A mailing to all your customers
Specifically designed
Of course, you can use your ordinary e-mail program for sending out mailings, but these generally lack specific mailing functions. We tried out three dedicated mailing services: iContact (http://www.icontact.com), MailChimp (http://www.mailchimp.com) and JangoMail (http://www.jangomail.com).
Importing and managing contacts
These three tools allow you to import existing mailing lists from, e.g., Excel. They can track duplicates and allow you to bring specific customers together in separate groups - which is convenient for targeted mailing. The three services can also remove “unsubscribers” from your mailing list automatically.
Creating and sending mailings
Only iContact and MailChimp offer a handy “setup wizard”. The three services let you fully customise your mailing by means of templates. Adding weblinks, surveys, forms, an “unsubscribe” link and graphical elements is child’s play.
Note. “Image hosting” on the iContact server is limited to a mere 0.5MB, while MailChimp and JangoMail apply no such limit. Conversely, JangoMail is the only service to offer no integration with social media such as Facebook.
Is your mailing ready? The three services first send a test mail and check whether your mailing will be considered spam by e-mail servers. Another useful feature is that you can set a timer in order to send your mailing at a specific time.
Reports
Analysing the results is crucial, as these tell you the effectiveness of your campaigns. So a comprehensive analysis set and reports are essential. The three tools tell you the number of mails that have actually been opened and forwarded, plus the click-through ratio for the links contained in your mailing. You’re also informed about the “unsubscribers”. Only MailChimp doesn’t keep track of the number of “undeliverable” mails. iContact doesn’t allow you to add tags which you need for a further analysis in Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/analytics).
How much does it cost?
The table below lists the monthly prices. You can try out the three services for a limited period, but MailChimp allows you to send out mailings to up to 2,000 addresses without taking out a subscription, though there’s a limit on the total number of sent e-mails of 12,000/month. Taking into account all the above elements, our pick is MailChimp, except for mailings to between 10,000 and 15,000 addresses, where JangoMail is cheaper.
| Number of subscribers | iContact | MailChimp | JangoMail |
| Up to 500 | £6.20 | £6.20 / £0 | £9.30 |
| Up to 1,000 | £11.75 | £9.30 / £0 | £9.30 |
| Up to 2,500 | £18.00 | £18.60 | £15.50 |
| Up to 5,000 | £29.00 | £31.00 | £31.00 |
| Up to 10,000 | £45.85 | £46.50 | £31.00 |
| Up to 15,000 | £67.50 | £93.00 | £93.00 |
| Up to 25,000 | £92.30 | £93.00 | £148.50 |
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