be unique and developed considering the market conditions, target customers, product offering, budget etc.  Overall, the purpose of a small business marketing plan is to find out if all the elements of the marketing mix have been taken care of in your business.

How to Write a Small Business Marketing Plan

While creating a small business marketing plan, you should include details that answer the following questions:

1. How the industry and market looks like?

The answer to this question should include information about the growth rate of the industry, the competition in the industry, the leading players, top products or services, and the available niches.  All of this information can be easily found on the Internet, trade publications and through industry’s trade associations and you should try to research all these places while creating your small business marketing plan.

2. Who are your potential customers?

This is where you will identify your target customers.  The first segmentation should be based on whether you will be selling to business or consumers.  If you will be selling to consumers, you will need to identify:

• the reasons why they will need your product or service
• what motivates them to buy
• who influences the purchase decision
• how do they make purchases – offline, online, credit, cash etc.
• how often do they use and buy a similar product
• is there any special factor leading to purchase such as an occasion

You should also collect demographics and other personal data such as the gender, age, income, education etc.

If you will be selling to businesses, you will need to find out similar details such as the types of business that will buy your product or service, why will they need it, who are the key decision-makers, who finalizes the purchase etc.

All this information will be useful for choosing the right method for promoting your business to your potential customers.

3. Where are your customers located?

It is important to identify the geographic focus for your business which can be local or city-level, statewide, regional, national or international.  The reason why you need to identify the geographic focus is because each of them requires different advertising and promotion methods and different budgets too that will need to be covered in your small business marketing plan.

4. What are your distribution channels?

This is where you will define how you plan get your product or service to the market.  Will you appoint a sales force, distributors, wholesalers, retailers or you will be directly dealing with the customer through a storefront, website etc.

5. Where and how will you advertise?

In this part of the marketing plan you need to identify where and how you can reach your potential customers.  The places for advertising could be the Internet, shopping malls, highways, television, radio, magazines etc.  The methods of advertising could be banners, billboards, email, videos, podcasts etc.

6. What is your pricing strategy?

Pricing strategy becomes crucial in cases of highly competitive markets.  You should review your competitor’s pricing and then based on your costs, come up with a price that the market will be ready to bear.  Pricing strategy will also be influenced by how you want to position the your business in the market as well.  You can be a low-cost and high-volume player or focus on the higher end of the market that is ready to pay a higher price.

7. What is your sales strategy?

You marketing plan will also need to include your sales strategy.  A great marketing program is a waste until a sale is made.  In this part, you will define how sales will be handled in your business.  Will the marketing and sales be taken care of by the same individual or team?  What is your sales process?  What sales activities will be performed on a day-to-day basis?  Which sales tools do you intend to use?  You will also need to define the terms of sales such as payment and credit policies.

Marketing and sales is the revenue generation engine of a business.  Having a right small business marketing plan will ensure that your business is always in business.

The management and organization section should include your management team’s profile, the organization structure and details about the ownership of business.

Management Team

This part is used to introduce your management team to the reader.  You should begin with brief biographies of the key members of the management team including yourself, the founder.  The details that you should include about each member of the management team are:

• Name
• Position in the organization
• Key Responsibilities
• Education
• Work history
• Special achievements

The idea to present all this information is to sell your management team to the reader so don’t forget to include any important detail.  You should provide accurate information as the investors often checks references.  Also, you should not make generic statements such as Mr. X handled a large business development team or significantly increased the profits of the company that he worked with previously.  While highlighting achievements, make quantifiable statements such as “Mr. A handled a team of 50 business development people spread across three parts of the country” or that his work led to increase in profits by sixty percent.

In case you have an advisory board consisting of notable members be sure to include them here.  Having an advisory board with well known and successful business people goes a long way in establishing the credibility of your business.  It shows that you are not  trying to do everything yourself as well as you recognize that you don’t know everything and will have access to professional help when needed.

Organization Structure

An investor would be interested in knowing your organization structure to assess that you know all the key areas and positions required to make your business a success.  The organization structure should be presented using an organization chart that outlines all the key positions in the organization, who is currently serving at that position and a brief description of each position.  It’s not a problem if you have some key positions vacant in your organization’s structure and you shouldn’t hide that or hesitate in showing that to an investor.  It is not unusual for a startup to have some of the key positions vacant and investors also understand that.  The important part is to recognize that gap and have a plan for filling up that position as quickly as possible.  Also, you should be able to explain who is taking care of the responsibilities of that vacant position currently.

Ownership

Last but not the least, the investors also want to know the ownership details of the business.  In this part, you will need to provide details about the legal structure of your business and ownership distribution.  Include in this part, details like:

• Business type – Incorporation, partnership or sole proprietorship
• Owners – Names of owners and their percentage ownership
• Ownership type – Preferred stock, common stock, general partner, limited partner
• Authorized and outstanding equity or equity equivalents such as options

Having a capable management team and a well thought out organization structure is vital for making a business successful.  It ensures that right people are deployed to right jobs that match their skills, experience and knowledge.

You need to describe the overall business opportunity, its potential, the industry and the competition in the market analysis section while writing a business plan.  You should also include any special factors that affect the market such as government regulations and policies, entry barriers etc.

Business Opportunity

A business opportunity usually arises out of a need for a product or service; however, there have been cases where a product/service was first created and people developed the need later but it happens rarely.  As an entrepreneur the safest way to go is to identify a predominant need and convert that into a business opportunity.  The need can be identified through several methods, for eg: market research, understanding of the situation through experience etc.  In this section, you will present the need of the customer, how and to what extent the need is being met currently and the gaps that you have identified as the business opportunity.

Target Market

This section is used to describe the market that you are aiming to capture.  The items to be presented in this section include the market size, demographics, distinguishing characteristics of the market, special trends that affect the market and the market share that you expect and plan to capture.

Size: The size of the market can be expressed by providing the number of buyers and their annual spending on products or services similar to your offering.  Don’t forget to consider the market growth rate while calculating the market size.

Demographics: Based on the product or service, you will include the demographics that identify your target market.  This may include age range, gender, purchasing power, life-stage, social class etc.  You will also need to include the geographical location of your target market.

Special characteristics: All market segments have some distinguishing characteristics such as purchasing cycle, decision making power etc. that separate them from other segments and, also, influence the buying behavior.  You will need to identify and describe the special characteristics of your target market.

Trends: You will need to identify special trends that govern your target market currently and the ones which can have a major impact in the near future.  An example of this would be automobiles.  Today most cars run on gas; however, in future we may find cars running on solar energy becoming a norm.

Market Share: Here you will describe the market share that you expect to capture supported by a logical explanation for your predictions.

Include all your research and analysis in the appendix and only present the key facts and charts here.

Industry

This section should have a brief description of your industry along with details like the industry size, historical growth rate and projections, and special trends and factors that affect the industry.

Competition

The competitive analysis will need to be presented in this section.  The competitive analysis should include the current competitors, their strengths and weaknesses and the market share they represent.  In rare cases of no direct competition, you will need to identify the future competitive landscape and who all can become the direct competition to your product or service.  It is good to have the future competitive scenario in mind in advance even if you have existing competition.

Regulatory Restrictions and Entry Barriers

Some industries and markets are governed by a set of regulatory restrictions.  You will need to identify all the regulations and policies that affect your business and how the business will operate while complying to regulations and policies.

Apart from the regulations and policies, some markets have entry barriers that are either natural or created by the competition.  You will need to identify the entry barriers for your business which could be high startup cost, patents and trademarks that are related to your business, lack of human resources etc.

You may also want to list down the entry barriers that you will create or exist in the market, if any, that prevent competition from overpowering your business and penetrating in your target market.

If done right, the target market and opportunity analysis will provide you great insight into your market as well as the chances of your success.

How to Find Small Business Opportunities and Ideas

The process of finding small business ideas involves an assessment of your interests, skills, business types etc.

Personal Assessment

The first step in finding great small business ideas is to evaluate yourself, your preferences and your personality.  You need to ask yourself:

• Which subject you enjoyed most in your school and college?
• What are your interests and hobbies?
• What would you enjoy doing even without getting paid for it?
• What are your top three business skills (analysis, sales, accounting, marketing, hiring, training, project management etc.)?
• What are your top three personal skills (creativity, leadership, counseling, problem solving, listening etc.)?
• What jobs have you enjoyed doing the most during your career and why?
• What jobs have you enjoyed doing the least during your career and why?

The purpose of these questions is to find out your strengths and weaknesses, your passion and interests etc.  If you are willing to write books, for example, without even being paid for them, it shows you are passionate about writing books.  Starting and running a business requires the entrepreneur to be highly passionate about the overall concept of the business.  The skills assessment would help you find out what jobs you are good at and shows that you will be able to assume those responsibilities in your business.  The skills that are not your strengths can be acquired through trainings and courses.  Finding out about jobs that you liked (and disliked) doing most in your career is important because chances are you will still like doing those as part of your business and will be able to do them well.  This will also help you select the right category of business for yourself.

Business Types

Most types of small business opportunities and ideas can be divided into four major categories: Manufacturing, Wholesale, Retail and Services.  Understanding of these categories is essential because each one has their own working styles, capital requirements, entry barriers etc.

Manufacturing – The mother of all businesses.  Manufacturing businesses are both capital and labor intensive businesses.  To run a manufacturing unit, you will need machinery and equipment, human resources, inventory etc. which require capital investments.  The upside of starting a manufacturing unit is that it’s a high reward business and, if successful, can grow very quickly.

Wholesale – A wholesale business is the intermediary between manufacturing units and retailers.  The wholesale business, in spite of lot of manufacturers dealing directly with retailers and even consumers, is an active and important element in the distribution of products.  The wholesalers buy large quantities of products at discounted prices from manufacturers and sell them to retailers at a marked up price.  Since a wholesale business has to buy in large quantities and also need to maintain a big inventory, the capital requirement is very high.  The upside of a wholesale business with a product that is in high demand can bring significant profits due to economies of scale.

Retail – Everyone knows retail very well because we deal with retailers very often, almost on a daily basis.  A retail business has low capital requirements as it does not require huge inventory and the business operates mostly on cash (no receivables).  A retail business can also be run on the Internet without needing a physical storefront.

Services – One of easiest and least expensive business types to start.  A services business does not require huge inventory (pool of skilled workers is the inventory) and the cost of equipments is also very minimal.  The upside of a services business is that it is the safest to start but one can’t expect exponential growth unless there is a revolution, for example the unprecedented growth in the IT industry.

Generating Small Business Ideas

A thorough personal assessment and understanding of business types should most likely give you several small business opportunities and ideas; for eg: if you are a passionate about photography then you can become a freelance photographer or if sales is one of your strength and you love golf then you can start selling golf equipments and gear.

In case you are still not able to find the small business idea for yourself then you can use any idea generation technique.  We suggest using SCAMPER as it is provides a structured and multi-dimensional way of generating ideas about any topic.  To put SCAMPER to generate ideas for a new product or service, you will:

S – Find or create a Substitute for an existing product or service

C – Combine with an existing product or service

A – Find out how people will be able to Adapt to it easily

M – How it can be Modified to create a different offering

P – How it can be Put To Other Uses

E – Eliminate dissatisfaction, waste etc.

R – Reverse or Rearrange to create a new offering

Evaluating Small Business Opportunities and Ideas

If you follow the above steps you will have more than a couple of small business opportunities and ideas to select from.  The next step is to evaluate those ideas to ensure that the business you are planning to open is right one to start and suitable for you.

The demand and supply – Determine the demand for the product or service that you plan to offer.  If the demand is high and there is a gap in supply then it makes a right business opportunity.

The competition – Study the competition closely to find out the reasons for their success, operating procedures, strengths and weaknesses.  Find out the gaps in their processes and what you can do differently and better.  If there is something that they are not offering or you can do something that will be valued more by the customers then go for it.

The Industry – Find out if the industry is overcrowded with big and strongly placed brands.  If it is then it is probably not the industry that you should be in unless you really have a game changer in your hand.

The Business Dynamics – Some businesses and industries change very rapidly.  Find out your comfort level with the dynamics of the industry that you are planning to be in.  You may not want to start selling mobile phones, for example, if you are looking for a slow paced industry.

Specialization – Are you a specialist in the business that you are planning to open.  There is a definite advantage in being a specialist and called an expert in any field.  An expert is valued more by customers and is given preference over others, for example Starbucks specializes in coffee and Google specializes in search.

Risk – Determine the inherent risks in the business and compare it with your risk taking capacity.  If you have low risk taking capacity then go for services or retail businesses.

Affordability – The decision on starting a small business should finally be based on whether you can afford to start and run that business.  Of course you can raise funds but that also has a cost that is to be paid.  If you are looking for inexpensive business to start then think of providing services rather than starting a manufacturing unit.

If you follow the above steps we are sure that you will be able to find the most suitable small business opportunities and ideas for yourself.

Before we start with the list, let’s put across briefly some of the points to be considered before finalizing on the email marketing software:

Small Business Email Marketing Software Features

1. The software should provide features to improve your email marketing productivity such as auto responders, email scheduling, email template library etc.

2. The email marketing software should make it easy to manage and grow your mailing list.  Features such as mailing list import, bounce address management etc. allow for easy management of list and features like “Forward to Friend” and “Post to Facebook” help you grow the list.

3. Testing and optimization features such split testing, behavioral triggers, action segmentation, conversion segmentation etc. are a must a have to ensure that you send the right message to right set of people.

4. The software should also provide an insight into the core email marketing metrics such as open and click rate and other advanced analytical features such as conversion tracking and past performance comparison.

5. Lastly, look for the ability to customize the software according to your specific needs and to integrate the software with your current systems such as your website’s CRM.

Let’s now have a look at, in no particular order, some of the:

Best Email Marketing Software for Small Business

1. MailChimp – An easy to use, feature packed, web-based email marketing software with lot of focus on social features and integration with other applications such as Salesforce, WordPress etc.  They offer a free account that allows for storing up to 1000 contacts and sending 6000 email per month.

2. iContact – It is another very easy to use web-based email marketing software that boasts of an intuitive interface and strong features.  They offer an all-access 60-day trial.

3. Aweber – Aweber has a very strong focus on email analytics and campaign optimization features.  They charge $1 for the first month as trial price and regular pricing after that.

4. Constant Contact – They offer event marketing and online surveys, which are also sold separately, along with their core email marketing product.  Constant Contact has a very strong integration with PayPal and Amazon that can be very useful for people selling products to their mailing list.  A 60-day trial is available.

5. Emma – They put a lot of stress on making your emails look good and that’s why they make users start with creating a custom design for the email (priced separately based on who customizes the design, you or Emma designers).  They offer a rich feature set too.

6. Benchmark Email – Makes it easy and quick to create and send email campaigns.  Benchmark also has a paid service to outsource your email campaign handling.  They offer a 30-day free trial.

7. Vertical Response – Packs almost all useful features and some great extras such as survey and postcards too but surprisingly misses on Autoresponder.  You can try it free for 30 days.

8. SimplyCast – Like its name, this email marketing system is really simple and straightforward.  On the advanced side, it supports revenue and conversion tracking.  They offer a lifetime free plan that allows storing up to 1000 contacts and sending unlimited emails.

9. GetResponse – They offer almost everything that a marketer can think of with their extensive features.  GetResponse is heavy on making the email and social and engaging by way of video emails and social networking features.  An always free plan that allows storing up to 100 contacts and sending up to 500 email per month is available.

10. Pinpointe – A really powerful email marketing tool that offers best of the behavioral targeting and personalization options to email marketers.  They don’t have a free trial but offer a 30-day money back guarantee.

11. Campaign Monitor – They are focused on designers who create email marketing templates for their clients and if you want to do it yourself then you will need some design skills yourself.  On other side it’s a system that lets you run campaign very quickly.  They let you try the system for free but you will need to pay for sending emails.

12. JangoMail – This email marketing software is meant for power users.  It is extremely feature rich with enterprise grade integration capabilities.  They offer a full featured free account that can be used to send up to 200 emails per month.

13. StreamSend – An email marketing software with all the basic features.  They provide you with a private IP address that boosts your credibility and increases email deliverability rate.  They offer a free 30-day trial that can be used to send up to 200 emails.

14. FuseMail – FuseMail offers their own web-based mail marketing software called Campaign Connect as well as a service called SMTP Direct that allows you to send emails using their SMTP servers with your existing email marketing software.  They offer a 14-day trial.

15. Campaigner – Offers free of cost set up and customization for your first email campaign.  Overall, the system packs in all the basic functionalities required to run an email marketing campaign.  A fully featured 30-day free trial is available.

16. eConnect Email – An advanced yet economical email marketing software which boasts of features like RSS to Email that can be used to include your blog’s content in newsletters and integration with Picnik, an online image editor.  They also offer a managed program for running email marketing campaigns for those who want to outsource this activity.  A forever free plan that allows for sending 150 emails per month is available.

17. EmailBrain – An email marketing software that is easy on price and heavy on social features such as posting to social networks and advanced features such as RSS-to-Email, Email-to-RSS, Microsites etc.  They also allow sending text messages to the same subscriber list if phone numbers are available.  A 30-day free trial is available.

18. EasyContact – Living up to its name, EasyContact makes it really easy to create and run email marketing campaigns for beginners.  They offer a 60-day free trial.

19. GraphicMail – A low cost system with some advanced functionalities.  It is very similar to EmailBrain in features except that they offer a 60-day trial as compared to EmailBrain’s 30-day trial.

20. SendLabs – It is an advanced email marketing platform geared towards designers, marketing & advertising agencies and resellers who want to offer email marketing software and services to their clients.

21. Savicom – Savicom is one of the few providers that don’t require their clients to get their mailing lists reconfirmed by asking their contacts to opt-in again.  You can try Savicom for free and send emails to up to 10 contacts.

22. myNewsletterBuilder – A web-based email marketing software that you can use to start mailing, even if you don’t have any content.  Yes, myNewsletterBuilder offers a readymade content pieces (paid option) that you can send to your contacts.  A 30-day trial that includes all features and allows sending up to 250 emails is available.

23. NewZapp – You will like NewZapp if you are a fan of rich internet applications.  The interface of this web-based email marketing software is really fast, like a desktop application.  A limited featured free account is available to send up to 100 emails per month.

24. YesMail – Their small business email marketing software is called YesMail Direct.  It is a modular system with advanced features such as segmentation available as add-on modules.  They have another interesting offering called YesMail Prospector that offers specific mailing lists for different business verticals.

25. Ennect – Their core email marketing software is basic and easy to use.  They also offer software for administering online surveys, events, and sweepstakes and you can use the same mailing list for all of them.

26. poMMo – An open source software that you will need to install on your web server.  Once installed it can be accessed using a web browser from any computer.  It is a free email marketing software.

27. Inwise – Offers basic tracking and segmentation features.  Ideally suited for one-off mass mailing campaigns.

28. Mad Mimi – It’s a web-based email marketing software with lot of focus on sending beautiful emails.  Their library boasts of fresh and tasteful templates and they offer free design assistance as well.  They offer a free plan which is full featured but you can’t request support.

29. Contact29 – A web-based email marketing software that focuses on real estate agents.  They offer a ready library of pre-written emails with real estate related content.

Desktop-based Email Marketing Software

A desktop-based email marketing software is one that you download and install on your computer and use it just like any other software on your computer, for example: MS-Office.  Purchasing these types of email marketing software would require you to make one-time payment.  The support options and software upgrades are often priced separately.  You will also need a SMTP mail server for sending emails.  Although a lot of software allow sending emails directly without SMTP server, you should be cautious about using that option as email services often reject emails that don’t originate from a public SMTP server.

30. GroupMail – Allows sending HTML and text emails in bulk.  They offer a limited featured free edition that allows sending 100 emails per send.

31. Email Marketing Director – An intuitive and feature packed email marketing software that offers a library with over 200 templates.

32. e-Campaign – An email marketing software that stresses a lot on personalization.  You can send different file attachments to different people at once within the same mailing job.  A trial version that allows sending up to 200 emails at once and adds a tagline at the bottom of the email is available.

33. SendBlaster – An economical email marketing software with a great feature set.  It also integrates with Google Analytics.  Both free and paid versions are available.

34. Handymailer – An easy to use yet powerful email marketing software.  They offer one of the best WYSIWYG email composer with MS-Outlook like interface.

35. Atomic Email Studio – A modular email marketing software that offers a complete solution to create, manage and run email marketing campaigns.

Have we missed out on any good choice for small business email marketing software.  Let us know in comments!

Choosing the best small business email marketing software

It is no easy task to choose the best email marketing software for small business.  An email marketing software is expected to do much more than just mass mailing a newsletter.  If you are looking for a small business email marketing software, here are some of the aspects that you should look for in the software:

Email Marketing Productivity

A small business has limited manpower and in a lot of cases it is the business owner who is responsible for a majority of tasks.  The small business email marketing software should offer features that enhances productivity and allows to conveniently run email marketing campaigns.  The software should provide features like WYSIWYG editor to compose emails easily, library of email templates, Auto responders for automatically sending follow up emails, scheduled broadcast for scheduling future emails to be sent automatically etc.

Email List Management

The ability to maintain a healthy email list is very crucial for successful email marketing campaigns.  Please check for features like ease of importing list from other programs, single and double opt-in, ease of unsubscribing, automatic deactivation of confirmed bounce addresses etc.

Mailing List Growth

Growing your email list another important aspect and some of the features within email marketing software help marketers grow their list.  Email software, nowadays, are integrating social tools which can help spread the message through the recipients.  Features such as “Forward to Friend” and social sharing widgets that allow users to share the email on their social networks such as Facebook and Twitter can be really helpful in growing the list.

Multimedia Email

To be able to capture the interest of the readers, emails need to be engaging and marketers are now using images and videos in emails.  The email marketing software should provide an ability to embed images and videos in the email content and attach files to the email.  In case of web-based software, check for the image and video hosting space that the provider offers.

Email Marketing Analytics

There is no point running an email marketing campaign if you can’t  track its effectiveness and measure the returns.  While choosing the small business email marketing software do look for features like ability to track conversions and revenue, comparison of past campaign performances, and the ability to track core metrics such as email opening rate, clicks, bounces etc.

Email Marketing Campaign Optimization

All marketers use campaign analytics to optimize their campaigns and email marketing is no different.  Your email marketing software should allow you to test, target and optimize campaigns based on various parameters such as email opening, clicks, forwarding, conversion etc.  Look out for features such as split testing for finding out which type of content drives better conversion, action segmentation, conversion segmentation and behavioral triggers that allow to send follow up emails based on actions such as clicks.

Customization

The ability to customize the software according to your needs is an important feature to consider.  The customization, though minimal, can have a great impact on the campaigns, for example, the ability to add a custom demographic field relevant to the business for running campaign or the ability to customize opt-in confirmation pages.

Email Marketing Software Integration

Integration of email marketing software with the existing programs that you already use to run your business is one very important aspect.  Does the email marketing software offers plugins for your website’s Content Management System (CMS) or your shopping cart software.  Does it allow for generating web forms that you can embed in your website?  Does it have an API? Don’t forget to ask for these features!

Email Marketing Software as a Service (SaaS)

An email marketing software delivered as a service or simply a web-based email marketing software is one that you can use with just a web browser and does not require you to install anything.  Deciding on whether to use a web-based email marketing software or a  desktop based version is a key consideration in terms of cost, effort and skills.  Keeping all features constant, a web-based email marketing software is easier to operate as it does not require any installation and maintenance effort.

Email Deliverability & Spam

A good email marketing software will always ensure high email deliverability.  This is perhaps the most important metric to look for because there is no point buying an email marketing software if it can’t make sure that your emails are delivered in the inbox.  Spam and how various email providers and ISPs deal with it is one of the key factors that affect email deliverability.  The email marketing software that you choose should offer tools to check if the email looks like spam.  It should also ensure that your emails are sent through IP addresses that are not blacklisted.

A general rule for choosing right software is to not get confused and carried away by the endless list of features.  Have your objectives clearly defined and see which features will help you achieve those objectives.  According to eMarketer, in a survey conducted in November 2010, 65% of the total marketing executives surveyed plan to increase their email marketing spend.  This clearly shows that email marketing is going to gain strength only and it is worthwhile investing your time and effort in choosing the right small business email marketing software.

List of 35 best email marketing software for small business.