MailChimp...Awesome Email Marketing

When I saw the email confirmation that I received in my inbox, my first thought was "Oh...how cute." Really...I had never heard of the MailChimp and the logo and the highly customized confirmation intrigued me. I went to the MailChimp website to see how their email marketing service compared to some of the others that I was more familiar with.

I was not disappointed. For small business owners looking for an email marketing solution for their small business, check out MailChimp! Aside from a boatload of features that I'll tell you about, the pricing definitely grabbed my attention. All email marketing companies charge by the # of subscribers that you have on a monthly basis. The range will usually begin from 0 - 500, 501 - 2500, all the way to 25,000 - at which point, you have to contact the company for special pricing.

With MailChimp, your first 500 subscribers are not only FREE but you can send out 3000 emails per month. That means that you are able to distribute six mailings to your 500 subscribers and not be charged. This is called "The Forever Free Plan." I think this is pretty awesome. Not bad to have this free service as you begin your newsletter campaign. I mentioned above that with many companies, their special pricing begins at 25,000, but with MailChimp, it begins at 50,000. Oh by the way, there is no monthly contract so you are not tied in should your plans change.

Some of the MailChimp features that you may find of real value are:

• Advanced social tools sync your email and social networking efforts, so you can focus more on the growth and management of your business and less time duplicating your marketing efforts

• Connectivity to mobile apps - there's MailChimp for iPhone

• Targeting and segmentation tools make it easy to get to know your subscribers and provide them with the relevant and timely information they want

• Integrates with a variety of services, from blogging platforms and survey tools to bookkeeping apps and shopping carts

MailChimp won't leave you out to dry once you sign up for their service. They offer various trainings to get you up to speed on setting up your first email campaign: free email marketing guides, getting started videos, free HTML templates, a "MonkeyWrench Newsletter" (this company is just too cute...) and Chimp Charts. Chimp Charts "offer a great way for marketers to set benchmarks and set expectations based on the industry they are reaching out to. The data shows great variance in opens, clicks and other key metrics and marketers should be able to use this information to measure performance against as they design and deliver their campaigns."

If you are looking for a newsletter solution to help you reach out to your customer base that's affordable, full of personality and scalable as your business grows, MailChimp may be right up your alley. If you try it, please let us know what you think!