In today’s Learnin’ Thursday I break down the top 3 (in my opinion) options for small business email service providers. You’ll get a quick summary, pros & cons, and what kind of business will do best with each option.
MailChimp
Hands-down, this is my favorite email service provider for small businesses. Despite some pretty significant changes made back in 2019 that impacted audience management in (again, my opinion) a pretty negative way, MailChimp continues to provide a very robust service to any kind of business.
PROS:
Integrations! MailChimp plays nice with just about all of the big-boys when it comes to your website and tools… Squarespace, WordPress, etc.
Automations! MailChimp has some great, simple to use out-of-the-box marketing automations that you can use as a starting point and make your own. Automation made simple? You know I’m going to love that.
It’s FREE. If you’re just getting started, and your email list is under 2000 subscribers (as of this publication), you can send unlimited emails to one audience for zero dollars and NO cents. Their branding rides along with every email you send, but shoot, Emma does that to businesses who PAY them.
CONS:
Audience management is FRUSTRATING. As you get bigger, and your sources of customer information start to become more diverse, it can be really costly and/or just straight up annoying to manage your subscribers.
Template flexibility is meh. While MailChimp makes it pretty easy for users of all technical abilities to create a good-looking email campaign, it comes at a cost. Certain content layouts just aren’t possible with their drag and drop template feature.
Support is lame. You get what you pay for, and when you don’t pay, you don’t get much support. MailChimp doesn’t offer live support to free account users, and their documentation can be out of date.
In summary: If you’re just getting started, MailChimp is a user-friendly, cost-effective option with the ability to grow with your business.
The new player on the scene: FloDesk
PROS:
Holy moly, their email templates are pretty! Influencers, virtual brands, and lifestyle entrepreneurs who don’t tolerate janky-looking emails will find SO MUCH to love in FloDesk.
Same base cost, forever. That’s right, no tiered pricing or increases that penalize your audience growth. FloDesk gives you all the bells and whistles for one reasonable monthly cost.
CONS:
Less integrated with the big players. If you’re wanting your email service provider to talk to your ecommerce platform, or your website, there are a few more technical hoops to jump through to make this work.
In summary: I am LOVING FloDesk, especially for lifestyle entrepreneurs who may not require a heavy integration with a store or customer records management software in order to be targeted and relevant. If pretty > personalized, FloDesk is going to be your new bff.
Campaign Monitor – best of both worlds as you start to go pro
PROS:
Super flexible audience management. I love that I can include one list, suppress another, and have Campaign Monitor automatically recognize the subscriber cross over. This isn’t possible in alot of other email service providers for small business, surprisingly, and it’s an important feature for many of my intermediate to advanced clients.
Conditional content is SUPER easy. You want people close-by to see one message and people far away to see a different one? Campaign Monitor has this functionality built right into their email editor. It has been a game-changer for me in simplifying targeted campaign strategy. Love love.
CONS:
Campaign Monitor is a little pricier than your average email service provider for small businesses, and their pricing tiers can be a little confusing.
List cleaning functionality can be an absolute nightmare. Suppression lists and unsubscribes are alarmingly hidden in the system, and the ability to scrub your list of subscribers based on the last time they interacted with emails from your business is basically non-existent.
In summary: Generally speaking, I love Campaign Monitor. It’s a more pricy option than the Chimp or FloDesk, but for intermediate senders with a decent sized audience, the cost is worth the message and subscriber-level functionality.
Now I want to hear from you! What email service provider are you using? Or what email service provider are you curious about that you would like me to do an assessment on here?