MailChimp email marketing *SCORE*

For scheduling, sending, and monitoring statistics on my ministry’s electronic mailings, I have been using MailChimp since April of this year. Since they’ve been good to me {and I’m admittedly a softie for that cute little chimp that flirts with me every time I log in} I figured I would show some monkey love by mentioning this awesome service on my blog – and share a little MailChimp know-how with all of you wonderful people! First, let me explain exactly what MailChimp provides… utilizing their service allows you to track a ton of specific features pertaining to your mailings – like what percentage of your list is reading your mailings, who on your list is opening the emails you send – as well as informing you of how many times they are opening the email {which often indicates that they have forwarded it on to someone else} and what links are getting clicked in your emails. Wanna know more about your geographic stats? No problem. MailChimp provides a map that allows you to visualize exactly where your emails are most being opened! In addition to knowing who is opening, you can also see whose addresses are bouncing mail back, and compare your stats with averages in your industry.

Now, of course we all want to have the services we use match their convenience with affordability and MailChimp goes the extra mile for its customers is making its payment options just as versatile as the service itself! For those who mail out a monthly newsletter and have exhausted your trials with other email marketing services, consider this: if you have less than 100 subscribers and send less than 6 emails per month, your service is FREE… not a trial – FREE. For larger subscription lists or more frequent mailings, MailChimp has an affordable plan for everyone – and all of their paid plans are based on list size and include UNLIMITED mailings. Big list, but don’t send many mailings? Or, don’t want to sign up for *yet another* monthly draft to your bank account or credit card? They’ve thought of you too – which is why they offer a pay-as-you-go pricing… you purchase credits which you then use like stamps – you use them when you need them!

You would think that would be enough perks to give their customers, but nope. MailChimp shows madd monkey love… They even offer discounts to nonprofits. My ministry was approved for our 15% discount without a whole lot of questions or hassle. I provided some basic information, linked them to our website, and voila… about 30 minutes after submitting our request, I received an approval message letting me know we could upgrade our account with the already applied discount. Sweeeeeet.

As for the actual mailings, you have full control over customizing your mailings including the ability to use your own html file. Do you use WordPress for your blog? Google Analytics for your site stats? MailChimp integrates with BOTH to offer you an even more enhanced list-analyzing goodness! And, I won’t spoil it ALL for you {or get you so excited that you need a dose of blood pressure meds} so the last thing I’ll say is that MailChimp also provides a highly customizable subscription form which can be used as a standalone or can be integrated into your website in various ways – for my ministry, I have the form integrated into the subscribe page as well as embedded into the blog sidebar. The service also makes it extremely simple for your readers/visitors to sign up and unsubscribe. For all the other awesomeness provided by the king of email marketing and the deserving recipient of much monkey love, you’ll just have to sign up and check out MailChimp for yourself :)

To sweeten the deal for both of us, click any of the MailChimp links in this review and take advantage of this referral bonus:

Refer-a-Friend Program Offer

Just because you’re friends with one of our customers, you’re eligible for a $30 account credit and three Inbox Inspector reports if you become a MailChimp customer today. Just sign up for a free trial (there’s no obligation, no credit card required, and we keep your information private). If you like MailChimp, activate your account. We’ll add the $30 credit and three Inbox Inspector reports to your account, just for being a friend of a friend. Plus, we’ll give your friend a $30 credit and three Inbox Inspector too, just for referring you! Talk about a win-win-win situation. Can you feel the love?

{quoted from MailChimp}

If you do, be sure to pop back over here and leave me a comment letting me know what you think!