Email marketing is an incredible tool to keep customers engaged with your business and products or services. Many platforms offer different advantages when picking a host for your company’s email blast. We use MailChimp, but what is MailChimp?
MailChimp is a versatile email marketing and automation tool. Its interface is one of the most accessible, making it easy to manage your email blast campaigns and audience.
What Is MailChimp’s History?
Over 20 years ago, two founders began an email marketing platform on the side of their design company. It was created as a solution for overpriced, burdensome email marketing platforms; MailChimp is a platform meant for all businesses.
Built initially to offer a cost-effective and user-friendly solution, MailChimp has grown to become a significant player in the email marketing space, continuously evolving to meet the needs of its users.
What Are MailChimp’s Plans & Features?
Unlike many other email marketing solutions, MailChimp offers a free option for users with a limited budget. Each cost listed is for 500 contacts in your email list; however, you can expand your capacity by paying more monthly.
Plan | Contacts | Monthly Emails | Users | Purchase Journey Points | Notable Features |
Free | Up to 500 | 1,000 emails | 1 | None | Basic email marketing features, no analytics of the purchase journey |
Essentials | Up to 50,000 | 500,000 emails | 3 | Up to 4 points | Advanced email marketing features, basic reporting |
Standard | Up to 100,000 | 1,200,000 emails | 5 | Up to 200 points | Enhanced analytics, SMS marketing features |
Premium | Unlimited | Custom limit | Unlimited | Up to 200 points | All features, including dedicated support |
We appreciate that MailChimp allows companies to test their platform with a free account and grow their commitment as they build their audience. They are dedicated to helping smaller businesses develop, so we recommend MailChimp to anyone looking to expand their marketing.
MailChimp's Integrations with Different Platforms
They offer enhanced integrations with various platforms, offering many benefits:
E-commerce Platforms
Connect with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento to sync customer data, automate marketing, and increase sales through personalized campaigns.
Social Media
Integrate with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to create and manage ads directly from MailChimp, enhancing your social media presence and driving traffic.
CRM Tools
Sync with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zoho CRM to ensure consistent communication, improve customer relationship management, and streamline your sales process.
Content Management Systems
Integrate with WordPress, Drupal, and Squarespace to collect email subscribers, manage campaigns, and enhance your website's functionality.
These integrations help businesses centralize their marketing efforts, improve efficiency, and drive better results.
MailChimp's Unique Features
MailChimp offers several unique features that provide significant benefits:
All-in-One Marketing Platform: Manage email marketing, social media ads, landing pages, and postcards from a single platform, streamlining your marketing efforts and saving time.
Advanced Analytics: Access detailed reports and analytics to track campaign performance, understand audience behavior, and make data-driven decisions that optimize your marketing strategy.
Marketing Automation: Automate processes with customer journeys, triggered emails, and retargeting ads, ensuring timely and relevant communication that enhances customer engagement and loyalty.
Creative Tools: Utilize design tools, including a content studio, creative assistant, and custom templates, to create visually appealing and effective marketing materials that capture your audience's attention.
AI-Powered Insights: Leverage AI and machine learning to get personalized recommendations, optimize send times, and predict audience engagement, improving the effectiveness of your campaigns.
MailChimp's robust features and integrations make it a powerful tool for businesses looking to enhance their marketing strategies and achieve better results.
What Is MailChimp’s Best Option For You?
Choosing the correct MailChimp plan for your business can be confusing. However, MailChimp makes it worthwhile for even the smallest companies to begin sending email blasts.
Company With No Email Marketing Experience
We recommend beginning with the free plan if you have no previous marketing experience. It offers every essential need for a company just starting with an email blast; as you begin to see your email list grow, you may decide to upgrade. MailChimp’s free plan allows you to test the platform and gain insights into its features without a financial commitment.
Company With A Small Email List
If you already have subscribers to your email list, you will need to choose a plan tailored to the size of your audience. When choosing between the Essentials and Standard plans, consider your purchase process. The Essentials plan might be sufficient if your process involves only a few steps, like adding an item to the cart and a quick checkout. However, if your process involves more stages, the Standard plan will provide deeper insights with more purchase journey points.
Company With A Large Email List
While MailChimp is a solution for smaller companies looking to build email marketing, it offers advantages to more extensive email lists. With the Premium plan, you can deliver emails frequently and track up to 200 points along the reader’s purchase journey. For very extensive audiences, contact MailChimp to explore customized solutions.
Benefits of Running Email Marketing Campaigns
Running email marketing campaigns provides numerous benefits for businesses of all sizes:
High ROI: Email marketing offers a substantial return on investment, making it one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies available. For more details on calculating and improving ROI, check out MailChimp's resource and glossary.
Targeted Messaging: Segment your audience and tailor messages to specific groups, increasing relevance and engagement.
Personalization: Utilize personalized content to build stronger relationships with your audience.
Increased Sales: Drive sales through promotional emails, product launches, and abandoned cart reminders.
Brand Awareness: Regular email communication keeps your brand top-of-mind for your audience.
Customer Loyalty: Build and maintain customer loyalty through consistent and valuable content.
Measurable Results: Track and analyze performance metrics to continually refine and improve your campaigns.
By leveraging the benefits of email marketing, you can maximize your marketing efforts and achieve significant business growth.
Best Practices for Email Blast Marketing
Digital marketing efforts often fail because people assume that success in digital marketing looks the same for everyone. However, a tutoring service will likely target a much different audience than a construction company.
Regardless of your industry and company size, if you want to grow your business successfully, you must follow a few best practices for your email blast.
Set Goals
First, you need to establish what benefits of email marketing are most important to your company. Then, you must set specific and measurable goals that your email marketing team considers attainable. MailChimp offers excellent advice for setting the proper email marketing goals if you want to explore this further. For instance, aim to increase open rates by 20% or achieve a click-through rate of 5% for your campaigns.
Establish Your Brand’s Tone
Understanding your target audience is crucial to branding because digital marketing relies heavily on quickly summarizing your appeal to your audience. When establishing a tone for your brand, you must conduct market research, analyze success in your industry, and ensure you highlight your business's unique advantages. For example, a friendly and conversational tone might work well for a lifestyle brand, while a professional and formal tone may be better suited for a financial services company.
Monitor Email Performance
Creating an email marketing campaign is just the first step to achieving success. Very few brands will grow rapidly after their first email blast. Instead, most companies will send out many campaigns to gather data from their audience. Use MailChimp’s analytics tools to track metrics like open rates, click rates, and conversions. Continuously test different elements of your emails, such as subject lines and content, to optimize your strategy.
Email Blast Marketing: E-Commerce
E-commerce businesses tread the line between pestering their subscribers and being forgotten by their potential customers. Each company must find a way to constantly appeal to its audience without becoming a hassle.
Abandoned Cart Emails
Around 70% of carts are abandoned, representing an enormous challenge for e-commerce companies. However, MailChimp offers abandoned cart emails that remind shoppers to finish their purchase journey, significantly increasing your conversion rate. Tailor these emails with personalized recommendations based on the abandoned items to further boost recovery. Learn more abandoned cart email tips from MailChimp.
Promotions
Promotional emails for your products are an excellent way to convert viewers into customers. With first-purchase coupons and similar tactics, your audience is more likely to make purchases. They can also help you increase customer loyalty and repeat purchases. Consider segmenting your list to send targeted promotions based on past purchase behavior.
Product Launches
When launching a new or updated product, you want to reach as many people as possible. MailChimp makes it easy to announce your products, effectively leveraging your email blast to boost your visibility instantly. Use eye-catching designs and clear calls to action to drive excitement and engagement.
Newsletter Marketing
Promotions and product launches are often considered newsletter marketing; however, many other newsletter formats can increase sales. From sharing encouraging stories to teaching your audience about information relevant to your products, newsletters help keep your audience engaged and informed. Experiment with different formats to see what resonates best with your subscribers.
Email Blast Marketing: Local Services
Service businesses also have many opportunities to grow their clientele and improve their brand image with regular email blast content.
Newsletter Marketing
Many things happen at your company every day. Praising employees who do an excellent job or announcing the opening of a new service area are fantastic ways to remind customers of your exceptional services. Newsletter marketing can also help you increase customer retention and boost brand awareness.
Informative Email & Blog Updates
You are likely an expert in your industry. Sharing your expertise with your audience establishes your credibility with your readers. If you already have a blog, these emails can be short summaries with links to your posts. If not, these emails can be easy to understand tips to help your audience optimize your services.
Success Stories
The most effective marketing involves showing your audience your company's value instead of simply trying to tell them. Success stories display how you have improved your current customers' lives. This increases social awareness and loyalty to the brand; it also boosts your credibility, especially if you can relate the success story well to your target audience.
You may choose to only utilize some of these email forms. However, we recommend testing different types of emails and collecting data before deciding which ones work best for your company.
Should You Hire An Email Marketing Specialist?
Hiring an email marketing specialist is a question of time vs. resources. For very small or new companies without a large email list, investing the budget may not be worthwhile if your audience is too small. However, we still recommend dedicating some time to email marketing to help establish your brand.
For companies with an established audience or purchased lead list, email marketing specialists are often a great investment. Email marketing requires a first impression that catches your audience's attention and instantly persuades them to read further. An expert can help craft compelling campaigns, optimize strategies, and ensure your messages are effective and engaging.
While finding the right email marketing specialist can be challenging, we offer many forms of Copywriting. Reach out today, and we’ll grow your business with email marketing and MailChimp.
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