What is MailChimp
Mailchimp (https://mailchimp.com/) is one of the deans among the Email Marketing Software (ESP) and among the first to introduce a free plan that has decreed the growth and popularity over the years, so as to place MailChimp in ninth place in the Forbes Cloud 100 with millions of users.
How Mailchimp works and how to use it
An appropriate option for both experts and beginners, Mailchimp provides email marketing tools and email marketing automationas well as, like most Email Service Providers, other supporting features.
Create an email campaign
Mailchimp facilitates the creation of email campaigns (https://mailchimp.com/marketing-platform/) from a single screen where you can enter the name of the Campaign, choose sender, subject and pre header, the 3 main players of the open rate among the KPIs of email marketing.
In terms of design, Mailchimp proposes the use of 2 drag&drop editors, one recently revamped, with the possibility of starting from scratch or choose between:
- Basic layout
- Layouts targeted to certain campaign types, such as ads or product sales
- Model Themes
Like other drag-and-drop editors in Email Marketing software, you can add text blocks, social sharing buttons, videos and images and edit fon, indents, colors and even spell check.
Mailchimp also includes advanced A/B testing capabilities to understand the performance of email subject or body.
Audience (Lists)
Mailchimp has advanced contact management features (https://mailchimp.com/audience/).
You can find all the usual functionality, such as manually adding contacts and importing lists, but you can also delve into the specific behavior of your contacts.
Mailchimp creates segments automatically and moves contacts in and out of them. You can then send campaigns to a particular segment from your dashboard.
Email Marketing Automation
MailChimp's default Email Marketing Automation feature also present in limited functionality in the free plan (https://mailchimp.com/automations/) allows you to create workflows triggered by a starting point, such as adding to a list.
Some of the automation templates are already pre-set and include:
- cart abandonment
- loyalty and retention
Reports and Analytics
The MailChimp dashboard allows you to analyze metrics and KPIs of the performance of your email marketing campaigns (https://mailchimp.com/features/reports-and-analytics/).
Moreover, with its integration with Google Analytics, you can better understand the results of campaigns on traffic and sales of your site.
Some of the information MailChimp tracks includes:
- A map of openings by location
- Likes and shares on social media
- Members who open your email the most
- Performance of your email in the first 24 hours
Customer Journey Builder
Mailchimp has recently introduced a feature called "Customer Journey Builder", which allows you to design a customer journey to increase your chances of converting them into a sale.
Dynamic Content and Customization with Merge Tags
In addition, Mailchimp has unveiled "Dynamic Content," which helps users save time by creating personalized emails. The feature, which is part of web personalization, adapts a single email to deliver unique content to different recipients.
Remaining on the topic of customization, Mailchimp also allows you to include in the subject line and body of the newsletter mega tags, or variables that dynamically recall a piece of contact data, such as the name (this is the case of */FNAME/*, First Name), allowing you to customize the text and increase open rates.
Landing pages and forms
Similar to other Email Marketing software, MailChimp has introduced the ability to create Landing Page and forms embeddable in the website.
Integrations
Mailchimp offers more than 250 additions (https://mailchimp.com/integrations/). You can connect all your tools to Mailchimp and unlock even more functionality.
Mailchimp and WordPress
Among these additions WordPress, of which Mailchimp provides a plugin.
Here are some of MailChimp's other integrations:
- Dates and chats: CalendlyLive Chat
- Marketing Automation: Automate.io, Zapier, Integromat
- CRM: Pipedrive
- Lead Generation: Outgrow, Wishpond, Poptin, Instapage, Leadpages, Mailmunch, OptinMonster, Unbounce, LeadsBridge, LinkedIn. Lead Gen Forms
- CMSWordPress, Squarespace, BigCommerce
MailChimp Opinions and Reviews
Over 12 million businesses use MailChimp, recently named one of the Best Global Software Companies of 2021 by G2, where thousands of reviews and testimonials from users who have already tested it are listed: https://www.g2.com/products /mailchimp/reviews#reviews.
Many testimonials can also be found on the official website. Most customers appreciate MailChimp's ease of use and integrations with other apps and stores from ecommerce. Customers also appreciate MailChimp's efficiency for high-volume campaigns.
Alternatives to MailChimp
There are countless alternatives to Mailchimp.
If you are looking for an email marketing software that guarantees a free plan, albeit with limited functionality and additional features such as Email Marketing Automation, a possible alternative is Sendinblue (www.sendinblue.it), which offers numerous additional Email Marketing Automation features in the free plan.
In this article Email Service Provider (ESP): Guide To The Best Email Marketing Software find an in-depth comparison of the different alternatives to Mailchimp.
Mailchimp prices
MailChimp offers several subscription plans (https://mailchimp.com/pricing/marketing/?currency=EUR):
- Freewith which you can send up to 10,000 emails per month to 2,000 subscribers;
- Essentialsfrom € 8.97 per month;
- Standardfrom € 13.45 per month;
- Premiumfrom € 268.36 per month.
Each version comes with additional features and higher quotas for contacts and the number of emails you can send.