I have used MailChimp a little in the past, but have made sure
that I have followed them on Twitter @mailchimp to keep up on the innovations and
experiments they are constantly working on.
Just recently I began investigating their service as a viable
Email Service Provider (ESP) for Finn Digital. I am familiar with
both Vertical Response and Lyris, and wanted to see how MailChimp
compared.
Free Stuff & Pricing
First of all MailChimp offers a freemium version of their
service that allows you to have up to 2,000 subscribers and send
12,000 emails per month. The only catch is that the MailChimp
branding is somewhere (small) on your email. If you ask me, this is
an excellent trade-off considering what you are getting.
Their monthly plans are reasonably priced, starting at $10 per
month for up to 500 subscribers, and go up from there. MailChimp
provides a Pay As You Go service if you are looking to send fewer,
and offer High-Volume Plans for more. All of their pricing can be
found here.
Custom URLs
One of the nice features of MailChimp is the inclusion of custom
URLs right out of the box. What I mean by this, is that when Finn
Digital sends an email through their system, it appears to come
from email@finndigital.com rather than a generated email through
their service, like finndigital-emails@mailchimp.com. Some other
ESPs do not offer this, or offer it for a cost. MailChimp does not,
and that is awesome.
Segmentation
Having a list of your customers is great, but how about
separating it even further! Segmentation or grouping is common
among ESPs, but I saw something a little different with MailChimp.
They allow you to create Groups within a list upon subscribing to
put your subscribers into categories based on a form element that
was filled out. (I.E. I want a Group of my subscribers that are in
the Technology profession.)
The next level is set up at the time of selecting a list for a
campaign to go out to. At this point you can break down a list by
the metrics that were collected on signup (like location), or based
on previous sends (like who opened the last email). (I.E. Now I
want to send to people aged 25 - 40 in the Technology
profession.)
Another neat option that can be used is the Member Activity
Rating. This is based on how active this member is in your list and
is rated out of 5 stars and is all done behind the scenes
automatically. Activity in this case would be opens, clicks,
forwards, etc. This is another metric that can be used when
segmenting the list to send out to your "best" customers.
API
As the MailChimp API states: "The API is for nerds only." The
API lets programmers tie into your site to have custom sign-up
forms built into a website or have custom reports generated for you
to track what matters most to you. They have a great API and a
great community built around it to help if needed. http://mailchimp.com/api is full of great
documentation, samples and different platform/language wrappers to
get you going fast.
Resources & Innovation
MailChimp is full of resources and innovation as I mentioned
earlier. They provide a great Resources page that will get you
information from Email Templates to Avoiding Spam Filters and
everything email related in between. They have some great resources
for specific markets as well.
They also have some awesome innovative tools in their Labs section. One of my favorites is an
iPad app that is simply a sign-up form for your lists. This allows
you to take your form to trade shows, conventions, or anywhere you
want people to sign up in the real world.
MailChimp has also released quite a few iPhone apps allowing you
to do things like create campaign messages on the go or integrate
QR codes into your campaign in the form of coupons. The coupon QR
app is called Pyow! and I suggest watching the
video on how it works.
Quality Control
MailChimp ultimately cares about the people receiving your
emails, which is awesome. make sure you know where your list is
from, and that the contacts are somewhat qualified to avoid bounces
and unsubscribes or your account may get locked. This is to
comply with anti-spam laws and to make sure there aren't any
Nigerian Prince type emails getting sent through their system. If
you have a list that is questionable, I suggest discussing your
options with them. Again, they are looking out for the best
interests of the email receivers and are on your side to make sure
you have a successful, qualified list.
In Closing
I am excited to start using MailChimp and explore even more
features they offer. If you are looking for more information or
help with campaign strategy and development, feel free to contact
Finn Digital or post in
the comments. And thank you MailChimp for being so awesome, keep it
up!
- Chad Schulz
Internet Improvement Engineer