Item: Mailchimp
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We started using Mailchimp long ago and began as most up and coming companies, using their free trial service and then expanding upon that as our email list grew. Mailchimp is excellent for collecting new customer emails and then being used to send out newsletters or campaigns to subscribers to be made aware of promotions we are running.

Pros and Cons

Mailchimp's main selling point without a doubt is its simplicity. Making a drag and drop interface that anyone can use is no small feat, and Mailchimp is probably the best when it comes to that.
A free plan that is great at helping people new to email campaigns to settle into the process.
Active support that can be reached via email.
It allows users to reach customers.

Pricing is not attractive when moving on past the free Mailchimp, and definitely more expensive than their competitors.
Support can only be reached by email. This is a huge problem that we ran into.
Support emails/tickets take more than 24 hours to receive a response.
Very limited features compared to other email marketing software.

Return on Investment

Mailchimp did a phenomenal job getting us comfortable with email marketing campaigns, and we got a big ROI in starting out with Mailchimp.
As the years went on and our subscribers grew, Mailchimp's pay-based on subscriber count feature began causing negative ROI.
Mailchimp's limited features caused us to use it in conjunction with another email marketing service.

Alternatives Considered

Klaviyo, Constant Contact, Privy and Campaigner

We have used several email marketing tools. Without a doubt a big plus to give to Mailchimp is how easy it is to use and how great their free features are. As the business grew, we continued using Mailchimp, but were so let down by how their pricing works, how barebones the features are for our growing subscriber count, and came to use other email marketing companies that work better than Mailchimp. If you are using Mailchimp and want something more robust, I would highly recommend Privy or Klaviyo. Both are excellent tools that we used while using Mailchimp and switched over when our business grew.

Usability

The usability isn't great with mailchimp because there is no way to actually view the workflow. There are at least ways to send follow up emails based on what the recipient did such as clicking the email ect.

All-in-One Marketing Platform

Pretty much everything that is needed in regards to sending email campaigns, customizing them, and reports is in MailChimp. What sets Mailchimp apart as well as their issue is the simplicity of dragging and dropping everything.
Our organization benefited from this in not having to train our employees much if at all in using Mailchimp as it is so simple to use.

Lessons for Success

Mailchimp is a great tool for new businesses, our business was once new too and we had great luck with Mailchimp as well as I was able to do more advanced things easily like add my own fields and adding forms to mailchimp's software to be added to my website. As our company grew however we needed something more robust than mailchimp and we had to switch to other companies.

Other Software Used

Klaviyo, Privy, Constant Contact

Likelihood to Recommend

I feel conflicted with Mailchimp. On the one hand, it is a great tool that has actual drag and drop features that I adore, since as a manager I don't have to train anyone to use Mailchimp. On the other hand, Mailchimp is too limited in its features and quite pricey compared to its competitors for what is offered. I would recommend Mailchimp on the basis of a new company starting up or a company with limited amounts of customer emails to go through. However, as a company grows I would recommend more robust software such as Constant Contact, Privy, or Klaviyo.

Products Replaced

Yes - I used privy, campaigner, and several more email marketing platforms. We had a need to replace mailchimp due to its simplicity and lack of customization as our organization grew.

Key Differentiators

Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor

The single most important thing about mailchimp is its usability and ease of it.
One thing that I dislike about mailchimp that I haven't mentioned yet is
deliverability is lower than their competitors. After doing research
when we were leaving mailchimp we learned that their emails frequently
end up in places that are checked less like the promotions section in
gmail.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I wouldnt change anything, mailchimp was a great place for us to start.

An Excellent Email Marketing Platform For New Businesses, But Hard to Recommend To Businesses With Large Subscribers

Overall Satisfaction with Mailchimp