Tag: mailchimp alternative

  • Is MailChimp Free?

    Is MailChimp Free?

    Is MailChimp free? The answer is yes. The MailChimp Forever Free plan allows you to manage up to 2,000 email subscribers and delivering 12,000 emails monthly.

    Is MailChimp safe? Now that you asked, MailChimp is safe for work. If you are sending non-spammy emails, then you are pretty much in a very safe environment. But if you are an affiliate marketer, you may have a problem (or problems if I may).

    I wrote a post about problems you will face when using MailChimp and since then, it became one of the most visited posts on my blog.

    Let’s be honest. Most of you who are reading this is either a blogger, beginner or an Internet marketer. Either way, your goal is to save more money and aim for the highest yield.

    I get it and I have the same thoughts as well!

    MailChimp Forever Free plan is always good for us especially when you don’t have to pay until you hit 2,000 subscribers. Plus, most beginners don’t generate over 100 subscribers in a week. So, you are in good hands (at this point in time).

     

    Why do I recommend MailChimp?

    MailChimp is great for bloggers, Internet marketers and even business owners who are just starting up in email marketing. Here are some more reasons why you should be using MailChimp Forever Free account:

    • MailChimp is free
    • You can be worry-free until you hit 2,000 email subscribers
    • Beautiful UI and UX design on MailChimp’s backend
    • Drag and drop builder helps you create beautiful email templates
    • Simple filtering to help you manage your email lists
    • Very high delivery rates
    • MailChimp is scaleable

    Now, allow me to touch on the last point which is scalability. As your business progresses down the road, you would need to scale your email marketing software because you are going to have more subscribers and need better features for marketing.

    You can easily move on to MailChimp paid accounts as low as $9 per month and if you need all the analytical features, there is MailChimp Pro which starts at $199 per month and it is on top of your monthly subscription fees.

    Signing up for MailChimp is always a breeze. You can start an account in just 5 minutes using this link.

     

    Why do I not recommend MailChimp?

    For starters, MailChimp doesn’t go on lightly with affiliate marketers. Now, this means that you are going to face massive challenges if you use MailChimp. Here’s a snippet of MailChimp’s terms of use:

    MailChimp Prohibited Content Affiliate Marketing

    MailChimp doesn’t allow affiliate marketing, along with several other industries.

    While I have seen a 50-50 chance of being caught using MailChimp for promotion the prohibited content, do you want to take the risk?

     

    How to use MailChimp and not get banned?

    The rule is simple: Do not spam.

    Industries such as affiliate marketing, work from home, make money online and lead generation are known for spamming and we should always avoid doing such.

    The quick way to solve this is by ensuring that we send only quality materials through email.

    Do you know that you can send educational emails (using MailChimp) pertaining to the sensitive subjects and not breaking the rules?

    After all, we all hate spam, don’t we?

     

    What are other MailChimp alternatives?

    If you are looking for affordable ones, then I would recommend ConvertKit. ConvertKit is known as the MailChimp alternative because it offers very similar features to what MailChimp does, but with some twists.

    The biggest and single differentiation between MailChimp and ConvertKit is the way they operate. MailChimp is list-centric and this means that number of subscribers are calculated based on the number of subscribers in the list.

    ConvertKit is subscriber-centric and instead of calculating subscriber per list, subscribers can opt into various lists (segments and groups) without being calculated twice.

    Do you know that ConvertKit has an awesome dashboard for an all in one view?

    ConvertKit Dashboard

    In a long run, ConvertKit offers much more saving compared to MailChimp.

    But hey, don’t take my word for it. Click here to schedule a demo with ConvertKit and see it live in action. This way, you will have first-hand experience understanding what ConvertKit is all about (and if ConvertKit is a good choice for replacing MailChimp).

     

    Over to you

    The answer is “Hell yes” if you are wondering is MailChimp free. As a seasoned Internet marketer, I have seen and gone through some hell weeks using MailChimp myself (due to own carelessness). MailChimp isn’t that bad after all in many sides and it is proven with big brands using it.

    As a recap, MailChimp is safe for us if you are in several industries. At the same time, I highly recommend you to take a look at other MailChimp alternatives such as ConvertKit for a more robust email marketing solution.

  • SendPulse Review – A Great MailChimp Alternative

    SendPulse Review – A Great MailChimp Alternative

    SendPulse, ladies and gentlemen.

    If you are looking for a good alternative to MailChimp, or have the question “is MailChimp good,” you’re going to love this post. This post will all about SendPulse, the latest email marketing service provider that I have come across recently.

    It is important to understand that Sendpulse is exclusively email marketing platform would diminish its value since it also offers free unlimited web push notifications and SMS messaging. But for the sake of this review, we will focus on its emailing service.

    Searching on Google, you may find a few thousand write ups about SendPulse and what it can do for you. I hope this write-up will give you even deeper insights, as well as some honest review for SendPulse.

     

    What is SendPulse?

    The tagline for SendPulse is ‘marketing made simple’. For me, what makes SendPulse unique is simply because it offers artificial intelligence (AI), hyper-personalization and predictive analysis to make your email go BOOM!

    sendpulse review

    SendPulse features

    Do you know why I said SendPulse is an alternative to MailChimp?

    SendPulse is freemium email marketing service provider just like MailChimp.

    For a free account, SendPulse allows you to have up to 2,500 email subscribers with 15,000 emails send out on a monthly basis.

    And yes, the stats will automatically refresh once every month.

     

    Email templates

    With SendPulse, you’ll access to all their email templates and trust me; they are pretty well done!

    Take a look at the image below for some samples:

    free email templates

    Kind of cool, right?

     

    SendPulse subscription forms

    Another “wow” factor for SendPulse is the subscription forms. If you are a MailChimp user, you know that it has very standard, generic look for their subscription forms. While you can perform modifications on the forms, they require some coding knowledge which can be a pain in the a*s for beginners.

    Now, take a look at what SendPulse can offer:

    SendPulse Subscription Forms

    Now, it doesn’t take me long to be mesmerized with these! So many options and a form builder as well?

    Perfecto, as what Italians always say!

     

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    Autoresponders (the first ‘wow’ factor)

    Keep the best for the last — this is what I always believe.

    Let’s be honest here. I was surprised that SendPulse offers autoresponders on their free account.

    SendPulse Email Automation

    As you can see from the image above, SendPulse provides three forms of automated series which are:

    • Autoresponder
    • Email triggered based on specific dates
    • Email triggered based on action takes or predefined conditions

    As email marketers, you probably heard how the big guns in nearly every industry use email automation to skyrocket their sales and visibility. You know, the soft sell, hard sell, etc.

    In most cases, email marketing is always considered well used only when you have a good email automation that integrates with a sales funnel.

    But the biggest challenge most people faced is that they are not leveraging email automation simply because of the price. And this is absolutely where SendPulse comes into play.

    Email automation system that comes either super affordable or free in most cases.

     

    A/B testing with SendPulse (the second ‘wow’ factor)

    You might be thinking, “Okay, this is crazy. What is SendPulse doing? Are they killing the market?”

    I would easily define the answer as they are revolutionary. With a freemium email marketing service that provides split testing features (also known as A/B testing) can be considered a home run.

    Yes, this is just too good to be true.

    SendPulse split testing feature

    Split testing can be very mind-boggling and complicated, but SendPulse makes it really, really simple.

    All you need to do is to fill up the details such as:

    • Naming the test
    • Select an address book
    • Choosing the right criteria for judging (opens or click through rates)
    • Sending the finalized, winning email either through automation or manual

    Allow me to I point out two important points on the final email sending.

    When you select automatic sending, you can set the system to pick the best winner after a particular time. In this case, you can choose either days, hours or both.

    Of course, the second point is the manual resend where you can decide to send the winning email at your pace. This option is excellent if you want to have more control over your email marketing strategy.

     

    SendPulse Pricing

    SendPulse comes with several different pricing structures. See below for better understanding.

    sendpulse pricing structure

    When it comes to email marketing with SendPulse, the lowest plan is the free which comes with 2,500 email subscribers and is an excellent choice for beginners and small businesses.

    If you require more features and services, you can purchase paid services instead which starts at $9.85 per month.

    Don’t forget that you’ll get 3 months free when you sign up when you pay upfront for a whole year!

    There is also Pay As You Go plans that start at $32 for 10,000 emails.

    SendPulse Pay As You Go

     

    More SendPulse exciting features – Push campaigns

    Wait! Do you know that SendPulse comes with push campaigns?

    Push campaign can easily be said as an instant notification from your website on your subscriber’s desktops.

    SendPulse Push Notification

    Looks familiar, right? You’ll see many websites doing that now (even those famous sites are using this technology as well).

    Here’s how it works (credit to SendPulse) for the video.

     

    SMS plans by SendPulse

    SendPulse is one of those email marketing providers that provide affordable SMS (short messaging system) plans.

    So, if your marketing goes beyond the standard usage of email and would want to engage using SMS, you should consider SendPulse for the matter!

    Don’t forget that SMS messages are great when you want to send instant messages, discounts, and other offers directly to them instead of the emails.

     

    Summary

    I was lucky to be able to use SendPulse for a few weeks, and I got to say that it is really good. For the free account that comes with automation and split testing, there’s absolutely nothing to complain!

    Plus, don’t forget that they have a lot of interesting email templates even in the free account.

    If you are interested in using SendPulse, there’s another great offer for you!

    Signup using this link to get a $50 discount for any monthly plan of your choice. The discount will be distributed equally for the first five months ($10 discount per month).