Let's just talk about email marketing software and providers. We're gonna look at why use a provider some of the pitfalls that we're going to encounter. We'll also discuss some of the email marketing providers out there. So why would we use an email provider, a lot of people will go out and start building their own email lists, and they'll have their own spreadsheets and databases that they use. The email providers that are out there, there's a lot of functionality built in. So we always recommend that you use a provider.
The the sheer functionality that some of these providers give you is incredible. And it's the simplicity as well. You don't want to be fighting the software when people build their own. If you've got really good technical knowledge and you're really willing to do it. You can build some software and you can build your email marketing list for free. But you need some real good IT skills.
And the other thing you're going to have as well, you're going to have trouble spam filters and your ISP might not like the internet service provider might not like it, you start to send out lots of emails and you can get shut down. So it's always just easier just to go with provider. And it's simpler. So we strongly recommend that you find a good provider that suits you. And use that as the basis for your email marketing strategy. There are some pitfalls when we start using an email provider.
One they've got really aggressive spam filters, so they really like to protect their domain. So what that means is this, they're letting us send emails out and their name is on it for the all intents and purposes of the other internet service providers or People are permitting your email to come through, then name is on it so they can be extremely aggressive. One of the probably strongest is MailChimp, I've come across extremely aggressive. And sometimes you just want to get a simple email through, and they can block you. So that can be a downside. They control the list.
So we need to be backing up our list, you need to backup your list on a regular basis. And that's just a simple case of most of these are like just a download or export the list into an Excel. And you really want to make that something you put in your calendar. Because if they decided to shut you down overnight, if you've got the names and addresses, email addresses, you still control your list. So these are some of the things we have to be careful when we're thinking about using a third party email marketing provider. So there's lots of different email providers out there and we can't discuss all of them either Some of the more well known email providers, so we've got MailChimp.
Now MailChimp will give you a free account. But they won't have automation in the free account, you have to buy the paid amount chimp like always double opt in, and other sorts of things. They got Constant Contact, you got get response. And if you search for email marketing provider, you're going to find lots of different recommendations that people come up with. Now you have to look at the size of your list and the budget. So how much are they charging for 500 people on your list how much they charge for 1000 have a look at the cost because email marketing can get expensive fast.
Now, what a lot of these email providers will try and do, they'll try and sell you stuff you just don't need over complicated systems, the email marketing and CRM systems and if you want that for your business, that's fantastic. But don't pay for something that you don't need would be my recommendation. What you want to look for is you want to look for good automation, you want to look for email marketing providers that provide automated email campaigns, you can set up a series of emails on discussing that later on. And for instance, MailChimp, a lot of people go with MailChimp on the free program. And then they're going to find that if they actually wanted to any type of automation, even to move someone from one email list to a different list, they've got to pay. We just mentioned CRM functionality.
Now, CRM functionality is customer relation management. Sometimes you might need that you might have sales team, you might have a number of different people dealing and then you want to look at an email marketing provider, the probably incorporates that, or a CRM provider that incorporates email marketing, but make sure that the automation is there. That's going to be the key thing going forward automation, and that you have access to your list and make sure you can actually download or upload your list before you sign up with anybody. Who do we recommend? Now we're big fans of Active Campaign. Why?
Because it has really good automation. It's really cost effective, I think, a list of 500 people, you pay about eight or $9 a month, and you get everything you need if you're a small business. So if you're an entrepreneur or solopreneur, small local business, you're going to get everything you need from Active Campaign. You're not going to pay for stuff you don't need. And if you do need that stuff, if you do need CRM, there is an upgrade path of inactive campaign that later on, I just love the automation in Active Campaign. I'm going to recommend from personal use that you at least have a look Active Campaign going have a good explore of what they offer.