Mailchimp Email - The Good And The Bad
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In this episode I talk about the benefits of Mailchimp as an email platform to use.
While there are numerous new and exciting features around Mailchimp there is still one area that drives me crazy.
I admit there are some new features like websites, domains, and event triggers, that I did not know about. Still the 800 pound gorilla in this space it packs a punch where needed.
Lear more about Mailchimp
Next episode we talk about ConvertKit
**Transcript**
Speaker 1: (00:02)
This is digital marketing tool talk, never miss out or fall behind on the latest digital tools for social media, SEO content reviews, and the entire digital marketing space. I'm your host, Brandon Hughes. Welcome back everyone. I hope you enjoy it. Last week's episode where we talked about constant contact. While a lot has changed since last week. I hope you're all washing your hands out there. Just today while I'm recording this episode, uh, the president declared a national state of emergency. So be safe out there listening to a podcast. Very, very low chance of catching anything. So like I promised in the last show today, I'm want to talk to you about another email platform that you may be or probably are familiar with, and that's mailchimp.com MailChimp has been around for a while. They are very recognizable, uh, around and they have some really great features. One of the things that I noticed in doing the research with MailChimp is that I have been mistaken in thinking that they didn't do a lot of things, particularly with what constant contact does. So as I was digging through and doing some research for this podcast, I found a lot of unique and new things. Some of them are even in beta right now with um, with MailChimp. So let me share those with you today.
Speaker 1: (01:41)
Okay. So let's get straight into it. I know everyone. First thing, let's talk about pricing and this is where I have my biggest gripe is with male champions on the pricing, even though they do so many amazing other things and I'm really excited about their platform and what they're doing and it's just slick. It's just nice. I recommend taking a look at MailChimp if you're thinking about doing a newsletter, whether it's for your business or for a client, but let's talk about pricing for a second. So they have the standard free option, their starter packet, um, their standard and their premium plans just like most other plans do. Now when you go to MailChimp's website, yup. They've got their free plan. That's good. All the way up to 2000 contacts, not quite. Okay. If you look at their next one, their essential, his plan, it's nine 99 a month.
Speaker 1: (02:39)
And they put that in real big bold letters. What you got to look at though is it's starting at nine 99 a month, and when you go down, you know, it says contacts 50,000 that's, it's not clear. And I don't like that. I don't like that at all. MailChimp, if you're listening to be a lot clearer with your pricing, we will all appreciate it. So let's talk about that a little bit. So with the free plan, um, yeah, you get up to 2000 contacts, but what they don't include is that that's 10,000 sends per month, or a daily send limit of 2000 so if you do an email blast on one day to your 2000 list and you're on the free plan, that's it. You can't send anything else that day. If you're sending out emails more than once a day or more than once a week, you're going to exceed the 10,000 sends per month.
Speaker 1: (03:42)
Okay? And I hate to start out with a negative on this, but that just, it just really irritates me when the pricing is not clear. So I encourage you, if you're looking at MailChimp and I recommend them so, so don't think that I don't recommend them. But when you do and you go into the pricing, be sure to look at the pricing page. They have the button right there that says calculate your pricing under the paid plans and you can dig into it to get a a more accurate picture of how much money you're going to need to spend per month. Especially if you're going to be comparing this to other plans. Now I mentioned on the last episode, Hey, if you're nickel and diming yourself on a couple of bucks here and a couple of bucks there, you are completely missing the point on using an email platform.
Speaker 1: (04:34)
Really what you want to look at is the features and if it's something that you want or that you need, that's going to help you to grow. So let's talk about features. All right. The top features for a MailChimp on their, um, their free plan. You know, they have the one-click automation, they have some templates in there. You'll notice that they have custom domains. This is new. You can grab the domains through MailChimp. Also in beta is websites. And I'm finding this to be an interesting trend because this is I think the fourth or fifth email platform that I noticing there, including the websites, um, and the domains. And they're also doing much more integration on the ad side with Facebook and Google ads. So I think a, I think it's smart. I think male champion, others that are including these things realize that Hey, customers are coming in and sometimes a website is not this three to six month, you know, project that you need to do.
Speaker 1: (05:40)
We just need to put something up quick. Maybe it's a landing page or we're doing something seasonal or I don't really need, I'm communicating more through the email, which I think is smart. I mean people are spending so much time on social media, they should be spending that time doing their email marketing, working their lists, developing automations, et cetera. So what do you get if you move to the paid plans, which are starting at nine 90 month, 99 a month and go all the way up to starting at two 99 a month. But anyway, if you go up to the next one, you get a really key feature that will really differentiate you from everyone else out there who is using email marketing and that is AB testing, AB testing. It's boring, it's not exciting. But boy, when you can eke out another half percent, 2% 5% because you did a little a test on your title or the color of your button or the placement of your button, that's when you really see the power of AB testing.
Speaker 1: (06:48)
So if you can move up to at least the first paid plan to get the AB testing and have fun with it, especially if you're regularly sending out newsletters or email communications, you're going to get some valuable information. You start tweaking and polishing and honing it down. You're going to be happy with it. The other thing is you get some custom branding when you, when you move up to the first plate plan. Now further on, if you're moving into some of the other plans, you're going to get stuff like audience insights. You can do retargeting ads, they have something else that's new on the third one, and that's event based automation series. So what that is is, um, and they have a whole section on it and it basically, it's an API that, that MailChimp has. And when people do certain things, um, on, on your website or your mobile app, it will communicate with you and allow you to connect with those users at key moments, right?
Speaker 1: (07:51)
So if somebody takes action on your platform, you can respond to them very quickly or with more specialized content. So if you have a complex, um, uh, flow for your customers, or there are times when they're interacting at certain points might be worthwhile, uh, to take a look at that, um, as well. And then the very highest one, they, I don't know if you want that and advanced segmentation, some of those, some of those other things. Um, so yeah, let's go through some more of the features on MailChimp. So, um, tags, segmentation, very, very important. Uh, behavioral targeting. Yes, we want that. Um, we want to look at purchase behavior, um, et cetera. Um, the app engagement, which is new, um, they're limiting it that on so many months, you know, um, based on the plan that you got, but that that is, um, important as well.
Speaker 1: (08:50)
Um, a whole bunch of, uh, features definitely go to website, go on their pricing and you can scroll down. They do a comparison of all the features. This will help you decide what you want to do, talking about the websites, which is in beta by the way. It is available on all plans. So, um, you know, I'm in the digital marketing business and I have people all the time asking, Hey, can you build me a website? Can you do this? I'm really, uh, I'm paying attention to, you know, do, do, do I really go out on a platform and build you a website or do I ask more questions and find out what you want to do and just say, Hey, you know what, instead, let's just build this through an email platform because we can integrate all this stuff in it work smoothly. I don't know, I'm not there yet, but it seems like these email providers are really heading in that direction.
Speaker 1: (09:44)
So it's nice to see that they're offering the websites and the domains on all the plans. I think once they pull you in with more and more services, you're going to be more and more loyal to that brand, whether it's mail Chimp or some other, uh, some other, um, platform as well. Uh, they got some cool things to landing pages, Facebook and Instagram ads. Social posting is new, but it's only available on the higher paid plans. One thing that I do like that they do, and I don't know if the other platforms do, is they have a PO postcard integration. I think it's kinda cool, you know, I mean it's old school, but getting something in the mail now is, is a little bit, um, it's, it's, it's more, it's special now. You actually get something physical in the mail. I know for myself, you know, I'm on Facebook and uh, we're always wishing each other happy birthday and if it's a really close friend, I'll either call or I'll text them.
Speaker 1: (10:38)
I mean, I can't believe text is more personable than a wishing them happy birthday on Facebook. But some of these things, um, that are old are now becoming a special. So sending someone a postcard I think is kind of a cool little feature. They also have, uh, something that's new as well is a marketing calendar. So you can kind of plan out what you're doing, what's coming up. You can look at that expecially if you have more seats and that's what MailChimp calls a number of people who are on the account, they can all go in and look and see, um, what's going on, you know, when are the emails going out? Uh, what are the AB testing ones, you know, when are we sending out postcards, etc. They can look at all of this stuff, follow and work together as a team. So nice layout that they have on the, on the calendar.
Speaker 1: (11:30)
I like it. It's pretty cool. So, all right. Um, one other thing I want to talk about with MailChimp also is their integrations. One integration that's been in the news lately is, or a lack of integration, is the one with Shopify. Now I'm a Shopify partner, so, um, this is, to me, they're one of the biggest eCommerce platforms out there. So what they've gone ahead and done since they kind of no longer integrate directly with a Shopify platform is you can use a third party to do that. Now there are a couple out there as a peer, um, automate and, uh, some a site code that you can use. But the one that I would recommend that you take a look at is shop sync because that allows you to connect, uh, just about everything on the back end. And it's the closest to the previous old integration and it's free.
Speaker 1: (12:31)
So, um, if you're on Shopify and, and, and you were, um, uh, using MailChimp, you probably want to use that integration or if you've heard, Hey, you know, the integration no longer works. They have a solution for it. I've searched online and I haven't seen, I've seen hardly any negative comments about it. It seems to be working. Uh, just, just fine. So, um, if you're on Shopify, take a look at that. Otherwise, integrations. Yeah. Um, will commerce, they integrate with Canva. If you want a design over there, they have hundreds of different integrations out there that can really, uh, take care of your email newsletter to the next level. Don't forget the postcards. Don't forget the social media. Don't forget about some of these new things where you can get the domain, the website builder and um, do that integration with their, I think MailChimp is been around for a long time.
Speaker 1: (13:28)
They're a smart cookie. Um, they are really, um, male, 800 pound gorilla, not mail Chimp. And they're doing a really good job with that. I hope all of you consider a MailChimp when you're looking at it because they do a job well done. Next week, the next episode, I'm going to take a look at another platform that's much newer and is really focused on people who are bloggers and that's convert kit. So for any of you that's used MailChimp or you've used convert kit, have comments, suggestions, questions, go ahead and email me, brandon@hokumarketing.com otherwise, I'll talk to you next week. If you like what you heard today, please rate, review and subscribe to this podcast. If you have a digital marketing tool that you like or you use, or even one that you've created, let me know where the comments or send me an email@brandonathokumarketing.com I'll see you on the new school. Flip side.
