Item: Intuit Mailchimp
Rating: 9
Author: Catie Boehmer

Overall Satisfaction with MailChimp

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

MailChimp is used across the museum by various departments - development, membership, education, marketing/PR - for email marketing. I personally manage campaigns to various segments of donors, including e-newsletters, solicitations, science updates, and invitations. We are also currently exploring the "Chimpegration" plug-in, which integrates the Raiser's Edge fundraising database with MailChimp. As an environmentally conscious organization, MailChimp drastically cuts down on the amount of snail mail we've historically sent to donors and members, and allows us to reach new audiences who choose to subscribe to general e-news and museum updates.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Email campaign design - easy to create clean, custom content and templates
List management - simple to manage subscribers and create specific mailing segments
Tracking - lots of options to assess the performance of campaigns, including opens, clicks, and integration with Google Analytics

Cons

Personalization - would be nice to expand the quantity and type of custom fields that can be added to email body
Restrictions on content blocks - some options, like image cards, are not as flexible in format as they could be for maximum design/content customization
Automation - leaves a lot to be desired, at least from a donor stewardship standpoint - but the Chimpegration plug-in seems quite capable of addressing MailChimp's shortcomings

Return on Investment

Reduced expenditures on printed mail pieces, such as newsletters and invitations
Increased open rates and decreased bounce rates due to excellent list management capacity
Cleaner, more reader- (and mobile!) friendly emails

Alternatives Considered

Convio and Constant Contact

MailChimp is MUCH easier to use. Straightforward design and content customization, plus great existing templates that are simple to customize. No knowledge of HTML required! Stronger reporting and back-end data management, plus plug-in ability to integrate with Raiser's Edge, make it much easier to analyze the performance of various campaigns. A/B testing and list segmentation allows for more opportunities to test and tailor content.

Number of Contacts (List Size)

25,000 to 100,000

Using Intuit Mailchimp for B2C or B2B marketing

B2C

Other Software Used

Adobe Photoshop, FluidSurveys, The Raisers Edge

Likelihood to Recommend

MailChimp is great for new email marketers and non-marketers - no HTML coding required to create clean, reader-friendly emails! Same is true for reporting - lots of options ensure that you can get a complete picture of how your campaigns perform. We have massive numbers of subscribers in lots of different lists, and MailChimp makes that quantity easy to manage. That capacity wouldn't be necessary for smaller organizations, but the platform would be useful regardless of size.

Intuit Mailchimp Feature Ratings

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Powerful, easy to use email marketing platform