Weebly isn’t just for building websites anymore — it recently launched Promote, a platform for building marketing emails.
CEO David Rusenko said this is actually Weebly’s second big expansion, after adding an e-commerce platform. But at least e-commerce is, y’know, part of a website. Why move into emails?
“Email marketing is the number two concern for small businesses behind their website,” Rusenko said. Sending those emails should be a “no brainer,” especially since the Direct Marketing Association has reported that email marketing has a 4,300 percent return on investment.
However, Rusenko said that more than half of Weebly users aren’t taking advantage of existing email marketing tools, because “it’s confusing and hard for them.” So Promote allows them to build those emails using similar same drag-and-drop tools that they use to build their websites.
Despite the simple interface, Rusenko insisted that Weebly Promote “compares very well to anything out there,” with features like the ability to import your contacts, create custom segments, use readymade templates and view instant analytics. If you need more help, you can also sign up for a consultation with Weebly’s experts.
And it’s already being used by small businesses. Chris Beresford, founder of sunglass retailer DangShades, said he built an email in 20 minutes, sent it to everyone in his contact list and saw sales spike 600 percent in 48 hours.Weebly Promote is currently limited to users of the existing Weebly platform, but the plan is to make it available to everyone soon. Pricing starts at $8 a month.
“We’re super, super passionate about trying to build this complete platform for people to be able to start businesses,” Rusenko said.
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