Item: Mailchimp
Rating: 10
Author: John Reitz

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Mailchimp for our own email marketing as well as for small business clients. It is easy to deploy, train on and use for novice clients who want to manage their own email marketing. Automation and other tools in the Mailchimp system give users high-end email marketing capabilities at a low cost.

Pros and Cons

Sending bulk emails.
Accessible to novice users.
Deep levels of customizability.
List management.
Deliverability management.

Web forms can be difficult to customize in some ways for more technical implementations.
Analytics could be easier to use.

Return on Investment

Mailchimp is a great added option for most clients and supporting their use is inexpensive, so there is a small margin but a positive one.

Alternatives Considered

Constant Contact and Pardot

Constant Contact is antiquated and clunky. Pardot is a huge solution and tied to Salesforce so it’s not aimed at the same user audience. I think Mailchimp is generally just easier to use and costs less than the alternatives on the market currently.

Usability

The user experience of Mailchimp is really well done and it is easy to move around the application as well as understand the design and send process. It is a very visual and powerful interface yet not over-complex. It helps you design great stuff without jumping through hoops.

All-in-One Marketing Platform

We have really only used the email marketing functionalities as they have been around the longest. The other functions are interesting but have yet to be “must-haves” for our clients.

Lessons for Success

Mailchimp brought our understanding and use of mobile-responsive email light years forward, which gives us and our customers really strong and accessible email marketing capabilities that look great in any browser. Being able to see open trade improvements by using a/b tools or automation has been a big win.

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?

Yes

Would you buy Mailchimp again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Mailchimp is ideal for small to midsize businesses where your marketing staff is able to do a lot with little support. Mailchimp can’t adorably scale to an enterprise-level, but there may be things about that I have not seen just yet in my usage. As a design agency, switching between customers was made a lot better but it still needs work.

Mailchimp for the win!

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with Mailchimp