If you’re Googling marketing automation and have started doing a little research on the subject, then you have already taken your first step. However, once you’ve taken the first step in deciding to implement marketing automation, you need to take the next step. Deciding which platform or software to use to achieve your goals. Although there are numerous options available to choose from, they are all right for you. That’s why we put together a quick review of 2 of the most popular marketing platforms, HubSpot and MailChimp.
MailChimp vs. HubSpot
MailChimp
MailChimp has been around for many years and is highly recognizable thanks to its monkey-based branding. The company established itself as a significant player in the world of email marketing. In the past year, they’ve expanded to become a full-featured marketing automation platform. The company has evolved from being an email sending platform to offering so much more.
Some Pros:
- Free plan available – This is perfect for small and new businesses looking to get their feet wet. MailChimp allows you to send 10,000 emails to a maximum of 2,000 subscribers every month.
- Complete and detailed reporting – Get access to detailed reporting related to email stats such as open and click rates, geo-tracking, social media tracking, and the option to easily integrate Google Analytics.
- Full featured template builder – Also included in the free package is access to MailChimp’s fully-featured email template builder. This allows you to create beautiful emails by simply drag and dropping the elements you want to add. Need to add an image or place a textbox? Just drag the relevant content block to your template and you’re ready to go.
Some Cons:
- Expensive subscription plans – Although MailChimp offers a great free plan, their subscription plans can get quite expensive as your user database of customers grows. The more users you want to send emails to, the more costly your monthly fee will increase.
- Can be tricky to set up automation – Implementing funnels and automation can be a little trickier in MailChimp. Setting up an auto-response email is easy enough, but it can sometimes get quite confusing if you’re looking to implement more complex funnels. You might need someone with a little more experience to manage your marketing automation and funnels.
Who is this service right for?
We usually recommend small to medium businesses to go with MailChimp. As long as you don’t have tens of thousands of users in your database or if you’re just starting to add customers, then MailChimp might be an excellent solution for you. Creating newsletters and setting up basic funnels or auto-response emails is fairly easy and straightforward to get done. Companies with large databases or looking to implement more complex funnels and automation should consider our next option.
HubSpot
HubSpot is one of the leading providers of marketing automation and CRM software available today. They offer a robust set of tools and features that can help you manage your entire online marketing strategy and activities in one place. If you want to send emails, create detailed funnels, schedule blog posts and social media posts in advance, or connect your acquisition teams with your marketing teams through one platform, then HubSpot can do it all, and more. Just remember more features don’t necessarily mean it’s better or the right choice for you. Let’s break down some of the pros and cons.
Some Pros:
- Fully featured platform – HubSpot provides users the ability to manage every aspect of their marketing activities in one place. Emails, funnels, blogs, social media posts and more, HubSpot can do it all. HubSpot also connects between different departments allowing you to share information or customer details between various departments.
- System is fairly easy to use – Finding your way around HubSpot is fairly easy and intuitive. Everything is labeled accordingly and switching between services and features is quite easy to do. They offer a full set of training manuals and videos to help you get more familiar. If you have some spare time, you can enroll in their free HubSpot certification program, explaining all the different services and features HubSpot offers. If you get through the entire course, you’ll receive a HubSpot certification badge, which you can proudly place on your website.
Some Cons:
- Expensive subscription plans – HubSpot is aimed more at medium to large size businesses. Therefore, the costs for getting set up with HubSpot can be quite expensive.
- Limited free version – HubSpot has a 2-week free trial that is intended to let you play around with their platform and try out some of the features. However, you won’t be able to take advantage of most of their features until you purchase one of their plans. You are also limited to available resources, such as some training guides and some training videos. On the plus side, they don’t require you to enter any credit card information to access the 2-week free trial.
Who is this service right for?
HubSpot is intended for medium to large companies that are already running their marketing plans and activities. If you’re looking to automate every aspect of your online activity, then HubSpot could be a great solution. Prepare and schedule your blogs, social media posts and newsletters to go out at the same time. Or, if you prefer, you can schedule everything to go out separately and at different times or days. Not all of the features available will be necessary or required for your specific needs. Small or new businesses looking to get started with marketing automation or even just with something simple like sending newsletters should look to MailChimp services instead.
Conclusion
Depending on your goals and needs, you may prefer one option over the other. The important thing is to outline your goals and what you need from your new platform. Then you can visit each site to get a full list of all the services and features each platform offers to get more information.
ThreeeDots is an experienced marketing automation company that is certified with MailChimp and HubSpot platforms. With over ten years’ experience, we know our way around many different platforms and services on the market today. We can get you set up and running in no time.
For more information, visit us at https://threeedots.com, or email us at marketing@threeedots.com
