When it comes to online marketing, building a list of subscribers is often considered priority one. By building an audience of potential clients who have given you permission to follow up with them in the future, you can capture the attention of visitors to your site that are interested in your services but not quite ready to commit. Autoresponders like MailChimp manage all of the heavy lifting at every stage of managing your list from capturing microconversions on your site to following up with high quality and engaging newsletters.
Creating professional looking email campaigns is a snap with MailChimp thanks to their collection of sharply designed templates that allow users to customise their newsletters to their liking using a very intuitive interface. Unlike some newsletter platforms, MailChimp also makes it incredibly easy to import subscribers straight from other software programs like Salesforce and Highrise, which can be a huge time saver for organisations with a lot of subscribers.
MailChimp is also known for providing users with some excellent analytical tools for tracking the metrics of your campaign and ensuring that you are getting the type of return on your investment that you had hoped for. Their tools will allow you to track how many of your subscribers are opening your newsletters, which links they are clicking on and whether they are forwarding your messages on to their friends and colleagues. There’s even an option for seeing how your stats match up with other users’ campaigns so that you can see how well you are doing against the competition.
The one area where MailChimp receives some low marks is its customer service department. Although they provide support via email and live chat during regular business hours, some users have reported that their technicians are not as knowledgeable of their product as they should be. They have also received criticism for their reluctance to help with technical problems, including ones that are caused by MailChimp rather than their users.
If you are managing a relatively small list of subscribers, you can take MailChimp for a test drive for free of charge with up to six newsletter campaigns per month. MailChimp is perfectly affordable for medium-sized lists as well with a monthly plan that starts at $10 and allows users to manage up to 500 subscribers with unlimited newsletters. Pay-as-you-go plans are also available, and MailChimp will even reimburse you for any unused funds if you decide to go elsewhere.
In closing, MailChimp is generally considered to be one of the best email marketing providers in the industry with a robust set of features for creating and managing effective newsletter campaigns. Although their pricing is very competitive, customers should understand going in that they may need to sort out some technical issues for themselves due to some customer support issues. All in all, however, they have an excellent product that should serve the needs of most businesses without any problems.