Of all digital marketing efforts, email campaigns are the most effective for reaching a targeted audience. McKinsey reports that email marketing is nearly 40 times more effective in acquiring new customers than social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. A pivotal part of email strategy is having the right email marketing service provider, or ESP. But which ESP is right for you?
MailChimp and Campaign Monitor are two of the most-utilized email marketing platforms in the world, but neither is a perfect fit for every company. Here’s a closer look at what each offers and what types of businesses should utilize each.
MailChimp
MailChimp is attractive because it’s so simple to use. Even business owners with limited email experience can use the tools MailChimp provides without much training. There are many templates, colors, themes, fonts and image options that users can tap into for professional-looking emails (and even some fun options for businesses that have that vibe).
The free version of MailChimp will suffice for very small businesses that don’t need a lot in the way of email automation campaigns (or emails automatically sent based on actions, like buying something). Paid versions offer some of the more advanced features like multivariate testing, and improved segmentation. While the platform makes sending emails easy for small businesses, it lacks in some of the more advanced capabilities, when compared to other platforms, such as personalization, dynamic content and list segmentation.
The bottom line: MailChimp is perfect for freelancers and small businesses that are just dipping their toes in the email marketing waters and want to send basic things, like newsletters and updates on sales.
Campaign Monitor
This email marketing platform is the choice for over 200,000 companies globally. Campaign Monitor has an elegantly designed user experience with pre-built email templates that are mobile ready and performance optimized. If you want to create your own email template, Campaign Monitor uses a drag-and-drop interface so users can create emails with text, image and video content with ease.
What sets Campaign Monitor apart from other email marketing platforms is its robust automation and personalization capabilities. Campaign Monitor recently acquired Tagga to integrate their software and gives , businesses the ability to create detailed customer profiles based on behavioral data, frequency of engagement and other inferred interests. This information can be used to send even more targeted emails that reach customers with the right message at the right time in their buying cycle. For example, an online watch retailer is able to see VIP spenders who’ve searched Rolex watches in the last 30 days but haven’t bought. The retailer can send them an email with their best-selling watch to make their decision easier.
With integrations to over 250 third-party apps like Shopify and Salesforce, companies that use Campaign Monitor can create personalized email marketing campaigns from data gathered across all business tools they use. Support for Campaign Monitor is strong – with 24/7 email support.
The bottom line: Campaign Monitor is right for companies that have advanced email marketing needs and plan to use third-party integrations.
Which email marketing platform should you choose?
As your marketing needs evolve, your choice for an email marketing platform will shift too – so be aware that you have options. As your sophistication of your email marketing strategy evolves so should your email marketing platform. You may start out with a basic email marketing platform for sending monthly newsletters but your needs can quickly change to sending personalized messages to your subscriber base. Though email marketing service providers may sound similar on the surface, understanding the capabilities each offers will help you pick the right one for your marketing needs.
Mailchimp has be my most favorite till now. Because as you wrote, it is simple to use and setup. I’m yet to try Campaign monitor.