5 better Mailchimp alternatives for ecommerce

By Whitney Blankenship

MailChimp has become a generic title for email marketing, like Amazon for ecommerce, or RedBull for energy drinks. Every business is dreaming about such a strong branding and positioning in the market.

Lifestyle bloggers, governmental and non-governmental institutions, entrepreneurs – all know what MailChimp is.

It’s true that for user-friendliness MailChimp does well with a visual newsletter editor and clear tutorials to help you figure out how to use the tool.

However, being a perfect fit for bloggers or business beginners, they miss a set of features necessary for growing ecommerce businesses and their marketing strategies. Otherwise, you wouldn’t look for better Mailchimp alternatives.

The following alternative tools are focused on ecommerce. Here’s what they offer:

-Omnisend: Omnichannel approach to ecommerce marketing

Omnisend is more progressive than generic email marketing platforms. This platform provides omnichannel tools that allow you to implement a fully integrated user experience for your customers.

With Omnisend, you can create an automated, seamless communication flow via email, SMS, social media, Facebook messenger, etc.

The biggest perks of this platform are a user-friendly interface and an in-depth integration with ecommerce platforms. That’s why the platform is capable to provide its clients with extra comprehensive sales reports, intuitive in-store newsletter builder, sophisticated email capture studio, etc.

Omnisend has more features working out of the box than MailChimp. This platform stands with Klaviyo on the same page but is more affordable to entrepreneurs.

– Drip: A platform for marketing automation beginners

Drip may be the best MailChimp alternative for entrepreneurs who want to start implementing email automation into their marketing strategy. This platform has a very good visual interface that helps beginners to organize their workflows for the entire email communication.

Also, Drip provides a great email-builder. So your emails will look professional and fresh.

As a limitation of this tool, I see the lack of in-house instruments for email capture. If you need opt-in forms or landing pages, you will have to integrate third-party tools.

In-depth customer segmentation is also out of Drip’s league. At least, for now.

With that said, if you are an email marketing beginner and already use the signup forms by another provider, Drip can be a great Mailchimp alternative.

– Klaviyo: Marketing automation for audience segmentation

Klaviyo is one of the most comprehensive email marketing platforms in the market. They provide entrepreneurs with well-designed marketing automation functionality, customer segmentation, a decent number of signup forms, etc.

As the biggest strength of this tool, I see the advanced segmentation that Klaviyo is capable of offering. Possibility to divide your customers into small segments and to approach them properly can bring you a fortune.

However, everything has the price. And the growing business with Klaviyo can get pricey very quickly.

– ActiveCampaign: A CRM-like alternative to MailChimp

ActiveCampaign is one of the most sophisticated tools on this list. Considering the list of features and capabilities of this platform it feels more like CRM.

Using ActiveCampaign you can organize the customer databases, manage sale pipelines, follow and make notes about the customer journey, etc. And that all is next to generic email marketing functions.

However, the time it takes to master this sophisticated platform can be considerable. You have to be prepared for advanced marketing levels as well as advanced features.

– GetResponse: Email marketing made with ease

GetResponse is as comprehensive as ActiveCampaign. But despite having an entire set of advanced features, it claims itself as the simplest email marketing tool to use.

On this platform, you will find all the basic email marketing tools, plus marketing automation, CRM functionality, a toolkit for webinars, etc.

All that features sound awesome. But this tool is also more expensive than ActiveCampaign or MailChimp. On the other hand, GetResponse offers a free 30 days trial. Unlike other tools, this platform offers a trial period that’s twice as long, so potential clients have more time to explore it and decide whether worth paying for it or not.

Conclusion

The software supply is huge. Your task is not to rush and make sure you choose a new tool that matches your skills, goals, and finances. Otherwise, you will have to find yet another tool and spend time on this once again.

So take your time, ask providers for a live demo if possible, or use the free trial to test the platforms more thoroughly. Who knows, maybe marketing strategies on the new platform will bring your brand to stand next to RedBull or Amazon.

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Whitney Blankenship is Content Marketing Manager for Omnisend. When not writing awesome content, Whitney is reading up on the latest in digital marketing, ecommerce, and social media trends. Obsessed with pop culture, art, and metal. Powered by coffee.

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