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A few months ago, we switched our email marketing tool from Mailchimp to Drip. Many of our email newsletter subscribers have asked us to write about why we decided to switch.
When it comes to email marketing, choosing the right email marketing service that meets your needs is really crucial.
In this article, we will share 4 reasons why we switched from Mailchimp to Drip and how they help us deliver more personalized emails, automate our marketing campaigns, and more.
Note: This article is part of our WPBeginner Insider series, where we introduce you to the products we use at WPBeginner. We publish WPBeginner Insider every other Thursday.
Background
In our early days, Mailchimp turned out to be the best bet for our email marketing needs. Over the years, we’ve grown from being the largest free WordPress resource with a team of 3-4 members to a software business run by 300+ people.
As we grew, we needed an email marketing service that is both easy to use and comes with all the essential email automation tools for our growing demands.
On the other hand, most of our sister brands, like WPForms, OptinMonster, and AIOSEO, had already been using Drip, which offers superior email automation tools compared to Mailchimp.
After careful consideration, we finally decided to move our WPBeginner email list from Mailchimp to Drip.
4 Reasons Why We Switched From MailChimp to Drip
Whether you are running a blog, an online store, or just about any business, choosing the right email marketing service for your needs is fundamental to your success.
Our top priorities for email marketing software include customer segmentation and personalization settings.
That being said, let’s jump into the specific reasons we made the switch from Mailchimp to Drip in the first place.
1. Better Segmentation Features
Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing tools. But as we grew our email list, we realized that there were a lot of limitations that would keep us from growing.
And one of those is Mailchimp’s limited segmentation feature.
Email segmentation means breaking up a list of subscribers into smaller, targeted groups so that you can send them the most relevant information.
Generally, it’s better to create lists based on demographic and behavioral data, including content users have clicked on, the optin form where users have signed up from, and past purchases.
Rather than sending all types of content to everyone, you can send hyper-personalized emails to a specific set of people.
With email segmentation, you can:
Increase open and click-through rates.
Achieve higher conversion rates and return on investment (ROI).
Boost revenue (In fact, 77% of ROI comes from segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns).
Receive fewer unsubscribes.
Improve email deliverability.
In Mailchimp, you can’t segment your list based on email engagement, like opening an email and clicking a link that leads to a certain page.
In fact, how users engage with your content is like a vote of confidence as to what type of content and products or services they want to buy from you.
Mailchimp does track opens and clicks, but they are only shown in the reporting dashboard and cannot be used as a tool for automatic segmentation.
At WPBeginner, that meant we couldn’t pinpoint exactly what type of emails you enjoyed reading and send more helpful content you’d find valuable.
On the other hand, Drip allows us to segment our email list based on an if-then command. For instance, if one of our subscribers clicks on a specific link in an email, then we can tag them as someone interested in that topic.
Plus, it allows us to manually segment subscribers when needed. That gives us the flexibility to send the right messages to the right people.
This is a big reason why we agreed to go with a Mailchimp alternative instead.
2. Better Personalization
Email personalization is a strategy that customizes email content to the specific behaviors, interests, and preferences of the individual recipients.
It goes well beyond simply addressing their name in the body content or subject line.
When done correctly, it should speak directly to the person’s wants and needs. As a result, they are more likely to open your email, interact with it, and even make a purchase if you are selling a product.
We felt limited by the personalization options provided by Mailchimp.
They do offer merge tags, which means you can dynamically replace content within an email with the data you have stored about a subscriber, but they are limited.
On the other hand, Drip can do all of that and so much more with their Liquid tags. For instance, you can personalize the email based on subscribers’ tags, their behavior, the time when the automated email was sent, and more.
3. Better Email Automation Features
Email automation means using predefined rules to trigger email messages based on specific actions that your subscribers take or don’t take.
As a marketer, your job is to get your audience from point A to point B. For example, you might focus on building trust with a newsletter subscriber to get them to purchase a product.
Drip allows you to automate your email strategies based on a feature called workflows. With workflows, you can visually design how you want to schedule your email marketing campaigns.
From the above screenshot, as you can see, when this workflow is turned on, someone who subscribes to your email list will receive an email after 2 minutes of subscription only if they haven’t placed an order before. With Drip workflows, if you can dream an idea, then you can build an email campaign the way you want.
We combine workflows with our email series to send custom-built email campaigns for specific audiences.
4. Minimalistic User Interface
Since email marketing platforms can feel overwhelming at first, a simple and straightforward user interface (UI) is very important for the user experience.
Mailchimp has quite a dated, clunky feel to it and tends to cram a lot of options on one page, making it more difficult to find what you are looking for.
Alternatively, Drip has a cleaner, more modern UI and allows you to access all the essential features with just a click.
We believe you don’t have to be an email marketing specialist to use Drip since everything is templated and drag-and-drop.
Final Thoughts – Drip Review
Drip works well for our specific email marketing needs, especially since our list has grown substantially over the years. With their tags, you can create laser-targeted segments. With workflows, you can visually plan and execute how you want your email campaigns should be.
We recommend Drip for businesses that want to grow their email lists, especially for online stores, since Drip connects with all the major eCommerce platforms and allows users to track revenue metrics.
But we understand that Drip isn’t for everyone. It might be too advanced if you are a business with a small email list or just getting started with your newsletter. In that case, you may want to choose Constant Contact instead.
We recommend Constant Contact because they offer all the essential features that you need to get started with your email list at an affordable price.
We hope you found this article helpful in finding out why we made the switch to Drip. You may also want to check out our blog on how to create an email newsletter the right way or our list of easy ways to grow your email list faster.
Full Disclosure: We didn’t get paid to write this Drip review. It’s simply a platform that we enjoy using, and we want to share our thoughts on why we prefer it over Mailchimp. That way, we can provide the most value to our readers. We do include an affiliate link to Drip, so if you use our link, then we will get a small commission. That being said, we only recommend services that we believe will truly make a difference in your business.
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