Email marketing mailchimp alternatives
16 June 2023
|
Circular 23-035 Relevant for Club Committees and Management |
With the latest pricing structure change initiated by Mailchimp, more clubs are looking for alternative email marketing options. I did a dive into what was still available for free.
If money is no object, the leader in the email mailout space for a number of years now is Mailchimp. They are good and their system works and is generally very reliable. For free you can send up to 1000 emails total per month. So that would mean if you wanted to send one newsletter per week to less than 250 members, and don’t mind a little mailchimp branding then you could do it for free. Otherwise you would need to be on one of their paid plan options.
The Mailchimp Essentials plan offers 5000 emails for NZ$17 per month with additional templates, no mailchimp branding for a more professional look, etc. The Standard plan is 6000 emails for NZ$25, and it goes up from there. www.mailchimp.com
Another strong contender in the upper end of this space is Klaviyo. A popular choice for large businesses with ecommerce that need additional tools such as marketing flows etc. They do have a free version but its even less than Mailchimp at 500 monthly email sends, with paid plans starting from US$45 month. www.klaviyo.com
So that’s fine if you have a decent marketing budget, however most clubs are just looking for a free way to send a mailout to members once a week. For that reason we have ruled out Hubspot, Constant Contact, Freshworks, Campaigner, and GetResponse, whose free plans had even less offerings, and also anyone that wanted us to sign up just to see the pricing (Dot Digital).
Our pick of the bunch is Mailer Lite which is free for up to 1000 subscribers (members). It also allows 12000 emails per month so plenty if you are just sending a mailout once a week to your member list. It was easy to sign up and use and is a great free option for sending email mailouts.
As with most free things on the internet, it includes branding and probably an advertising logo on the free plan. www.mailerlite.com
To help with importing your member list into Mailer Lite I have put together this help video –
Another option with a good free plan is Zoho. Their Forever Free plan offers up to 2000 contacts with a limit of 6000 emails per month. Using Zoho with less than 1500 members, you could send 4 mailouts per month for free. Paid plans start from about $5 month.
It is worth mentioning that Zoho is a full CRM package and so is a little more difficult to sign up and use than Mailer Lite, but does offer more comprehensive features, particularly on their paid plans. They also offer help with importing your subscriber list.
As with all of these services, Mailer Lite and Zoho both allow you to build campaigns, and there are basic templates and forms you can drag and drop to create a professional mailout for your members. www.zoho.com/campaigns/pricing
Another possible option is Brevo (formerly sendinblue) with a free plan offering 300 emails per day with branding (so only good if you have less than 300 members), and larger plans starting from US$25 month 20k email month. www.brevo.com
I hope this helps with a free way to keep your members up to date with club happenings via email list, and if you have any questions please contact Leigh by emailing leigh@clubsnz.com or by phoning 021 887 497.
