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Email marketing
In today's business environment, it is simple to fall prey to the talk of the many advertising platforms. Email marketing is the most effective marketing tool. The inbox provides the most personal connection you can have with your customer. Despite what you may have been told, email marketing continues to lead the way in marketing ROI. We are talking of 3600% ROI on investment.
This is why almost every organisation and, unfortunately, spammers use it.
You will not get better advertising at this price.
Background
Years ago, MailChimp was a great option when we first looked for an email solution for our clients. It had many features that our customers need at a reasonable price. The free version was all that many of our clients needed. Many could run all their email marketing for nothing using it. Plus benefited from the many advanced features available in this plan; if more was needed, the paid plans were quite reasonable.
I confessed when I heard that a large tech company had acquired MailChimp, I was sure there would be problems. Big companies tend to pay inflated prices for these companies; unlike the founders, there tends to be little love for the product, and they need money to recuperate their costs.
Did this make a difference here? I do not know. What I do know is the free plan over the years has dropped in offerings, and what you get for each plan is less, and the prices have gone up.
The free plan allowed a business to have 2,000 accounts, which was enough for most small to medium businesses. Now it has only 500 accounts. Even the smallest business would need about 1,500 accounts. That is about $40 a month now, with many functions missing; getting all the functions is about $525 monthly.
Besides this, here are my added thoughts on MailChimp
> There have been security problems with MailChimp. They have been compromised several times in recent years, raising security concerns. For an SMB, this is a serious problem as our client list security is paramount.
> Over the years, it has gotten more complex, too complicated. This makes it more challenging to use.
> Over the years, I have not been happy with their customer support which is often little more than you have to work it out yourself.
> They have a monkey as a slogan, and they use it everywhere. It was friendly and humourous years ago. After years, as the quote goes, "a good joke is like a fine champagne, but repeated too often, becomes a flat soda."
Even though some businesses would find MailChimp a good fit, and it is a sound system, we need to weigh the benefits and drawbacks. We are considering other options that might suit our client's requirements better.
So we are looking for an alternative to offer our clients.
Key features required
If you are looking, I suggest that these key features are required for an email marketing software program:
Managing email lists
The capacity to manage your email list, including the ability to import, segment, and clean it.
Creating an email campaign
A user-friendly interface for designing and creating email campaigns, with drag-and-drop editors and customisable templates.
Automation
the capacity to generate automated email sequences using triggers and subscriber behaviour.
Personalisation
The capacity to customise emails based on subscriber information like name, location, and previous purchases
Analytics
Email campaign performance in-depth analytics and reporting, including conversion, open, and click-through rates.
The A/B test
The capacity to test various email components, including subject lines and content, to improve campaign performance.
Deliverability
You need high deliverability rates and compliance with anti-spam laws to ensure your emails reach subscribers' inboxes.
Integrations
the capacity to connect to other tools for sales and marketing, like CRM systems and social media platforms.
Support
Reliable customer support, hopefully including email, phone, and chat support, to help you troubleshoot any issues you may have.
Please let me know your thoughts.
