I’d like to start by declaring the fact that I hate Mailchimp, and the reason I hate it is that it is free & does its job very well! Thus making the job of selling email marketing services all the tougher! Joking aside though, Mailchimp is a great tool and for those who wish to handle their email marketing in-house, I can thoroughly recommend it. That said, I would like to look at 4 reasons why I believe getting professional help on your emailing is the way to go. No 4 is the real biggie, but I will get to that later.
- Templates don’t always cut the mustard
- Its not simply about email – its about creating a sustained joined up plan
- Lists and list management are central to good email marketing
- If you do it yourself you will probably give up
Templates don’t always cut the mustard
“Can I just….” 3 words that define the issue with email templates. They are absolutely great if you are willing to use them exactly as they are intended. Used in this way they make laying out the Email in a professional manner a simple drag and drop process. They will also take care of all the browser and mobile compatibility issues. However, the moment you say can I just ….
- make that picture. Bit bigger
- change the font
- add that additional social media icon
- left rather than right justify that text
- etc ….
They can become a nightmare. By using a company like BSA to assist with your email, your messages can look exactly the way you want them. In many cases, a client will give us a precise design in something like photoshop, and we will convert this into en email template, working with them to adapt it if there are things that technically won’t work in an email.
It’s Not Just about Email
Whilst Mail Chimp has some useful integration tools, especially when it comes to social media, proper joined up marketing is more than simply putting tweet and like buttons in your mail copy. Good marketing is about joining up all your marketing efforts: Blog, email, social media, offline activities, to communicate a single consistent message that promotes & builds your brand. Working with a professional marketing company will ensure that your email is an integrated part of a wider marketing, effectively telling your story, and building your profile within your target market.
It’s all about the list
Email marketing will in large pet succeed or fail based on the quality of the list. Mail Chimp assumes that you have built you list by people subscribing to your emails via web signup forms. In the real world however, especially if you are in the B2B arena, this doesn’t happen and your email lists will come from many sources both on and offline. Although you can import lists into Mailchimp, they insist they are all opt in, whilst in the UK B2B email marketing the opt out model is perfectly acceptable as long as it is well targeted. More importantly however Mailchimp does not like imported. lists to contain a lot of generic (info@ sales@ admin@ etc) addresses. Again in reality ( especially when your target is smaller businesses) it is likely that this type of address can be perfectly valid and is likely to be a significant proportion of your list.. By using a specialist email provider, it is possible to take a much more flexible approach to lists focusing on real world engagement.
Successful email marketing needs to be considered in the long term
The fact is, good marketing needs to be considered as part of a long term strategic plan. In our experience, people who “do online marketing” in house give up too quickly. They start well, usually in conjunction with a new website incorporating a news/blog facility. With the best intentions, they start blogging, and sending out email newsletters, but all too quickly for what ever reason they stop doing it. A recent review of SME websites that we did, demonstrated this situation perfectly. By getting help from a third party, your marketing becomes part of your day to day activities, with the donkey work being handled outside your organization. This way it is much more likely to continue into the long term, unless you take s strategic decision to stop/change it. In that way, it is much more likely to deliver sustainable results
Getting Help with your emailing makes sense
Good business is all about the effective use of resources. In the early days a business tends to have more time and fewer financial resources, in these circumstances Mailchimp allows you to deliver professional looking emails, on a limited budget ( even free if you are happy to retain the Mailchimp badge in the footer of your emails). As your business develops, your time will be adsorbed delivering your product/service. In these circumstances, outsourcing things like marketing makes sense, ensuring that the marketing continues, whilst you focus on servicing clients and running/building the business. It is also at this point where email marketing requirements may become more demanding and specific, thus the use of more flexible solutions makes sense. Mailchimp is a free great tool, but just because it’s free doesn’t necessarily make it the right tool for your business. If you would like to review your email marketing, we are always happy to talk, and rest assured, if the conclusion is that Mailchimp is the right solution for your business, we will be the first to advise you to use it.
