Item: Mailchimp
Rating: 4
Author: Jeb Brilliant

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Mailchimp to invite pasts guests to upcoming events. Instead of mass BCC emailing hundreds of people we use Mailchimp. It is the best service we have found but leaves a lot to hope for. Before Covid, we were using it at least twice per month for invitations. It's been very useful and satisfactory but hard to work with in terms of creating repeating events versus having to duplicate an event and send the invite again for the next event. It's not very intuitive even for someone who has spent the bulk of their working career using the internet. We continue to use it but wish it would get better.

Pros and Cons

Bulk invites.
Importing contacts.
Handling bulk activities.
Creating invite.

User Interface.
Creating repeating events.

Return on Investment

We use it to stay in contact with 100% all of our attendees.
It's been a game changer for us to be able to invite people.
We continue to use it because it's the best of what there is.

Alternatives Considered

Constant Contact

We attempted to use Constant Contact but were even less happy with it than Mailchimp. It's been several years but back then it was even less intuitive than what we're using now. I believe it didn't have as good of a trial period for us to play with it and try it out. Maybe it didn't have a free version, I don't really remember.

Usability

Nobody in the company ever wants to use Mailchimp. It's not very intuitive and everyone procrastinates creating the invites to our events. It's one of our least favorite regular tasks. Can you see a trend in this review? We use Mailchimp because it's the best thing we've found even though it's not very good.

All-in-One Marketing Platform

To be totally honest we don't use Mailchimp for anything except inviting people to our events. It is such a pain to use we just prefer not to use it.

Lessons for Success

Our success is solely in the sense of using Mailchimp has helped us grow our list of attendees. We don't attribute much to Mailchimp except dread of having to create the next invite and make sure it goes out properly.

Key Insights

Do you think Mailchimp delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Mailchimp's feature set?

Yes

Did Mailchimp live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Mailchimp go as expected?

Would you buy Mailchimp again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

We really like the ability Mailchimp gives us to mass email event invites to past attendees. It's great for that but lacks ease of use in creating the invitation itself. Additionally, we struggle to easily invite people using the same invitation to the next event. It's just not a simple straightforward process. We've run probably at least 50 events and still have a hard time with the software, but it's the cheapest and best option we've been able to find.

Mailchimp is not ideal but it's the best available tool

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with Mailchimp