Mailchimp

Opmerkingen: Used Mailchimp for a few years - switched to it from Constant Contact (and loved the change), switched from it to Exact Target (and didn't like it at all). Now back into the fold, but at a new business.
First usage - B2B communication with a few thousand contacts, really happy with how it worked, reporting could have been more robust, but for our needs it was ok.
Second usage - B2C communication with some thousands of contacts - and growing - via a e-shop interface. Like it so far, colleagues also happy with its functionality and ease of usage compared to previous solutions.

Pluspunten: Easy to use and intuitive for the average user
Integrates well with our pre-existing ecommerce solution
Developments over the last few years (have been using it since 2010-ish at a previous job) are very well thought through and customer centric

Minpunten: WYSIWYG... at times. As long as what you want to do (visually) is close to its idea of what things should look like, it's great - if you need something further from the visuals/format it expects, results might vary.
Initial integration with PrestaShop was a little wonky - still not sure whether it was a PrestaShop or a Mailchimp issue, will update the review once we have it fully figured out

Opmerkingen: My overall experience with Mailchimp was a positive one. It worked well with our CRM, and was well supported by their sales and service teams. We used Mailchimp to drive email marketing efforts and, in turn, drive inbound leads and software demo requests. It was incredibly successful, as the company has continued to grow throughout our time of using mailchimp. Additionally, we saw an increase in inbound leads each month over the first 12 months of using Mailchimp. While the send and contact restriction did cause some frustration and delays, the overall experience was quite positive. I would recommend Mailchimp to other companies.

Pluspunten: What I liked most about Mailchimp was it's ease of use (for our applications) and the company's customer service. It was very easy to use Mailchimp in conjunction with our CRM, HubSpot to help our email marketing efforts. We would sort, export, and download targeted lists of customers from HubSpot and upload those lists to Mailchimp. This process was incredibly easy and allowed us to be more efficient and timely with our email marketing campaigns. Additionally, any time we had any questions or issues about Mailchimp, their customer service and sales teams were always incredibly helpful and quick to respond.

Minpunten: What I liked least about this software was the pricing plan restrictions. My software company had a very, very large customer and prospect base. We targeted many different markets with a large number of people within each organization. Our software could be used by entire companies, so reaching out to many different decision makers or users was an effective marketing strategy. However, the pricing plans restricted us to a certain number of sends and contacts per month. We often found ourselves having to meet to discuss where we were going to make cuts to our email marketing efforts, which took away time from being productive. We essentially had to ration our sends on a monthly basis, because we did not see the value in the price increase for more sends. Although it would have helped our company operationally, it would have been too expensive. I feel they need to increase the number of contacts and sends for each pricing plan.

Opmerkingen: MailChimp came as a free alternative to our email list when things got ugly in our business. We could say it saved our subscribers list (and business). Even though things have got better, we still use it for certain campaigns where MailChimp shines. Being it a free alternative, we cannot complain. But we wished it was easier to use and had more features (if so, we would easily go for the paid plan).

Pluspunten: I liked the templates a lot. They are beautiful and well done. Very useful if you are into template use. Also, the free plan saved our business when we were out of money. It got all the basics for a business just getting started. Finally, the brand is beautiful. The UI is beautiful.

Minpunten: It's frustrating to use. The user experience is, I would say, quirky. It's really hard to find an option/feature. A lot of them are hidden in places that don't make sense. For example, I was looking for the landing page editor, I could find the landing page REPORTS under REPORTS but no editor at all. I gave up. The metrics it tracks are very limited compared to the competition that delivers way more useful and detailed metrics overall. Also, it lacks some of the most useful features like a robust tag system and marketing automation.

Opmerkingen: Mailchimp overall is the easiest newsletter service. They connect with with websites such as Mailchimp and Shopify which are pillars in the industry. The plugins I have to use are simple to install. At times other newsletter services are more difficult to connect with a website. I start all my clients up with Mailchimp and they are all very pleased. Your interface is simple enough for a beginner to catch on to, but now with your growing features a real whiz can get in there and create a robust email marketing experience.

Pluspunten: I've been using Mailchimp since I think Mailchimp was invented. Mailchimp is way easier to use than most of the other newsletters services out there. It's easy to import your lists, set multiple kinds of audience lists. I like that you're keeping up with the other services and added automations and tags. I find it very easy to build nice looking newsletters too. I always start any of my clients with Mailchimp first. You're the most user friendly interface. Pro-free to start under a certain number of subscribers too! You now have most if not all of the features a growing organization with a deep marketing strategy would need.

Minpunten: My biggest cons was that I found originally years ago you did not have all the features thatsome of the other competitors had. AWeber had better automative responses/ journeys/scheduling capabilities that your service years ago did not offer. So when I started with you I did have times when I did have to switch softwares for growing clients who had other needs. You now have those features so I find I can start with Mailchimp and stick with you now for the long haul.

Opmerkingen: We are required to send out newsletters to our investors (over 800 of them), and this had made it easy to design good-looking emails. And you can save templates, etc., to use over and over and modify them each time. We've never had a technical problem with it, although we've had issues with 3rd party apps and linked software connecting to Mailchimp. But I contacted their support and they were able to help me fix the issue, even though it wasn't their own software! I thought that was nice of them. They could've said "That's not our app, so we can't help you," but they didn't -- they walked me through a fix.

Pluspunten: It has to be their support chat function and their useful Help articles. I did not get into my business so that I could run mail marketing software, so I appreciate anything that helps ease the learning curve. Email marketing is a necessary evil, and Mailchimp lessens the unpleasantness considerably. With no prior experience, we got up and running quickly. (We tried a few of these apps, and this one seemed the easiest.) It's complicated running email campaigns and newsletters, but once we mastered a few basics, I was very happy with the results. And it scales up as you grow. When our mailing list grew, it did not become exponentially harder to use. They offer a lot of bells and whistles that we don't need/use, but our emails look good and are easy to compose, adding graphics, etc. It automates a lot of repetitive tasks for you -- like your footer and address, etc. And we've never had a problem getting reported as spam. And this may seem minor, but I like the whimsical nature of the occasional chimp graphics. Don't get me wrong -- this is work, not play, but it's nice to see a little chimp every once in a while when you complete certain tasks. Business is hard, so a little levity along with the functionality is welcome.

Minpunten: The price! It gets expensive quickly. I guess the upside to that is it makes you hone your marketing so you are profitable. You have to cut out waste and hone your mailing list so that it's more efficient. And from my research, the other programs cost about the same. I don't mind paying for ease-of-use, but I wish they would explain "cleaning" and "archiving" and other functions that would help me get my monthly costs down. I'm not planning on jumping ship anytime soon, but if they raise their prices again (they just raised them recently), then I will be gone.