Wednesday 13 August 2014

Do you need Mail Chimp?


I fell in love with Mail Chimp back in the '09. So many years ago now. It was a beautiful moment for me. It was one of those rare moments in life when you look deep into the eyes of a corporate mascot, and you realise that even deeper down inside yourself you are a sucker for a chimp with a little hat and satchel.

We've all been there.

Mail Chimp is pretty straight forward. It is everything that the name implies that it is.

Imagine, if you will, a digital chimp who lives not in the wild reaches of Africa, but dwells deep in the darkest heart of the internet. A digital chimp that delivers your e-mails for you. A chimp that also manages your mailing lists. A chimp that even alsoer helps you with your templates. A chimp that even alsoest does analytics for you that look super pretty.

Pretty standard chimp stuff really.

That's what it is. It does other stuff too, but it's this thing that I have described. In a hat and satchel.

Also, if you have 2000 subscribers, and are sending less than 12,000 e-mails a month, the chimp in the natty hat will do you for free. That's good for small businesses and people who are just starting out, and the prices stay pretty reasonable after that. He keeps costs down by only wearing a hat.

That IS pretty cool, but the thing I think I like most about Mail Chimp is that it will punish you if you are greedy, stupid, and have an actual human bum for a face. Mail Chimp is totally prejudice against bum-faces.

Let me explain.

There are lots of bad things that you can do that will pretty much ruin your correspondence, your mailing lists, and your relationship with your customers. What the chimp does is go, 'bad human!' and smacks you. He smacks you digitally. Then you learn not to do it again. If you are a bad learner he just refuses to deliver your mail for you.

This incredible chimp will settle so many arguments about things that should never be argued about in the first place.

Chimp knows best, and chimp says, 'No!'

End of chimp story.

He is kind of protecting you from yourself.

Like a chimp-run nanny-state.

The chimp will provide you with all of this information first if you want it. Which you should. He will teach you about mails and how they can best work for you, and he will make sure everything is awesome for you.

I enjoy the Mail Chimp so much that I often try to find excuses to use it, but usually fail at that and just convince other people to get into it. Then I 'provide support', and ask them to tell me what they're doing.

Step by step.

It isn't weird.

His name is Freddie.

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