Item: Mailchimp
Rating: 9
Author: Allie (Allison) Egerer

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Mailchimp to send emails on behalf of our client. The emails being sent are to confirm a customer's certificate of coverage once they purchase a protection plan for their appliances or electronics.The reason we chose Mailchimp for this implementation was because the client was previously sending plain text emails through a backend process (not using an email marketing application) and they wanted to upgrade their emails to look more visually pleasing. Since the current product we were using for our clients was for very extensive marketing emails (which is not what these emails are) and came with a hefty fee, we knew they wouldn't want to use that option - so we decided on Mailchimp which had a very reasonable price point for the kind of emails we were looking to send (transactional emails). We also knew that with using Mailchimp we would be able to get everything set up by ourselves and much faster than if we were to try to use our current email marketing application, which as I mentioned was very extensive and required us to put in custom requests for their internal team to complete on their timeline.

Pros and Cons

Very affordable with many different plan options to choose from
Great template editor for designing emails
Has a great UX/UI design that makes it easy to use and learn the tool

The customer service could be better, unless you pay a premium fee you are only able to get help through email - no phone calls.
Even though we did pay a premium to be able to request help through phone calls, it was still a bit hard to get an appointment set to do so.
Since Mailchimp is a huge email marketing application with millions of users, you have to go into it knowing that features/services won't be changed upon request and if an issue was coming from a small account it wouldn't be of enough relevance for them to necessarily take action on it.

Return on Investment

Allowed us to keep our client happy by providing an affordable and quick solution to their problem
We have saved over $500/month by using Mailchimp instead of our more extensive email marketing platform which was not needed for this type of project.
We had a bit of frustration with the level of customer support received even while having a premium plan.

Alternatives Considered

Adestra, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio and Constant Contact

The difference between Mailchimp and the other email marketing applications we've used is that Mailchimp is a more convenient and affordable application that is meant to give the user the ability to execute a full email campaign from start to finish completely on their own - whereas applications like Salesforce Marketing Cloud have a more intricate system that usually requires account reps to assist along the way. A more similar application to Mailchimp that I've used in the past was Constant Contant. When comparing these two I felt that Mailchimp had a much friendlier user-interface and the email templates were way more aesthetically pleasing. Overall I just felt that Mailchimp was more advanced all-around than the comparable applications, with more options/features for the same price.

Usability

Usability is probably Mailchimp's greatest feature, it would be the number one reason why someone would want to choose it (other than maybe price). It's the kind of application you would want to use if you didn't want to have to do much learning/teaching in order to use it or have your team use it. It is meant to used without the help of an account rep and you won't need to have your "hand held" along the way. Even our least tech-savvy employees were able to be taught to use it and they successfully executed email campaigns every week with little to no issues

All-in-One Marketing Platform

Our company didn't actually use the all-in-one feature of Mailchimp all that much - our main purpose for using it was because we wanted a less intricate platform for our client than the other application we were using for our other clients. We did use the landing page feature and found it very easy to use with the same great design-editing capabilities that the emails have.

Lessons for Success

The major success we had with Mailchimp was fully setting up an account and automated email campaign feature all our own without needing help from account representatives, which is what can make tasks like these start costing a lot of money. In doing this we have learned an important lesson that if you are choosing to go this route, you can't expect to have the level of customer service that you would from using a more expensive type of email marketing application where they would be guiding you along the way and waiting on-call to answer any questions you may have - as well as not expecting to be able to put in any "custom" requests where something would need to be built specifically for your account.

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 excellent for a company/user that is wanting to quickly and easily set up email campaigns all on their own, even if they have little prior experience doing so - and especially if they are on a budget. The email templates allow the emails to look professional without having to hire an outside designer or coder and the user interface makes it easy to understand the application without being the most tech-savvy person in the world. Mailchimp would be a less suited for a company/user that was sending out complex emails that require a lot of data and variable logic connected to them. It also wouldn't be so much suited for a company/user that is expecting to have any custom-made requirements or a dedicated account representative that is on standby to take questions/requests.

Wonderful interface, easy-to-use, and budget-friendly

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with Mailchimp