When it comes to email marketing, mailchimp is the first name that many people think of. This platform is one of the most well-known providers of digital marketing services, and rightly so, as Mailchimp is an affordable provider. It has plans and options for all businesses regardless of requirements.
In this review of Mailchimp’s email marketing services, we’ll break down the platform’s strengths and weaknesses, while comparing it to competitors at both ends of the spectrum – freemium and top end. When we’re done, you’ll understand if Mailchimp is the best email marketing service for you and your business.
Functions
Mailchimp’s premium plans are very feature rich, to enable a successful email marketing strategy for all businesses.
If you’re just starting out, Mailchimp’s audience building features will help you grow your database and increase your reachable potential customers. Features worth mentioning include custom signup forms and landing pages, digital advertising options, and a Lookalike Audience Finder. We also like the integrations with launching an online store, dynamic content to personalize for the audience, and a subject line helper.
With your audience attracted, Mailchimp offers features to engage customers and foster interaction with your business. Designing emails that engage your audience is a breeze thanks to Mailchimp’s suite of templates and drag-and-drop content studio.
Unlike the competition, Mailchimp also offers a website builder with built-in marketing tools and a custom domain service. These are unique additions to justify Mailchimp’s claim as the all-in-one digital and email marketing solution.
Finally, Mailchimp has a range of features that tailor your marketing to its intended audience into a strategy for every contact. Tools for this include list segmentation, custom tags, and predicted demographics to make each contact in your database unique.
Line-up
Like most other email marketing services, Mailchimp is a web-based platform or SaaS.
Once your account has been created, the next step is to log in on any device and get instant access to all your Mailchimp campaigns, analytics, and other tools.
Role-based access configuration is reserved for the top tier of the subscription (see below). For those unfamiliar, this means that different members of your team log in with their own Mailchimp credentials, but only have access to features and data relevant to their role. Think of role-based access as a powerful feature, making Mailchimp ideal for a mid-sized or large business, or for a business with a strong need for customer privacy.
Performance
Mailchimp is a powerful customer relationship management tool.
With your email campaign designed, the platform then provides a whole host of tools to optimize your digital marketing strategy, which will further increase customer engagement and retention. A/B split testing, multivariate testing, advanced analytics and reporting, and behavioral insights all work together to provide success metrics and quantify what works and what needs improvement.
These advanced tools combined help to make Mailchimp one of the best performers in its class. We also especially want to emphasize the multivariate testing, as it is an innovative addition and not available from Mailchimp’s competitors.
Security
Mailchimp has a robust data security framework that gives business leaders the confidence that all data, both the company and the customers, is safe.
Multiple pillars form the basis for Mailchimp’s data security. These begin with physical data center security and also include application-level security, including encryption of all sensitive data, internal IT security where all Mailchimp employees are subject to background checks, and regular security audits and compliance checks.
Industry-standard two-factor authentication (2FA) is also available that allows users to secure their accounts, further preventing unauthorized access. In short, all these features combined make Mailchimp one of the most secure email marketing services out there.
support
Mailchimp has a number of useful guides and tutorials.
Notably, all paid plans include 24/7 online support, with business leaders accessing tutorials, testimonials and success stories, and how-to videos. We like Mailchimp 101, an online course designed specifically to educate users about the platform and ensure they get the most out of Mailchimp’s tools and features.
Another plus is the Mailchimp Presents section, which can display short series, movies, and podcasts. This uniquely entertaining addition helps give Mailchimp an edge over many of its competitors.
Subscriptions and Prices
Mailchimp has four tiered plans: Free, Essentials, Standard, and Premium. As with most email marketing services, the price scales according to the number of contacts in your database, starting at 500 contacts.
The Free plan offers a creative assistant, one-click automation, surveys, and a free website and custom domain. It is ideal for small businesses and individual traders with small customer databases. The main limiting factor is that sending emails is limited to 10k per month and additionally to 2k per day.
The Necessities plan is for small businesses looking to take the next step in improving their digital marketing strategy. It includes free features, plus access to all templates, A/B split testing, and 24/7 customer support via email and chat. The cost starts at $11 per month for a database of 500 contacts, going up to $87 per month for 10,000 contacts, and goes up to 50,000 contacts at a cost of $299 per month.
Meanwhile, the Standard plan includes all previous features, plus advanced analytics and behavioral automation capabilities, including shipping time optimization. A database of 500 contacts costs $17 per month, while a database of 10,000 contacts costs $115 per month.
At the top of the plans is Premium, a comprehensive, all-in-one email marketing solution with advanced list segmentation, multivariate testing, and role-based team access. Phone support is also included. The Premium plan starts at 10,000 subscribers and costs $299 per month, scaling up to $1,300 per month for 200,000 contacts. For those with a larger database, you will need to contact Mailchimp directly for a custom plan.
The competition
Mailchimp has both free and premium competitors.
For businesses looking for a free email marketing solution, they can consider an alternative free product offered by Sendinblue as this provider allows businesses to send up to 300 emails per day for free.
However, for those looking for a premium email marketing solution, we would take a look at competitors such as Drip. While this is a more expensive option than MailChimp, the wider range of custom templates along with automated workflows can make it the better choice in some cases.
final verdict
In our analysis, we think Mailchimp is simply one of the best email marketing services available.
The choice of four tiered plans means there is a digital marketing solution for businesses of all shapes and sizes. With Mailchimp’s wide range of features, it’s almost a guarantee that your business will thrive when supported by Mailchimp’s email marketing tools.
By also considering the extensive support options and robust data protection framework, we are even more confident in our recommendation of Mailchimp for businesses of all sizes.
