Beefree blog

Is The Beefree HTML Email Builder Right for You?

Emily Santos
Emily Santos
Mar 27, 2024
Is The Beefree HTML Email Builder Right for You?
Is The Beefree HTML Email Builder Right for You?

For many email creators, one of the most daunting challenges is manually writing HTML code or an over-reliance on external support to create HTML emails. Although email has been around since the early 70’s and is one of the best marketing strategies to implement (due to its high ROI and cost-efficiency), email continues to be a specialized skill only acquired by some.

That’s where HTML email builders, such as Beefree, come in. These solutions serve as a saving grace for many who heavily rely on email marketing programs but don’t have the deep HTML expertise, design skills, or resources to hire external support.

Source: https://app.userevidence.com/assets/8083GUYC

Who is Beefree for? 

Beefree is a comprehensive email builder designed for both email novices and seasoned professionals. With its intuitive interface and robust features, Beefree empowers everyone to streamline their email design processes and independently design, customize, and deploy HTML emails and landing pages. 

In short, Beefree is for everyone.

Source: https://app.userevidence.com/assets/4321RSDF

For beginners, Beefree’s drag-and-drop functionality, complemented by our extensive learning resources and design tools, simplifies crafting full email campaigns. No intricate coding knowledge or design expertise is necessary.

For seasoned email professionals, eliminating manual HTML coding reduces errors and enhances productivity, allowing for a greater focus on refining email campaign strategies and fostering innovation. 

Lastly, for Designers who have grown accustomed to outdated and rigid solutions or juggle multiple design and development tools, Beefree’s flexibility is a breath of fresh air. Beefree’s intuitive platform allows for maximum customization of emails and pages to create innovative designs. Additionally, time-saving features such as reusable content blocks and templates help Designers save valuable time, allowing them to focus their creativity on other projects. a

Regardless of skill level, Beefree serves as a catalyst for bringing creative visions to life. Whether you're exploring basic design concepts or pushing the boundaries of innovation, Beefree provides the tools and resources needed to transform ideas into impactful email campaigns.

Source: https://app.userevidence.com/assets/3328ZDBF

The Beefree philosophy: “Start for free. Upgrade as you Grow.” 

At the heart of the Beefree philosophy lies the principle of accessibility and scalability. That is why we have prioritized making our solutions intuitive, easy to learn, and adaptable to anyone. 

Over the years, we’ve ensured that our pricing options reflect that. In 2022, we launched a Free plan. Since then, the addition of the free plan has empowered thousands of users to begin crafting visually stunning campaigns without barriers. 


Following our transition from BEE to Beefree in late 2023, we embarked on a journey to reevaluate our pricing options to better meet the evolving needs of our valued customers.

After many ongoing conversations with you, our community, we found a gap between our offerings from “Team” to “Enterprise.” It became clear that there was a growing demand for a more comprehensive option tailored to the requirements of businesses and organizations that weren’t quite ready for enterprise-level but had outgrown solutions catered to small teams. 

Understanding our users' challenges and aspirations drove us to refine our approach and introduce enhancements that would serve businesses at every stage of their growth journey. 

Today, we’re thrilled to take another significant step as we launch the new Beefree “Business” plan.

We recognize the importance of bridging the gap between our existing plans and ensuring each tier provides you with the necessary features and capabilities to support your diverse needs. As well as, empowering businesses of all sizes to effectively maximize their email marketing and communications efforts.

Which Beefree plan is right for you? 

Here at Beefree, we've carefully crafted our plans with your needs in focus. Each plan is tailored to correspond with different stages of your journey, enabling you to scale your email marketing endeavors as your business flourishes. Each of our plan names resonates with the various phases of your creative exploration:

  • The "Starter" plan: Ideal for beginners and freelancers dipping their toes into email marketing. (Previously known as the “Free” plan).

  • The "Professional" plan: Tailored for small teams to create targeted campaigns and optimize strategies for better results. (Previously known as the “Team” plan).
  • *NEW* The “Business” plan: Geared towards growing businesses and marketing professionals who need a comprehensive solution to streamline their email marketing workflows and collaboration.

  • The “Enterprise” plan: Custom plan for enterprise-level businesses and organizations with extensive email marketing requirements, operations, and high volume.  

Our “start for free, upgrade as you grow” philosophy allows you to choose the option that best aligns with your current goals and budget while offering the freedom to adapt as your business evolves easily.

Starter ($0/free)

Whether you're a freelancer building your portfolio or a small business testing the waters of email marketing, the Starter plan provides all the essential tools and resources necessary to help dip your toes into the world of email marketing without feeling overwhelmed. 

The Starter plan capabilities: Up to 10 designs (emails and pages), 6 monthly exports, and unlimited users with no roles. In addition, you’ll find a wealth of resources at your fingertips to support your journey: 

  • Beefree Academy: To support email beginners on their journey to email design, we offer users a free comprehensive learning guide. The Beefree Academy offers various real-world examples and tutorials to help new Beefree users get the most out of the platform and learn email design best practices and techniques.
  • Free template catalog: Access Beefree’s catalog of pre-designed email and page templates, covering a wide range of industries, occasions, and purposes. This enables beginners to create visually appealing and engaging emails quickly and effortlessly without extensive design expertise.
  • Integration with sending platforms: With the Starter plan, users can connect their Beefree account to the leading sending platforms, allowing for seamless design export. By connecting Beefree with their ESP, users can leverage the full capabilities of both tools to reach their audience effectively and maximize campaign performance.

Source: https://app.userevidence.com/assets/7608OHWM

Join the thousands of beginners and small businesses already experiencing success with Beefree’s Starter plan.

Professional ($30/month)

Say goodbye to constraints and hello to boundless creativity with the Professional Plan. This plan serves as a dynamic catalyst, propelling small teams into the realm of advanced email marketing strategies with confidence and ease. With more robust brand controls than the Starter plan, the Professional plan allows teams to tailor their email designs to perfectly reflect their brand identity and messaging while saving time.

  • Unlimited design and templates: With no limits on creativity, you have the flexibility to explore endless possibilities and bring your ideas to life with ease. Create unlimited templates and reusable content to speed up email creation.

  • Expanded exporting options: Distribute email campaigns as often as you like with unlimited exporting. Share your messages via your ESP, ZIP file, or download as PDF.

  • Stronger collaboration features: Share ideas, provide feedback, and iterate campaigns together effortlessly. With features like design-specific commenting, user permissions and roles, and version history, staying organized and aligned is effortless. 
  • Dynamic campaigns and analytics: Take your campaigns to the next level with personalized, data-driven strategies. Personalize your emails and pages with dynamic content and track the performance of landing pages designed in Beefree with tracking codes.

Plus, everything in the Starter plan.

Source: https://app.userevidence.com/assets/2487SAUG

Unleash your creativity, drive engagement, and achieve your business goals with confidence and flair. Start a free trial. No credit card required!

⭐️ NEW ⭐️ Business ($160/month)

If you’re a business gearing up to scale your email marketing processes and campaigns, this plan is for you. The Business plan supports growing teams to optimize their strategies, streamline their workflows, and achieve better results without the complexity of enterprise-level solutions.

With advanced features for seamless collaboration, organization, and team and brand control, the Business plan helps navigate the intricacies of modern email marketing processes. 

A glimpse of what the Business plan offers:

  • Tailored environments (also known as Workspaces): Create personalized and structured areas where your teams can collaborate seamlessly on different campaigns, departments, or projects. Included: 2 free workspaces. 
  • Advanced user controls: Make sure every team member can access the necessary tools and resources for their roles while also protecting sensitive data and preventing unauthorized access. Included: 2 free users + 10 view-only members.  
  • Integrated approval flow: Keep communication and feedback centralized by using an in-app approval workflow, making the approval process efficient and hassle-free. Included: 4 simultaneous “review for approvals” per workspaces. 
  • Increased CDN/monthly data traffic: Ensure your business has the bandwidth and flexibility to handle the growth of your email marketing efforts smoothly. Included: 1TB of monthly CDN usage, 

Plus, everything in the Professional plan.

Ditch manual processes and disjointed workflows—unlock the full potential of your team and watch your email marketing efforts thrive with the Business plan. Start a free trial.

Enterprise (Custom) 

The Enterprise plan is the cornerstone of our offerings, designed for those requiring the utmost in functionality, support, and customization. With unparalleled functionality and customization, this plan serves as a strategic asset for businesses seeking to thrive and succeed in an ever-evolving marketplace.

Whether managing multiple brands, business units, or campaigns, the Enterprise plan provides the flexibility and scalability needed to execute sophisticated, high-volume email marketing campaigns while maintaining control and compliance. Each Enterprise plan is personalized to suit your unique goals and objectives. 

Enterprise plan highlights: 

  • Custom users & workspaces: Set up and organize your teams and projects to best suit your organization's structure and objectives.
  • Premium support: With priority access to support resources and expertise, you can minimize downtime, maximize productivity, and achieve your business objectives with confidence.
  • Dedicated Customer Success Manager: Your customer success manager will work closely with you throughout your onboarding and training process, providing strategic advice, personalized recommendations, and proactive support to ensure your success with Beefree.
  • Advanced security measures: Protect your organization's sensitive data and ensure compliance with our premium security features, such as Okta SSO. 


Plus, everything in the Business plan. 


Interested in learning more about our Enterprise plan? Book a free demo!

Benefits of an HTML email builder 

The benefits of Beefree as your HTML email builder are multifaceted, offering a range of advantages that enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, and visual appeal of email marketing campaigns. Regardless of your chosen plan, you'll enjoy a host of benefits designed to elevate your campaigns and drive results.

  • Increase brand recognition: While many ESP editors are rigid and have design constraints, Beefree allows the freedom to design emails and pages that perfectly align with your campaign’s goals, audience preferences, and brand identity. With features such as layout adjustments, mobile design mode, and dynamic elements, your emails are guaranteed to always fall within the lines of your brand guidelines. 
  • Save time and money: Create professional-looking emails quickly, request feedback, and work simultaneously, reducing the turnaround time for campaign creation and deployment.
  • Guarantee a seamless experience: Reach your audience anywhere on any device. Beefree’s HTML email builder generates responsive designs that adapt seamlessly to various devices and screen sizes. By delivering a consistent and user-friendly experience across devices, you can maximize engagement and drive better results for your email campaigns.
Source: https://app.userevidence.com/assets/4362YWBP

Now, which plan is right for you? 

If you’ve made it this far then the Beefree HTML email builder might be for you ;). Now it’s time to find the perfect plan. 

Explore our plans and pricing page where you'll find a comprehensive breakdown of all of our options and features. Whether you're a newcomer eager to kickstart your email campaigns or a seasoned professional aiming to expand your reach, we're confident that you'll find exactly what you need to achieve your goals.

Embracing our "start for free, upgrade as you grow" philosophy, we offer you the flexibility to adapt and evolve seamlessly as your business progresses. We hope your Beefree journey is filled with opportunities for creativity, collaboration, and growth. 

Happy designing! 

5 Reasons Why HubSpot Users Love Beefree

HubSpot’s design tools can sometimes feel restrictive for marketers looking to create distinctive branding or highly customized designs. This is where Beefree comes in.
Shaun Quarton
Dec 5, 2024

HubSpot is one of the world’s leading CRMs, seamlessly merging sales, marketing, and customer service into a single, powerful dashboard. With tools for email marketing, lead generation, and landing page creation, HubSpot enables you to connect with customers more effectively and drive meaningful results.

However, HubSpot’s design tools can sometimes feel restrictive for marketers looking to create distinctive branding or highly customized designs.

This is where Beefree comes in—the ideal solution for HubSpot users looking to flex their creative chops in designing emails and landing pages. With drag-and-drop editing, advanced customization options, and an extensive template library, Beefree makes it easy to capture your brand’s identity and stand out in today’s crowded market.

https://uevi.co/7371IQEF 

1. 1,700+ free customizable email and page templates

HubSpot’s templates work for simple designs, but users often describe them as “bland” or “limiting.” 

Beefree users are spoiled for choice with over 1,700 free customizable templates that go far beyond HubSpot’s basic designs. These templates serve as the perfect starting point for building impactful campaigns.

Beefree’s intuitive design tools let you tweak the template in real time, making it easy to produce professional-quality creations that perfectly reflect your brand’s identity—no design experience required. These pre-built layouts are major time-savers, too, with 82% of users reporting faster email creation using Beefree.

https://uevi.co/7371IQEF

2. Advanced design elements for true creative freedom

Customization can be a challenge for many HubSpot users; for instance, some report that it’s “impossible” to create a table without coding the design yourself. Unfortunately, not every user has the technical skills—not to mention the time—to perfect their emails with HubSpot alone. 

Beefree elevates your designs with an extensive collection of creative elements, all easily customizable using its powerful editor.

Some of these elements, like rounded corners and unlimited columns, aren’t available in HubSpot. Others, like creating a table to present data in a clean and organized way, are far easier to build in Beefree.

These creative elements make it that much easier to showcase your brand identity, communicate your message effectively, and design beautiful, original campaigns. They help you move beyond cookie-cutter designs and deliver something truly unique.

Remember: Eye-catching emails grab your audience’s attention instantly, helping your message stand out in crowded inboxes while staying true to your brand.

https://uevi.co/9986ULYW

3. Reusable content blocks for always-on-brand campaigns

Beefree’s reusable content blocks make it simple to maintain consistency across all your campaigns.

Simply save your branded elements—headers, footers, logos, and CTA buttons—once, then re-use them in future designs with a single click of a button.

This convenient feature helps HubSpot users streamline their workflow by eliminating repetitive design tasks — potentially saving you hours per campaign. 

https://uevi.co/1491YKUH 

4. Mobile-responsive designs out the box

Beefree’s editor includes built-in mobile responsiveness, which means your emails and landing pages automatically adjust to any screen size with no extra effort. This ensures your campaigns look great on every device, from desktops to smartphones.

For even greater control, Beefree supports mobile design mode, enabling HubSpot users to fine-tune your designs for smaller screens. Simply select the device size you’re optimizing for and make adjustments using the intuitive visual editor.

This allows you to deliver a tailored, on-brand experience, no matter how your audience views your content.

https://uevi.co/4690JNKE 

5. Easy integration

Whether you're crafting unique branded elements or designing dynamic content, Beefree gives you the tools to create campaigns that align perfectly with your brand vision. Best of all, integrating HubSpot with Beefree takes just seconds. 

Beefree and HubSpot: A match made in email heaven

Integrating Beefree with HubSpot offers a powerful solution for marketers looking to elevate their email campaigns. HubSpot provides the engine for powering your marketing, while Beefree boosts the creative aspect, letting you bring your brand vision to life with ease.

For example, one of Beefree’s customers, Folderly—an all-in-one email deliverability platform—experienced significant improvements by combining HubSpot and Beefree. 

By designing emails in Beefree and sending them using HubSpot, Folderly streamlined their workflow, reducing campaign creation time from days to hours. This efficiency freed the team to focus on other key tasks, while maintaining high-quality, on-brand designs.

This integration not only sped up their processes but also boosted open rates by 15%, demonstrating the effectiveness of combining Beefree's advanced design tools with HubSpot's marketing automation.

“With Beefree, we can create beautiful designs and quickly integrate them into our workflows. By connecting our HubSpot account to Beefree, we can easily transfer the email designs to HubSpot, making the entire process highly efficient and smooth.”

- Kate Lavrenchuk, Marketing Lead at Folderly

Read more about Folderly’s success story with Beefree here

How to Conduct a Robust Email Marketing Audit

An email audit is a health check of every aspect of your email marketing campaigns. It means analyzing your current efforts to identify areas for improvement. Here's how to conduct a robust email audit.
Beefree team
Nov 27, 2024

Email remains one of the most effective marketing channels around, but what do you do when your campaigns aren’t getting the desired results? If your click-through rates and conversions are languishing way below your targets, it may be time for an email marketing audit. 

Regular audits make sure every area of your email marketing is fine-tuned, whilst also keeping you compliant with data protection regulations. Keep reading for our tips on conducting a comprehensive audit that will get your email marketing in top-notch condition.

How to audit an email marketing program

There are many aspects that go into creating high-performing email marketing campaigns and an audit aims to address all of them. Here’s how to make yours as successful as possible. 

Preparing for the audit 

Before doing anything else, it’s best to decide what your goals are. Your priorities will likely be primarily performance-based but don’t forget about your data privacy responsibilities along the way. Adopting a risk management solution early on can help you monitor security and compliance, so you can efficiently find and address any vulnerabilities. 

This will give you peace of mind as you also work towards improving the results of your email campaigns. Whether it’s boosting engagement or improving conversion rates, having a clear idea of what you want to achieve will guide your efforts. 

For example, if your main goal is to improve customer retention, it’s a good idea to focus your email audit on metrics that reflect engagement over time. Another thing you want to organize before you get started is the right tools. Just as you need the right free proxy list for your IT department, you need to look at the tools that will best serve your email campaigns.

Start with your email service provider (ESP) dashboard to plan which metrics you want to look at. An email analytics platform is also an important tool to help you track your progress, ideally one that integrates with your SP, so you have everything in one place to assess progress and make informed decisions. 

Reviewing email content 

Take a good look at your email content. Does it reflect your brand voice? Is it consistent with your messaging across other platforms? If you think there is room for improvement, an AI email assistant can be a big help. 

Start with your subject lines and consider whether they are clear, inviting, and engaging. A subject line works best when it makes the recipient curious but also gives them a clue to what’s in the email. Look at the body of the emails next and assess whether there is continuity in style and tone across your communications. 

What’s more, is it in line with the goals of your campaign? You want the messaging to be engaging with relevant content. Plus, it’s advisable for every email to have a strong call to action (CTA) that will drive your email clicks, and make them enticing and actionable for the best results. 

Finally, take stock of the visual elements of your emails, are they adding value? Do they look good on all kinds of screen sizes? Getting the email design elements right will maintain a professional look and also help the engagement rates of your campaigns. 

Analyzing email metrics

Another important part of an email marketing audit is tracking the right metrics. They will give you the information you need to make changes and create a more effective email marketing strategy

  • Open rates: It’s good to get a clear idea of how many people are actually opening your emails. However, bear in mind that some privacy features, such as Apple’s Mail privacy Protection, can skew this data so it’s not always reliable on its own.
  • Click-Through Rates (CTR): If your recipients actually open your emails, how many then take action? Your CTR will show you how good your email engagement is and tell you how well your content is working.
  • Bounce rates and unsubscribe rates: A high bounce rate indicates deliverability problems, suggesting you may have a lot of invalid email addresses or potential email list management issues. Unsubscribe rates, on the other hand, will tell you whether your recipients are switching off from your content.  

A/B testing as an optimization tool

To really understand email performance metrics, A/B testing is required. It’s a valuable tool for achieving continuous improvement within lifecycle email marketing and will help you to understand what’s working (and what isn't) much quicker. 

For the best results, test one element at a time. That could be the subject line, the CTA, or even the time of day you send the email. Send two different versions to small segments of your email list and analyze the performance metrics to see which one does better. Going forward, you can keep the best elements of each test to optimize every email you send. 

Email list hygiene and segmentation 

Regular housekeeping of your subscriber list will keep it clean and make sure your emails are received by an engaged audience. A good starting point is to try re-engagement email campaigns to get inactive subscribers involved again. Still, it’s also wise to routinely identify and remove those who remain inactive after a reasonable attempt at re-engagement. 

You can also improve the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns through segmentation, which targets specific demographics or behaviors for a more personal approach. Use data from your CRM platform and CRM call center software to create more precise audience segments and tailor the content of your emails for the biggest impact.

It’s also vital to maintain compliance with regional data protection laws such as GDPR email marketing requirements by carefully managing consent and acting on unsubscribes efficiently, thereby safeguarding your brand reputation and the security of your data. 

Email deliverability and technical settings

Technical configurations are responsible for getting your emails into recipients’ inboxes. Email authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC verify them and prevent them from ending up in a spam folder. 

Keep reviewing email frequency and send times too, as sending them at the wrong time can harm engagement and present issues with deliverability. Additionally, keep up to date with email practices to avoid spam traps and protect your reputation. 

If you’re handling sensitive customer data, getting your infrastructure in line with SOC 2 audit requirements will make sure that your email system is in full compliance with security and privacy standards. You can then be confident that your customer's data will be kept safe and their trust maintained.

Building a future-ready strategy 

A successful email marketing audit will give you the knowledge to develop a strategy to scale and continuously improve in the future. You might identify opportunities to automate repetitive tasks to improve the consistency of service and save time. 

Another way to improve your campaigns is a content calendar, which will keep you on track with your goals and important events. You might also consider integrating your email with other channels, such as SMS marketing, to create continuity in omnichannel communication

Remember, if you do incorporate SMS marketing, TCPA compliance is essential. It regulates how and when you can send marketing messages to customers. This is important from a legal standpoint, but will also make sure you don’t damage the trust your customers have shown in you by sharing their contact details. 

Your first steps towards a better email strategy 

An email audit is a health check of every aspect of your email marketing campaigns. It means taking the time to analyze what you’re doing currently so you can work out where you’re most in need of improvement. The result is a detailed picture that allows you to take action and optimize your email marketing efforts for better engagement, clicks, and conversion rates.

10+ Years of Evolution in The Email Industry

Justine Jordan, Head of Strategy and Community at Beefree shares how she has seen the email industry evolve over the last 10+ years and her hopes for the future.
Justine Jordan
Nov 19, 2024

Hi! In case we haven’t met before, I’m Justine Jordan, the Head of Strategy and Community here at Beefree. Over the past 16 years, I’ve worn many hats: designer, developer, marketer, community builder, and even the occasional cat GIF curator. I’ve been fortunate to build a career based on deep expertise in all things inbox, where I’ve seen firsthand the incredible potential of using email to connect people and businesses.

Way back in 2007, I fell into the email industry almost by accident. Fresh out of college, I started my career as a designer focused on creating print and brand assets. Frustrated by what felt like a lack of impact and respect in my design role, I wanted to be seen as someone who could help drive business success. Unlike brochures, email design offered instant feedback—opens, clicks, and conversions could tell a story.

I was hooked. And as the industry grew, so did my appreciation for email's ability to forge direct connections with people, right in their inboxes.

And yet, we all know that 16 years in any field (especially email!) is a long time. Email today is vastly different from the scrappy marketing channel I stumbled upon in 2007—even though its core mission remains the same: building meaningful, personal connections that drive business results. So, let’s dive into the fascinating, often underappreciated evolution of email and explore why it remains as relevant and impactful as ever.

A decade of opportunities and challenges

Personalization and the journey to hyper-relevance

When I started, email was largely one-size-fits-all. Campaigns were often “send and pray” or involved very simple or binary yes/no personalization. 

Today, personalization has evolved beyond first names in subject lines to sophisticated, data-driven approaches. Marketing teams can now leverage insights from browsing behavior, purchase history, and even real-time data, adapting dynamically to each recipient’s preferences and past interactions. This technology is still advancing rapidly—it’s hard to believe that it was barely possible two decades ago. 

Rendering issues

In the past, we’d spend hours making sure emails looked as good in Outlook as they did in Gmail—and, going further back, in Lotus Notes! The visual building tools in most ESPs were buggy and produced bloated HTML that was ready for the web, but didn’t meet the unique constraints of email.

Fast forward to today, and while rendering challenges haven’t disappeared entirely, they’re far less consuming. Gmail's support for embedded CSS was a game changer, signaling an era where our designs could focus more on creativity and less on workarounds.

Rendering tools made this process easier, and drag-and-drop editors like Beefree produce clean, email-friendly HTML. What once required hours of coding and testing now takes minutes, freeing email marketers to focus on crafting their messages instead of debugging their code​​. 

Mobile-first and responsive design

Mobile-optimized email design used to be a “nice to have,” but today, it's essential. 

Brands must deliver a seamless experience across a wide range of devices and subscriber preferences​. This shift required us to think beyond just fitting content on smaller screens; it required a rethinking of layout, typography, and hierarchy. Today, it's about more than just looking good on mobile—it's about providing immediate, relevant, and accessible information.

Interactive and accessible emails

Today’s email campaigns go beyond static images and blocks of text. Interactivity, whether through embedded videos, polls, or even checkout functionality within the email, is changing the game. We’re offering richer experiences that invite users to engage directly within their inboxes​. 

At the same time, accessibility has become a critical consideration. Making sure that everyone can receive and understand your message, regardless of any disabilities or assistive devices they may be using isn’t just good practice, it's an industry standard.

Privacy, authentication, and the role of trust

Over the past decade, privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA along with authentication requirements from major receivers like Gmail and Yahoo have reshaped how people view the inbox and their relationship with brands that send email. 

While the introduction of these new regulations initially posed considerable questions, confusion, and challenges, they also served as a valuable reminder that great marketing starts with trust, transparency, and consent. This shift encouraged brands to communicate with audiences in a more transparent, respectful way, reinforcing the idea that consumers own their data.

Email’s place in the C-Suite

Email marketing has always had champions, though convincing executives of its strategic value hasn’t always been easy. Over time, email advocates—often the Email Geeks among us—have successfully positioned email not as a tool for increased revenue but as a trusted channel for delivering essential information and building long-term relationships​. Today, email is often recognized as a valuable asset in C-suite conversations about customer experience, retention, and ROI.

The power of community

The email industry has grown from a niche group into a thriving community that shares, supports, and learns from one another. I’ve had the privilege of being part of a community that openly shares best practices and fosters innovation. 

Events like Unspam, Email Camp, and Litmus Live highlight just how much email professionals have pushed boundaries over the past decade​. This spirit of collaboration keeps the industry strong and forward-looking.

My #1 Lesson: Put People First

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s this: email should serve the audience, not just the business. 

Reaching people in their inbox is a privilege, not a right. Too many brands treat email like an ATM, pumping out sales and promotions without considering the impact on loyalty, retention, or the user experience. Yet the companies that treated their emails as conversations rather than megaphones? They’re the ones that thrived.

Email is unique because it arrives in a personal space (the inbox) where people are expecting personal messages and relevance. It’s an honor to land in someone’s inbox, so the content should meet that privilege with empathy and value. 

Some of my favorite brands—like Going—understand this: they craft emails that feel like they are speaking directly to me—thoughtful, helpful, and human​​. That’s the level of care that builds trust and loyalty. 

Advice for the future: Embrace empathy and experiment

Reflecting on the past decade in email marketing feels like watching an old friend evolve. I've seen firsthand how a channel that is frequently sidelined and declared “dead” has become a pivotal player helping businesses grow and connect with their audience. 

With each email renaissance comes new trends, innovations, preferences, and technology. 

Every few years, email redefines its role in our lives as marketers, business leaders, and as humans. Email's journey has been one of resilience, adapting to new trends, regulations, and consumer expectations while remaining at the heart of customer engagement. 

For anyone starting off in email, my biggest advice is always keep your audience at the heart of your campaigns. Email marketing is both art and science, and finding that balance is what makes this industry so rewarding. 

Don’t be afraid to test your ideas—measure, refine, and get creative with how you deliver value. But always remember, the inbox is personal territory. If you respect that space, you’ll have a powerful, lasting connection with your audience.

I’d also suggest building a solid understanding of the complexity behind email—learn the basics of deliverability, the role of email in multi-channel lifecycle and marketing campaigns, connecting data and APIs, multivariate testing, and stay current with the latest tools and platforms. 

With AI, privacy regulations, and rising consumer expectations, we’re bound to see even more shifts in how we approach email. Knowing how these elements work under the hood will only make you a more effective, innovative marketer. 

But one thing remains: the need to make email human-centric. This will mean staying adaptable and continuing to create value-driven content that aligns with the subscriber's needs. Far from dead, the real magic of email is the central role it plays in our lives—and it’s not going anywhere. Here’s to another decade of email evolution 🙌

5 Reasons Why HubSpot Users Love Beefree

HubSpot’s design tools can sometimes feel restrictive for marketers looking to create distinctive branding or highly customized designs. This is where Beefree comes in.
Shaun Quarton
Shaun Quarton
5 Dec
2024

HubSpot is one of the world’s leading CRMs, seamlessly merging sales, marketing, and customer service into a single, powerful dashboard. With tools for email marketing, lead generation, and landing page creation, HubSpot enables you to connect with customers more effectively and drive meaningful results.

However, HubSpot’s design tools can sometimes feel restrictive for marketers looking to create distinctive branding or highly customized designs.

This is where Beefree comes in—the ideal solution for HubSpot users looking to flex their creative chops in designing emails and landing pages. With drag-and-drop editing, advanced customization options, and an extensive template library, Beefree makes it easy to capture your brand’s identity and stand out in today’s crowded market.

https://uevi.co/7371IQEF 

1. 1,700+ free customizable email and page templates

HubSpot’s templates work for simple designs, but users often describe them as “bland” or “limiting.” 

Beefree users are spoiled for choice with over 1,700 free customizable templates that go far beyond HubSpot’s basic designs. These templates serve as the perfect starting point for building impactful campaigns.

Beefree’s intuitive design tools let you tweak the template in real time, making it easy to produce professional-quality creations that perfectly reflect your brand’s identity—no design experience required. These pre-built layouts are major time-savers, too, with 82% of users reporting faster email creation using Beefree.

https://uevi.co/7371IQEF

2. Advanced design elements for true creative freedom

Customization can be a challenge for many HubSpot users; for instance, some report that it’s “impossible” to create a table without coding the design yourself. Unfortunately, not every user has the technical skills—not to mention the time—to perfect their emails with HubSpot alone. 

Beefree elevates your designs with an extensive collection of creative elements, all easily customizable using its powerful editor.

Some of these elements, like rounded corners and unlimited columns, aren’t available in HubSpot. Others, like creating a table to present data in a clean and organized way, are far easier to build in Beefree.

These creative elements make it that much easier to showcase your brand identity, communicate your message effectively, and design beautiful, original campaigns. They help you move beyond cookie-cutter designs and deliver something truly unique.

Remember: Eye-catching emails grab your audience’s attention instantly, helping your message stand out in crowded inboxes while staying true to your brand.

https://uevi.co/9986ULYW

3. Reusable content blocks for always-on-brand campaigns

Beefree’s reusable content blocks make it simple to maintain consistency across all your campaigns.

Simply save your branded elements—headers, footers, logos, and CTA buttons—once, then re-use them in future designs with a single click of a button.

This convenient feature helps HubSpot users streamline their workflow by eliminating repetitive design tasks — potentially saving you hours per campaign. 

https://uevi.co/1491YKUH 

4. Mobile-responsive designs out the box

Beefree’s editor includes built-in mobile responsiveness, which means your emails and landing pages automatically adjust to any screen size with no extra effort. This ensures your campaigns look great on every device, from desktops to smartphones.

For even greater control, Beefree supports mobile design mode, enabling HubSpot users to fine-tune your designs for smaller screens. Simply select the device size you’re optimizing for and make adjustments using the intuitive visual editor.

This allows you to deliver a tailored, on-brand experience, no matter how your audience views your content.

https://uevi.co/4690JNKE 

5. Easy integration

Whether you're crafting unique branded elements or designing dynamic content, Beefree gives you the tools to create campaigns that align perfectly with your brand vision. Best of all, integrating HubSpot with Beefree takes just seconds. 

Beefree and HubSpot: A match made in email heaven

Integrating Beefree with HubSpot offers a powerful solution for marketers looking to elevate their email campaigns. HubSpot provides the engine for powering your marketing, while Beefree boosts the creative aspect, letting you bring your brand vision to life with ease.

For example, one of Beefree’s customers, Folderly—an all-in-one email deliverability platform—experienced significant improvements by combining HubSpot and Beefree. 

By designing emails in Beefree and sending them using HubSpot, Folderly streamlined their workflow, reducing campaign creation time from days to hours. This efficiency freed the team to focus on other key tasks, while maintaining high-quality, on-brand designs.

This integration not only sped up their processes but also boosted open rates by 15%, demonstrating the effectiveness of combining Beefree's advanced design tools with HubSpot's marketing automation.

“With Beefree, we can create beautiful designs and quickly integrate them into our workflows. By connecting our HubSpot account to Beefree, we can easily transfer the email designs to HubSpot, making the entire process highly efficient and smooth.”

- Kate Lavrenchuk, Marketing Lead at Folderly

Read more about Folderly’s success story with Beefree here

How to Conduct a Robust Email Marketing Audit

An email audit is a health check of every aspect of your email marketing campaigns. It means analyzing your current efforts to identify areas for improvement. Here's how to conduct a robust email audit.
Beefree team
Beefree team
27 Nov
2024

Email remains one of the most effective marketing channels around, but what do you do when your campaigns aren’t getting the desired results? If your click-through rates and conversions are languishing way below your targets, it may be time for an email marketing audit. 

Regular audits make sure every area of your email marketing is fine-tuned, whilst also keeping you compliant with data protection regulations. Keep reading for our tips on conducting a comprehensive audit that will get your email marketing in top-notch condition.

How to audit an email marketing program

There are many aspects that go into creating high-performing email marketing campaigns and an audit aims to address all of them. Here’s how to make yours as successful as possible. 

Preparing for the audit 

Before doing anything else, it’s best to decide what your goals are. Your priorities will likely be primarily performance-based but don’t forget about your data privacy responsibilities along the way. Adopting a risk management solution early on can help you monitor security and compliance, so you can efficiently find and address any vulnerabilities. 

This will give you peace of mind as you also work towards improving the results of your email campaigns. Whether it’s boosting engagement or improving conversion rates, having a clear idea of what you want to achieve will guide your efforts. 

For example, if your main goal is to improve customer retention, it’s a good idea to focus your email audit on metrics that reflect engagement over time. Another thing you want to organize before you get started is the right tools. Just as you need the right free proxy list for your IT department, you need to look at the tools that will best serve your email campaigns.

Start with your email service provider (ESP) dashboard to plan which metrics you want to look at. An email analytics platform is also an important tool to help you track your progress, ideally one that integrates with your SP, so you have everything in one place to assess progress and make informed decisions. 

Reviewing email content 

Take a good look at your email content. Does it reflect your brand voice? Is it consistent with your messaging across other platforms? If you think there is room for improvement, an AI email assistant can be a big help. 

Start with your subject lines and consider whether they are clear, inviting, and engaging. A subject line works best when it makes the recipient curious but also gives them a clue to what’s in the email. Look at the body of the emails next and assess whether there is continuity in style and tone across your communications. 

What’s more, is it in line with the goals of your campaign? You want the messaging to be engaging with relevant content. Plus, it’s advisable for every email to have a strong call to action (CTA) that will drive your email clicks, and make them enticing and actionable for the best results. 

Finally, take stock of the visual elements of your emails, are they adding value? Do they look good on all kinds of screen sizes? Getting the email design elements right will maintain a professional look and also help the engagement rates of your campaigns. 

Analyzing email metrics

Another important part of an email marketing audit is tracking the right metrics. They will give you the information you need to make changes and create a more effective email marketing strategy

  • Open rates: It’s good to get a clear idea of how many people are actually opening your emails. However, bear in mind that some privacy features, such as Apple’s Mail privacy Protection, can skew this data so it’s not always reliable on its own.
  • Click-Through Rates (CTR): If your recipients actually open your emails, how many then take action? Your CTR will show you how good your email engagement is and tell you how well your content is working.
  • Bounce rates and unsubscribe rates: A high bounce rate indicates deliverability problems, suggesting you may have a lot of invalid email addresses or potential email list management issues. Unsubscribe rates, on the other hand, will tell you whether your recipients are switching off from your content.  

A/B testing as an optimization tool

To really understand email performance metrics, A/B testing is required. It’s a valuable tool for achieving continuous improvement within lifecycle email marketing and will help you to understand what’s working (and what isn't) much quicker. 

For the best results, test one element at a time. That could be the subject line, the CTA, or even the time of day you send the email. Send two different versions to small segments of your email list and analyze the performance metrics to see which one does better. Going forward, you can keep the best elements of each test to optimize every email you send. 

Email list hygiene and segmentation 

Regular housekeeping of your subscriber list will keep it clean and make sure your emails are received by an engaged audience. A good starting point is to try re-engagement email campaigns to get inactive subscribers involved again. Still, it’s also wise to routinely identify and remove those who remain inactive after a reasonable attempt at re-engagement. 

You can also improve the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns through segmentation, which targets specific demographics or behaviors for a more personal approach. Use data from your CRM platform and CRM call center software to create more precise audience segments and tailor the content of your emails for the biggest impact.

It’s also vital to maintain compliance with regional data protection laws such as GDPR email marketing requirements by carefully managing consent and acting on unsubscribes efficiently, thereby safeguarding your brand reputation and the security of your data. 

Email deliverability and technical settings

Technical configurations are responsible for getting your emails into recipients’ inboxes. Email authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC verify them and prevent them from ending up in a spam folder. 

Keep reviewing email frequency and send times too, as sending them at the wrong time can harm engagement and present issues with deliverability. Additionally, keep up to date with email practices to avoid spam traps and protect your reputation. 

If you’re handling sensitive customer data, getting your infrastructure in line with SOC 2 audit requirements will make sure that your email system is in full compliance with security and privacy standards. You can then be confident that your customer's data will be kept safe and their trust maintained.

Building a future-ready strategy 

A successful email marketing audit will give you the knowledge to develop a strategy to scale and continuously improve in the future. You might identify opportunities to automate repetitive tasks to improve the consistency of service and save time. 

Another way to improve your campaigns is a content calendar, which will keep you on track with your goals and important events. You might also consider integrating your email with other channels, such as SMS marketing, to create continuity in omnichannel communication

Remember, if you do incorporate SMS marketing, TCPA compliance is essential. It regulates how and when you can send marketing messages to customers. This is important from a legal standpoint, but will also make sure you don’t damage the trust your customers have shown in you by sharing their contact details. 

Your first steps towards a better email strategy 

An email audit is a health check of every aspect of your email marketing campaigns. It means taking the time to analyze what you’re doing currently so you can work out where you’re most in need of improvement. The result is a detailed picture that allows you to take action and optimize your email marketing efforts for better engagement, clicks, and conversion rates.

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