I think our company has been a Mailchimp subscriber for over 20 years. As a company, we rarely use it at all – our email “blast” needs have very much declined in the last decade, mainly due to most communications being very client-specific. But we also used it for one client, who will not be needing it going forward. They are bringing their blast email needs in house (finally! :)) and at some point in April, we will cancel our Mailchimp account.
Mailchimp started out in 2001 and was immediately attractive to the big player in the blast email industry, Constant Contact. (By the way, I hate that name.) It was mostly due to pricing and ease of use. We had clients then that needed us to use their Constant Contact accounts to send emails for them back then. I did not like using it, it was clunky to a web developer. When Mailchimp came out, I recommended it to our clients as an alternative, and many eventually migrated there – and even better, took the task of blast emailing in house with the easier tools. Over time, only one remained that we managed.
I can’t help but feel that the effectiveness of these services has declined in the past decade. Part of that is due to a generation that has grown up on texting and mobile phones. Part of it is due to spam filtering and blocking software and new rules for delivery for major email hubs. Email still works, but not as well for immediacy as it once did. That is why you see these companies branching into SMS text services as well. We do not want any part of that.
And so, within the month we’ll be cancelling our Mailchimp subscription. We’ll have to figure out what to with that freed up money for the upcoming year.