One of the most necessary features of any business is marketing. But while most think of the marketing experience as a way to get people into your small business and buying, there are some far-thinking individuals who think about how to get people back into their small business and buying. It’s for those people–and for people who want to be like those people–that the Google Apps Marketplace brings you Constant Contact.

Constant Contact is a way to give you access to email marketing campaigns that are largely done for you. You’ll be able to manage your contact lists, send out emails on a regular basis to your contacts, and even determine who opens the email that you send out. You’ll be able to integrate your various social networking contacts–Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are all specifically mentioned–and you’ll get access to over four hundred different email templates as well as anti-spam checking, because the last thing your perfectly managed email campaign needs is to run afoul of spam allegations.

Basically, it’s pretty impressive stuff. Not only are you getting a substantial number of features and tools in this package, as well as the best possible chance that someone will open your email, you’re also getting some relatively easy to use software in the package, which means you’re not going to have to be really skilled technically to set up this list. I actually did something similar to this back in an early job, except with a list of fax numbers and a dialup modem. It took a couple days of nearly constant work to get it all set up, but once it was done, we had a really formidable system that actually resulted in sales. So I can certainly see the value of something like Constant Contact.

You can get this one for free for the first sixty days out at Google Apps Marketplace, though once you exhaust the free trial, you’ll have to step up to a pricing plan. But considering that said pricing plans start at fifteen dollars a month. Still though, if you want another way to get in touch with your customers–and this is the kind of thing you’re definitely going to want to follow up with some great cloud-based telephony services like hunt groups and a toll-free number–you’ll definitely do well with something like Constant Contact. Related keywords: Google Apps, email marketing, spam, contact manager