Email Marketing

[Rescue51]

Hi
I run a growing Auto Locksmith business and over the last 8 weeks have started to collect email addresses to keep in contact with our customers.
We have been trading 12 years and have many repeat customers.
Can anyone suggest simple software to create and distribute marketing emails.

I only looked at Mail Chimp to date

Thanks

 

[JamesMason67]

Not an expert Rescue51, but for a small business. I reckon MailChimp is all you'll ever need.
Good luck,
James

 

[Rescue51]

Hi James

Thanks for the reply.
That's a great help. Do you use it yourself?

 

[JamesMason67]

Hi
No I haven't used it, but I did check it out a few months back and from memory you can send out 10, 000 or more emails a month. More than enough for most enterprises.

It had nice templates you could use and cool tracking features telling how many were opened and read etc. It sounded great and I will use it in the future.
Hope that helps
James

 

[benjaminjones]

I've used mail chimp for my email marketing and it's really great for starting to build your list and keep in touch with customers .
Definitely recommend mailchimp

 

[JamesMason67]

Yeah its pretty much the go to service for what you want to do. Its very popular for sure.

 

[Fredrik]

Hi Rescue51, Have previously worked for a ESP and also selected ESP's client side, although I would never recommend Mailchimp to anyone with a marketing department but for a small SME they have the features and capabilities you need, I would also recommend that you go for a cost effective paid package ant not the fully free one as you can use marketing automation (Welcome email series) Good luck!

 

[Impounded Car Insurance]

There are alternatives to mail chimp too if you want to compare services, we've used Elastic Email in the past.

 

[Alan]

MailChimp is the only one I know with a free tier.

The others I come across a lot are Constant Contact & Aweber. Both have free trials.

 

[Krystsina]

Hi!

I'm currently using Mail Chimp, and I'm very satisfied with what I can do there completely of free. Before trying it out, I was thinking to hire a professional designer who could create professionally looking templates for my newsletters, but then I saw that Mail Chimp allows to create templates that look quite professionally. Plus it is very simple to distribute emails just in one click. So I would recommend to use it, but of course, all depends on what needs you have. If there is something more you need, maybe Mail Chimp won't suit you.

 

[David G Rees]

Glad i read this as have been looking for good Email software and Mailchimp looks like its just what i need.

 

[Rockpapercopy_biz]

I use mailChimp too, you cannot dismiss it, it's very powerful and can be customized to group subscribers, run A/B testing and plenty more. Remember to be consistent and patient - I only started getting results after 3-4 months of sending almost daily emails. People won't mind, as long as you are relevant and helpful, don't email just to pitch. Automate as much as you can or outsource if time is an issue.

 

[Louisa Edith]

I use mailChimp too, you should use it.

 

[Chezchaz]

Mail chimp is easy to use and unless you have thousands of addresses it's also free.

The campaign statistics help to show you where the successes are and who has even opened your emails.

 

[ilya]

Been using MailChimp myself as well.
It's not the cheapest solution, but definitely one of the easiest one to use.
You can also use Gmail (+ manual labor) if you don't want to pay a dime

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Hi Rescue51,

free members of Your Business Community can register for a plan that allows you to collect 5000 emails and send them unlimited emails with a European based provider- see here. It is a lot more than just email newsletters and is extremely versatile and powerful, but as easy to use as Mailchimp.

Premium Members can build a 10k list and also send unlimited emails - compare both of those to what the other companies offer - the popular ones being Mailchimp (as mentioned), Aweber, GetResponse, VerticalResponse, ConstantContact, to name a few.

BTW, do not use Gmail, as they have just changed something to make you be more spammy if you mass mail, killing chances of delivery.

 

[Jesper Andersson]

Hi there!

There are alternatives - Getresponse and Sendgrid, though as been mentioned by other posters, Mailchimp stands out among all the ESPs.

I have been using it for several of my websites for sending out promotional letters. I also use Mandrill, a feature now completely integrated with Mailchimp for the transactional emails.

One shortcoming I find is their default pop up settings. I think they can add more features there just like for other sign up forms.

 

[Krystsina]

It's not the cheapest solution

Just interesting, what did you pay for there? As I was using MailChimp, and never paid any cent but I did sent customised newsletters, so I'm just wondering what are the options there that can make a person for it

 

[longnhvietnam]

There are many people now are using Mailchimp. It's easy to setup, run automation email campaign, send weekly/monthly newsletter but there is a problem with gmail.com. When I tried to send email from Mailchimp to my gmail.com, it always came to promotion tab in gmail, so it lowered my opening rate. Only one thing that I am not satisfied with Mailchimp.

 

[ilya]

Just interesting, what did you pay for there? As I was using MailChimp, and never paid any cent but I did sent customised newsletters, so I'm just wondering what are the options there that can make a person for it

Once you have over 2800 subscribers, they charge $50/mo.
And price keeps going up after 5000 subscribers.
Up to 2000 it's free.

 

[Krystsina]

Once you have over 2800 subscribers, they charge $50/mo.
And price keeps going up after 5000 subscribers.
Up to 2000 it's free.

Oh, thanks for your reply, didn't know about that.

 

[fisicx]

Not only that, the free version adds a mailchimp badge to the email body - which doesn't look very professional.

 

[Krystsina]

Not only that, the free version adds a mailchimp badge to the email body - which doesn't look very professional.

do you mean a logo of it in the end of the newsletter? Or something different? As I've tried to send a trial newsletter to myself before sending it to clients, the logo of MailChimp appeared in the end of the letter.

 

[fisicx]

Yes, that what I mean. It looks unprofessional if you are sending out business emails. If you use the paid for version you can remove this.

 

[Krystsina]

Yes, that what I mean. It looks unprofessional if you are sending out business emails. If you use the paid for version you can remove this.

Thanks for your opinion and notice about that.

 

[Simon Dunant]

We've used Mailchimp for years, the free service is great, however we use the Mailchimp paid service which I do recommend if you can run to it as it allows us to set up automation (automatic timed emails) to customers which is useful for delivering automatic follow ups (especially good for delivering free ecourses to educate customers).

Hope that is useful!

Cheers

Simon

 

[fisicx]

The paid version is so much better in so many ways. $25/month isn't a lot to pay and the increased conversions easily cover the cost. The A/B split testing alone is well worth the money.

 

[Sorodo]

Another vote for Mailchimp here. The free service (up to 2000 subscribers / 12,000 emails per month) is a great way to get to grips with email marketing especially if you're new to it. The paid version unlocks many great features though.

Good luck!

 

[mick&sarah]

When I tried to send email from Mailchimp to my gmail.com, it always came to promotion tab in gmail, so it lowered my opening rate

Which tab do the other send their emails to if not promotion?

 

[rf-harris]

I have used "Constant Contact" and it is pretty good.