Mailchimp Review – The Best Email Marketing Service for Ecommerce?

The benefits of email marketing for an ecommerce operation hardly need to be explained to anyone engaged with online selling in the present times. As a matter of fact, many of the top ecommerce platforms also provide support for easy integration of third-party email marketing services with your store built with their platform.

Are you looking for the best software out there to make your email marketing efforts a breeze? Most marketers and business owners know the benefits of email marketing but don’t know how to do it right. This is why we came up with this Mailchimp review.

Before we go any further, let’s deal with everyone’s BIGGEST concern. With so many other marketing channels, is email marketing dead? Is it still worth sending emails?

On the contrary, email marketing is here to stay. Mailchimp is one of the leading email marketing services that has been around for some time. Here is my review of Mailchimp.

Mailchimp Review: Overview

Mailchimp is a leading email marketing service that provides strong features and technology to reach clients and prospects. This platform helps you to manage subscribers and view click-through rates. In addition, it generates custom reports and tracks your emails.

Mailchimp also has great plans for small businesses and medium-sized enterprises. Apart from this, it is able to handle large volumes of emails making it a decent choice for large organizations.

Mailchimp Review: Key Features

MailChimp has so many features to offer for successful email campaigns. For this reason, it can be overwhelming to know where to begin. This is particularly true when you are just starting out.

We decided to categorize the features into four crucial processes in email marketing. This will give you a better understanding of what Mailchimp can do for your online business.

The key email marketing processes include:

• Email campaign creation
• Integration
• Automation
• Optimization

Mailchimp Review: Email Campaign Creation

Mailchimp makes it easy to create campaigns that resonate with your subscribers. Once your list and signup forms are set up, you can start creating an email campaign

Mailchimp has four types of campaigns to select. They include:

• Regular campaigns

This is a HTML email with formatting options.

• Plain-text campaigns

These are simple emails with only test and no formatting options.

• RSS campaigns

This allows you to share blog updates from an RSS feed using Mailchimp.

• A/B testing campaigns

This enables you to try out different subject lines and sending times. Mailchimp offers three variations of the email.

Furthermore, Mailchimp has a variety of pre-built themes and customizable layouts. This helps you come up with great designs for showcasing products, customer follow-ups, and sharing news.

When you’re ready to hit send, Mailchimp has different options available. You can choose to send it immediately or schedule a specific day and time. With a paid account, you get three more options. Here is the rundown.

• Send time optimization

You determine the best time based on the activity history of subscribers.

• Time warp

Delivers the campaign based on your subscriber’s specific time zone.

• Batch delivery

You send campaigns in timed batches to control website traffic and server strain.

Here are the tools Mailchimp offers at this stage.

Email

Mailchimp has a drag and drops email designer that makes it easy to switch content and layouts. It also comes with a built-in photo editor to resize images.

Similarly, it has prebuilt templates for all kinds of messages. You get to see all your updates in real time as well. Mailchimp lets you decide if you want the message to go to all subscribers or just a small segment.

Landing pages

Apart from sending emails, Mailchimp lets you combine landing pages with your campaigns.

This enables you to grow your email list by promoting a special offer. You can also use the landing page to highlight products, announce a presale and hold a contest.

Signup forms

Mailchimp provides different signup form options to fit the needs of your business. These signup forms include the embedded, Facebook, subscriber pop-up and the Mailchimp subscribe forms.

Advertisements

You can make Facebook, Instagram and Google remarketing ads with Mailchimp. This not only helps you to grow your audience but also sell more stuff. It tracks revenue generated from these ads, products sold and the customers you’ve acquired.

Mailchimp Review: Integrations

Mailchimp boasts over 700 integrations to boost its performance. It integrates with several ecommerce solutions including:

• Shopify
• BigCommerce
• WooCommerce
• 3dcart
• Magento
• Volusion

On top of this, it integrates with other apps and tools. Some of the most recommended integrations include:

• 40Nuggets
• Accelo
• Batchbox
• LeadDyno
• Leadpages
• Hootsuite
• Olark
• ShipStation
• SurveyMonkey
• Unbounce
• Zapier
• Typeform

Mailchimp Review: Automation

At the automation step, Mailchimp helps you build your brand, sell more stuff and boost customer loyalty. So how does Mailchimp make this happen?

Let’s begin.

Building your brand

Mailchimp lets you offer a warm welcome to new subscribers and introduce your brand.

You can also reach out to people on their special days such as birthdays for a personal connection.

Furthermore, you can bring your blog to readers through the RSS-to-email feature.

Selling products

Mailchimp provides a solution for abandoned cart by using personalized product recommendations. It also pairs an abandoned cart printed postcard to give buyers the nudge to finish the checkout process.

Besides this, Mailchimp has product retargeting emails that remind shoppers of your great stuff. This invites them back to make a purchase.

Boosting customer loyalty

Mailchimp boosts your customer retention efforts through product follow-ups to keep the conversation going. This entices customers to come back and check out what’s new.

In addition, it helps you reward your favorite customers with special offers and promo codes. This gesture encourages referrals to your store. You can also thank new customers for buying your products. This can be through a discount or product recommendation.

Mailchimp Review: Optimization

Mailchimp helps you take the guesswork out of email campaigns through its optimization tools.

Segmentation

For starters, the audience segmentation tools help you learn more about your subscribers to target marketing.

For instance, you can use factors such as demographics or purchase history. Then you structure content in a way that is relevant to this specific group. This helps reduce the number of unsubscribing rates.

A/B testing

This feature helps you test subject lines, content, graphic elements, and email CTAs. Mailchimp has a free option that lets you test up to three variations for your campaign.

In contrast, the paid option is multivariate and can test up to eight variations at once. This provides valuable insight for future campaigns.

Reports

Mailchimp offers reports that make it easy to track performance and understand audience preferences. Equally important, it helps you monitor ROI with revenue reports.

Personalization

MailChimp’s personalization tools help you to send content that resonates with your audience. This ensures that you create a unique shopping experience for each customer.

Mailchimp Review: Drawbacks

You might be wondering.

With so many valuable features, does Mailchimp have any limitations? Well like every other software, it also has its fair share of flops.

First, Mailchimp is famous in the web development community for constant product updates. Even though this makes for a cutting-edge product, these constant updates are not so good for a non-frequent user.

Seriously, when you feel that you just got the hang of things, Mailchimp reconfigures everything. I wish it would slow down a bit on the design changes.

Secondly, Mailchimp has several native forms that you can embed on your website or social media channels. However, you have to know CSS to get them right. This is because it doesn’t have a drag and drop feature to adjust functionality leading to fiddly native forms.

Lastly, Mailchimp strives to eliminate the need for customer service. It offers an intuitive product and a thorough knowledge base. While their customer support is great, it only works on weekdays and in the Eastern Time zone.

Therefore, if you’re running a campaign at night, on a weekend or a different time zone, then you’re on your own.

Mailchimp Review: Pricing

Mailchimp has three plans including the Free, Grow and Pro plans. Paid plans provide access to additional features and sending frequency. It also offers a pay per use option if you send emails occasionally.

The Free plan is great when you’re just starting out on email campaigns. It takes up to 2000 subscribers and allows you to send 12000 emails per month. It also offers multiuser accounts, guides, and tutorials as well as a 30-day email only support.

The Grow plan is a decent choice to level your email campaign with more features. It costs $10 per month and offers unlimited subscribers and emails. It also has multiuser accounts, guides, and tutorials, email and chats support. With the Grow plan, you can remove the Mailchimp footer.

The Pro plan provides advanced tools to add power to your email marketing efforts. It costs $199 per month with unlimited subscribers and emails. It also comes with multiuser accounts, email and chats support as well as premium support. You can also remove the Mailchimp header.

For an overview of the features, each plan offers, check out the screenshot below.

Tips for a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

For a successful email marketing campaign, you’ll need to do the following to make your emails a hit.

Target your emails to the right audience

The emails you send to your subscribers need to be relevant to their interests. This is where email segmentation comes in. It allows you to divide your email list into targeted subgroups.

Some of the ways you can segment your list include using survey results, purchase history, age, gender, and geographical location.

Personalize your emails

The more personal the email, the higher the chance to be opened and read. Therefore, call your customers by name and remember their special days such as birthdays. This helps them build trust with your brand.

Make your subject line compelling

The subject line determines whether the target reader opens your email or deletes it. To come up with a compelling subject line, avoid click-bait words such as “make money now!” Instead, come up with a subject line that is honest and arouses their curiosity.

Use a simple layout

The layout should be easy to navigate. It’s all about keeping the attention of the reader once they have opened it. Don’t use a lot of huge fonts and flashy graphics. Let your message be clear and concise to make it easier for your subscribers to act on it.

Add a Call-to-Action

Speaking of actions, there’s no point of sending an email without asking your readers what to do next. Use a call to action to ask customers to click on a link, make a purchase or fill a survey form.

Mailchimp Review: Final Thoughts

Whether you are a startup or a well-established company, Mailchimp is a valuable addition to your marketing. It is packed with amazing features that ensure effective email marketing.

If you still don't think Mailchimp is right for you, then there are many other Mailchimp alternatives to consider too.

Therefore, if you are not using email marketing, I hope this article has convinced you that it’s something to consider for a wider audience and stronger customer relationships.