Email marketing is something every business owner needs to consider. Having an email list or newsletter is the best way to mobilize your audience to take action. It’s also a great way to maintain an active community of readers and potential customers. When it comes to choosing an email marketing provider, two of the most effective providers on the market are Aweber and Mailchimp; and like any two competing companies, there are pros and cons.
Some of the similarities of MailChimp and Aweber are:
- Both companies offer an autoresponder option.
- Both companies have tracking options with Aweber’s being built in and MailChimp offering a little of both – the option to integrate with third parties like Google Analytics and using their built in A/B Split Testing.
- Both companies have html templates and forms that enable you to grow your lists and communicate with them on a regular basis.
- Both have merge tag options which allow for adding things to the newsletters like the subscriber’s name and other information.
- Both offer the ability to share your email campaigns using avenues other then direct email.
- Both offer the ability to segment your list and create targeted groups.
Some of the differences of Mailchimp and Aweber are:
- Mailchimp has a free option for up to 2000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month. Aweber has a 30 day $1 trial offer for up to 500 subscribers and after the trial period the price starts at $19 per month.
- Mailchimp’s design and customization options are more user friendly, especially for the person with little to no technical skills.
- Aweber has a higher deliverability rate than Mailchimp which tends to sometimes go into the subscriber’s junk mail. Perhaps that is why Aweber is the internet marketer’s top choice for email marketing providers.
- Aweber’s customer service is better than Mailchimp. Aweber has both email and live customer service while Mailchimp offers only email support.
- Mailchimp has a strong social media integration connection as Aweber’s is minimal.
- Mailchimp has the option to upload images right into your campaign without having to host your images elsewhere and upload with html code.
- Aweber has lots of customization options for optin box designs. There is no need to know code as you would if you want to create a custom optin box design in Mailchimp.
The bottom line is when it comes to an email marketing service that is right for you, it really depends on what you want out of the service itself. For the beginner, Mailchimp is the best choice. The best thing to do is to look at your overall business plan, mission and weigh your options. Both email marketing options are great choices but your decision will really be based on needs, desires, and knowing your target market.
