Once upon a time, MailChimp was the email service provider (ESP) of choice for small businesses that wanted to do everything themselves. The super simple interface, low price point and general ease of use positioned it as something anyone could do.
They also belied the platform’s power.
Thanks to its humble beginnings, MailChimp has carried a bit of a stigma throughout its development. Larger clients often assume that MailChimp doesn’t have the power of more advanced platforms like ActiveCampaign, Autopilot, SilverPop or Hubspot.
That is absolutely not the case.
True, MailChimp doesn’t have advanced CRM capabilities or some of the bells and whistles of its pricier competitors, but it has more than enough power for most small and mid-market businesses and even some larger corporations.
Even better, if your marketing automation expert pairs MailChimp with your existing CRM, you can create an extremely powerful marketing automation system at a fraction of the cost you would pay for a top-tier automation platform.
What are some of the things MailChimp can do that might surprise you? Evans Marketing Automation has used MailChimp to do some pretty elaborate integrations, including:
- We use MailChimp to sweep WordPress blog posts once a week, automatically producing a professional-looking email newsletter with absolutely zero manual intervention.
- MailChimp interfaces with Zoho CRM to power extremely personalized automated and triggered email campaigns that–thanks to DKIM validation–don’t go to spam.
- MailChimp has a little-known SMTP relay service that can send messages from your CRM, phone, Raspberry Pi or almost any other device to a contact list you specify, with a significantly increased likelihood of hitting the inbox.
If you’ve avoided MailChimp because you think it’s not for serious marketers, you may be selling yourself short. What used to be super simple and targeted to mom ‘n pop shops has grown up into a serious contender in the marketing automation realm.
Important Note: Although Evans Marketing Automation is a Mailchimp-certified partner, we do not receive affiliate commissions nor any other compensation for this review.