What’s the most effective marketing platform to reach your customers? As a home inspector, you probably get a good deal of your new leads from word of mouth.

But what comes next? Social media? Paid search? You might be surprised to hear that the most effective digital marketing channel for customer retention year after year is email marketing, according to marketing research firm eMarketer.

If you want to turn your existing clients into repeat clients—and more importantly, lead generating machines—an email newsletter is an opportunity you shouldn’t pass up.

Below you’ll find three programs that make is easy to send your own subscription newsletter, little-to-no technical skills required.

1. MailChimp

Considered by many to be the gold standard for small business email marketing. MailChimp is easy, user friendly, and inexpensive; at the time of this post, Mailchimp allows you to send up to 12,000 emails per month to up to 2,000 subscribers completely free of charge.

You can import your list of contacts, then create a great-looking email filled with text and images using MailChimp’s darg-and-drop editor.

If you want to get fancy, upgrade to one of the platform’s paid plans to create drip campaigns (an automated chain of emails that go out to your subscribers on a pre-arranged schedule over several days, weeks or even months).

2. Vertical Response

Vertical Response is incredibly similar to MailChimp in terms of ease of use and features, with just a few less bells and whistles.

Vertical Response offers a free plan that’s more limited than MailChimp (up to 4,000 emails per month to 1,000 subscribers), but its monthly plans are slightly cheaper, starting around $17.

Vertical Response will get you a drag-and-drop editor, integration with your social channels, and a feature we especially like—phone support for both free and paid users for those times when you can’t quite figure it out on your own.

3. Sendy

Sendy is what we’d call a stripped-down version of an email platform, though it’s the favorite of some of the most effective marketers. This is likely because of its incredibly low cost—just a fraction of a penny per email sent after a one-time $59 setup fee.

If you prefer a cheap, no-frills but effective platform, Sendy is the way to go. You get all the basics you need, including an email editor that allows for text and images.

Our favorite Sendy feature is the ability to see exactly who has opened your email, so you can re-target them or follow up with those that left your message unopened.

Sendy does require you to have your own domain (www.yourname.com), and it’s not quite as turnkey as the first two; you’ll need to complete few extra steps in the beginning to get fully up and running.

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