If you’re like me then you love to find a great tool that’s easy to use, inexpensive and performs well. One such tool I discovered recently is Email Service Provider MadMimi.com
If you’ve been in business for some time, and you have a substantial number of clients and contacts and would like to start sending effective but simple-to-create email newsletters and e-flyers to them, MadMimi is a great choice for four reasons:
1. MadMimi allows you to import your contacts and clients without forcing you to “confirm” each and every subscriber. Using Aweber or KickStartCart may decimate your list if you are not very careful and take a systematic approach to confirming your subscribers. With MadMimi you can “confirm” your subscribers over time in a gentle way.
2. MadMimi’s simple-yet-sophisticated email creation wizard is so easy to use, anyone with basic computer skills can be off and running in an hour, so you don’t have to hire someone like me to manage your e-newsletter for you 🙂
3. One of the features some of my clients appreciate the most: it’s free, for as long as your email contact list contains fewer than 100 people. Service plans starts at a very affordable US$8 for up to 500 contacts, and you can send as many emails as you like – the service cost is determined by the number of contacts, not by the number of messages you send. No long-term contracts, pay as you go.
4. On top of that, MadMimi has the most responsive and friendliest support staff of some half dozen Email Service Providers I’ve ever dealt with.
In case you’re looking for a service that offers autoresponders, MadMimi has that very feature in the works as I write this – and knowing the guys behind it, the service is just going to get better and better. Highly recommended.
Sign up with MadMimi today even if you’re not ready to start using email for marketing — their free account offer may not last much longer. If you’re already a MadMimi user, share your experience by commenting on this post.
Thanks Boris. Our company could benefit from Mad Mimi. We’re in the same boat. Looking for simple yet effective ways to send newsletters, etc. There’s an interesting study regarding how people are treating blasts and their email in general. We just put up a little blog about it.
Just wanted to say thanks to you, Boris for turning us on to Mad Mimi. Easy interface and a great organization with spectacular customer service. The quickest and most cost effective way to connect with present and potential clients. Cheers!
Just found out about this great add on for MadMimi called BigTie! for MadMimi. It will automatically copy all of your blog’s subscribers to your MadMimi email marketing account.
I am testing it now and will publish an article soon.
Boris,
Thank you for sharing your experience. I saw your answer about constant contact vs aweber on linked in, and followed the answer to Mad Mimi (where I immediately signed up).
A question for you… In my research of the various options, one of the things people really like about Aweber (they say it stands out from others) is their delivery rate… people say Aweber does the best job at delivering newsletters through optimized relationships with various ISPs.
What is your opinion and experience on this point?
Thank you,
David
djbressler (at) gmail (dot) com
David,
It is true that Aweber’s users enjoy industry-leading delivery rates. However, I’d argue that if you, as the publisher, use email marketing best practices, that your own delivery rates will be just fine regardless of which ESP you use.
ESP’s only business is delivery of email. I’m sure they all strive to have a good working relationship with all ISPs.
I’ll share my experience with Aweber: one of my clients was using them and their confirmation rate was only 50% – meaning, of all the people who subscribed using the online form, only half actually became confirmed subscribers. This changed dramatically as soon as we started using a thank you page where we advised new subscribers that they should look for the confirmation email and that, possibly, that email could end up in their spam folder. Using this simple technique we managed to bring the confirmation rate up to 99%, effectively doubling the list.
For many users MadMimi’s ease of use would be the deciding factor. Their exemplary customer service will make all the difference for some, I’m sure.
I hope this helps!
I am leaning towards going with MadMimi, but noticed that these posts are from 2009. Are there any 2011 posts regarding MadMimi?
Hi Gina,
Good point, I should write a follow up post about Mimi, soon 🙂
Here’s a list of all the articles on this blog that mention MadMimi.
But, back to your main point, yes, my strong recommendation still holds, as MadMimi has become even better, with features such as RSS-to-email, social links, etc.
Their email editor looks so simple you may think it can’t be very good, but quite the oposite is true — it’s so much harder to make something look easy and make it powerful at the same time, and the team at MadMimi have managed just that.
It doesn’t hurt to try MadMimi: you can use an account for free — with full features enabled — for as long as your lists are fewer than 100 contacts.
Most of the features are included in the regular price (which is typically 50% lower than their competitors’), but some advanced features are an added cost. However, overall, I’d say MadMimi is probably your best bet in terms of total cost, ease of use, features and excellent support.
Fell free to ask any questions here, or shoot me an email at Boris@…. or on Twitter @YourEzineCoach
I’ve been using Constant Contact, but I’m now checking out Mad Mimi and Campaign Monitor (they both look excellent). Thanks, everyone, for the opinions.
Bob,
Campaign Monitor is really meant more for designers who manage their clients’ email campaigns. Also their pricing is twice as much as MadMimi’s
If price is not a factor, then make your choice by features they offer.
Hi Boris. Stumbled here while comparing constantcontact, icontact, aweber, and mailchimp. Never heard of Madmimi, so will have to add that to the mix. Perhaps you can give me your thoughts: I have a wordpress dot COM blog, note the COM not ORG which means I’m somewhat limited in adding code, etc, although I can add widgets to the blog. I am looking to have an opt-in sign up for a newsletter on my blog. I’d like to be able to send a freebie white paper when they sign up. Then, ideally a program in the ESP that places the last week’s blog posts into newsletter template and emails out. If the ESP could import my current blog subscribers, too, that’d be awesome. What would you recommend? Is this something I can pay you to help me with??
Hi Melissa,
Last time I checked, all of the ESPs you mention, except Constant Contact, have the ability to import your blog posts and send them out as newsletters.
This is also true of MadMimi.
If you can add any text widget to your WordPress.com-hosted blog’s sidebar, then you can use the code supplied to you by any one of these ESPs.
The way you’d deliver the white paper would somewhat depend on the ESP: some are able to send attachments (I’m assuming a PDF), but I wouldn’t recommend this option, since attachments can get filtered by spam filters.
A better option would be to use a “thank you” email which you’d send automatically once the new subscriber confirms the subscription. This email can then have a link to your white paper, which you’d have to upload to your site via the WP back end.
You would want to hide the page that contains the link to the PDF from your blog’s menu.
If this sound too complicated, please call me at 1-888 694 2655 9am-4pm EST to discuss your options.
cheers
Boris