Comparing Marketing Automation Platforms: ActiveCampaign vs MailChimp

platforms

Emailing marketing automation platforms can greatly support and improve your business. ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp are two of the most popular marketing automation platforms. They both use automation to create email campaigns for your customers and clients. MailChimp is easy to use and is quite affordable, however ActiveCampaign offers many innovative features. It can be difficult to choose between the two if aren’t sure about the similarities and differences. In this blog, we will be comparing the two marketing platforms and determining which one we like best.

Ease of Use

When it comes to user-friendliness, MailChimp and ActiveCampaign are pretty much tied. Both platforms are very straightforward and intuitive. Like anything, these platforms will require learning and take some time on your part but are still very easy to use.

Mailchimp using a drag-and-drop email editor, which makes it extremely easy to build a striking email campaign in a short amount of time. The complaint that many people have is creating forms, landing pages, and ads are all lumped together in the “Campaign” section. It is not a deal breaker but does create an extra step if you wish to create one of these.

ActiveCampaign also offers a drag-and-drop email editor. Although ActiveCampaign has a clearer interface, the campaign builder is more complex than MailChimp. Due to the complexity of the builder, MailChimp may be a better choice for beginners.

Pricing & Features

Pricing is one of the main aspects to look into, especially for small businesses or businesses that are just starting out.

ActiveCampaign’s pricing is based upon the number of contacts/subscribers you wish to have. The lowest number of subscribers to have is 500 and can go as high as 100,000. For the lowest number of subscribers, the costs would be $9/month for the lite plan, $49/month for the plus plan, $129/month for the professional plan, and $229/month for the enterprise plan. The chart below is based on having 1,000 subscribers.

Lite Plan

Plus Plan

Professional Plan

Enterprise

$17/month

 $49/month $129/month $229/month
Includes: Includes: Includes:

Includes:
  • Unlimited Sending
  • Email Marketing
  • Send Newsletters
  • Subscription Forms
  • Marketing Automation
  • Chat & Email Support
  • Up to 3 Users
  • Everything from Lite PLUS:
  • Facebook Custom Audience
  • Lead & Contact Scoring
  • SMS Marketing
  • Custom User Permissions
  • Up to 25 Users
  • & More!
  • Everything from Plus, PLUS:
  • Predictive Content & Sending
  • 3 One-On-One Training Sessions/month
  • Consultation for Automation Strategy and In-Depth Onboarding
  • Up to 50 Users
  • & More!
  • Everything from Professional PLUS:
  • Custom Mailserver Domain
  • Custom Domain
  • Dedicated Account Rep
  • Free Design Services
  • Free Social Data
  • Phone Support
  • Unlimited Users
  • & More!

To learn more about the plans that ActiveCampaign offers, click here.

Unlike ActiveCampaign, MailChimp offers a free plan. The chart below offers comparisons of each plan they have.

Free Plan

Essentials Plan

Standard Plan

Premium Plan

FREE

 $9.99/month $14.99/month

$299/month
Includes: Includes: Includes:

Includes:
  • Up to 2,000 Subscribers
  • 1 Audience
  • Basic Templates
  • Must Manually Send Campaigns (No Scheduling)
  • No Chat Support
  • MailChimp Domain
  • Pop-up Forms
  • & More!
  • Up to 50,000 Subscribers
  • 3 Audiences
  • Basic and Pre-built Templates
  • Ability to Schedule Campaigns
  • 24/7 Email/Chat Support
  • MailChimp Domain
  • Pop-up Forms
  • & More!
  • Up to 100,000 Subscribers
  • 5 Audiences
  • Basic and Pre-built Templates
  • Custom Coded Templates
  • Ability to Schedule Campaigns
  • 24/7 Email/Chat Support
  • MailChimp Domain
  • Pop-up Forms
  • & More!
  • 200,000 + Subscribers
  • Unlimited Audiences
  • Basic and Pre-built Templates
  • Custom Coded Templates
  • Ability to Schedule Campaigns
  • 24/7 Email/Chat Support
  • MailChimp Domain
  • Pop-up Forms
  • & More!

To learn more about the plans that MailChimp offers, click here.

Essentially, MailChimp is your best bet if price is a top concern for you. If you are a smaller business or just starting out and do not have more than 2,000 subscribers, the free plan will suit you. However, if you wish to be able to schedule campaigns, and have more creative freedom with your campaign designs, scheduling times, etc, then perhaps going with the essentials plan will benefit you more.

Design

Mailchimp has around 100 templates and designs for you to choose from. If you know how, you can also upload your HTML template directly to MailChimp. They have different templates for newsletters, events, notifications and ecommerce emails as well as basic templates for you to customize yourself.

ActiveCampaign has around 30 templates and designs for you to choose from. This platform offers the same templates as MailChimp such as newsletters, events, etc.

The only real difference between the two is the quantity of templates they have. With that being said, if you like to have many different options to choose from, Mailchimp is the way to go.

Automation

Mailchimp has a decent variety of automated campaigns such as confirmations of purchases and abandoned carts. However, these automated campaigns are not very flexible and are not as visually appealing as ActiveCampaign.

ActiveCampaign on the other hand has extremely professional and expensive looking automations that you would find in high end software. It offers everything MailChimp offers in terms of the variety of automated campaigns and then some.

Let’s Recap

After doing extensive research on both platforms, we can honestly say that one isn’t better than the other! It is all a matter of what you need and what you require. If you are a small business or just starting out and are working with a tighter budget, Mailchimp is the way to go. You can get away with the free plan, or upgrade to the essentials or standard plan for less than $20 a month. However, if you are a bigger business or company and are looking for more advanced features like automations and CRM, then we recommend ActiveCampaign.

Rosewood is a digital marketing agency outside Toronto dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and small businesses grow their online presence. We work with clients across North America and Europe to identify, strategize and reach their marketing goals!

You can join the conversation online on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. Or contact us to chat about your marketing goals for 2020!

Sign up for our Newsletter to keep up with our latest news!

Until next time,

Cassandra

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Why NOT to Buy Followers

followers

Having a lot of followers on social media does look impressive. Many people decide to buy followers, which are virtually just bots. And although it may look impressive, it can also look unrealistic and obvious for a small business to have such a large following.

We have compiled a list of reasons why NOT to buy followers and ways to grow your following organically.

The Engagement Won’t Last

When you buy followers, it provides no long-term value to your profile. When you first buy them, they will like, comment and view your content, but the longer you have the followers the less they will engage in your content. And tell me this, is it really worth having thousands of followers that are just a number and do not engage with you? You want your content to be noticed, you want your products and services to be purchased, but this won’t happen by purchasing followers. Essentially, your posts are still only being viewed by those that followed you organically, as the purchased bot followers are not viewing anything.

It’s Pretty Obvious

When someone sees that a small business, or personal account has thousands upon thousands of followers, it’s normal to question it. When you buy followers, the accounts that follow you make it fairly obvious that they are bots by having no profile photo, having a username that is only numbers and random letters, and having little to no posts. If you are a business trying to grow your brand, you really don’t want to have the reputation as the company that buys their followers.

It Misrepresents Your Analytics

Many social media platforms analytics and algorithms are based on engagement, especially Instagram. This is why buying followers is not going to help you. It is extremely hard to determine how well the people following you are connecting with your content if the bulk of those followers are bots.

Instagram Deletes Fake Accounts

Instagram has created an update that removes any followers, likes, or comments that come from third-party apps designed to grow a user’s follow count. Even worse than that, you can get deleted too just for buying them!

Buying Followers Can Get You Banned

When you buy fake followers, you violate the terms and conditions of almost every social media platform. The temporary feeling of having a huge following is not worth the risk of having your account banned. Especially if you are a business, having your account banned is something that is definitely awkward and embarrassing to have to explain to those who actually do engage with your posts. As of 2018, Facebook has closed over 583 million profiles that are “bots” and twitter has suspended over 70 million.

Our Experience

Recently, we had a client who’s only interest was to grow their follower count. While it certainly goes against our business morals, Rosewood is always looking out for our clients. So, we bought followers to truly try it out. For $56 USD, we purchased 5000 followers. Sounds great, right? We signed up, gave our Instagram account information and paid the cost. Within minutes we gained 2000 followers, then 3000, 4000, all the way up 7000 additional followers! However, quickly we realized that all of these accounts were fake. Within hours, the Instagram monitors deleted 98% of those bought followers.

So, take this as a free $56 lesson – do NOT buy your followers!

What to Do Instead?

Instead of buying your following that will only land you regretting it, build your following organically. This ensures that the people that are following you are actually interested in your content.

Almost all social media platforms have created an option to posts ads from your account. These are ads that you pay for and Instagram shares for you. Another way to build your following is to keep a consistent posting schedule. Having more content is better! Always make sure you are using hashtags on your posts. This is a super helpful tool that practically all social media outlets have.

An extremely helpful way to build an organic following is to post videos. According to Hubspot, social media posts with video have 48% more views than those without video.

If you are interested in boosting your video output on social media, check out our Videography and Photography page HERE for all of our package details. We have a special running for the rest of January to help kick off your 2020 with a social media makeover!

Building a following on social media is something that Rosewood can help with. Let’s work together to implement a social media plan into your business to gain it the recognition it deserves! Click HERE to contact us and learn more.

Til next time,

Cassandra

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Social Media Content Solutions for Small Business

social media

A social media presence is one thing, but ensuring your digital platforms remain original, on brand, and content-driven is another. No longer is it acceptable to not be creating your own media to share with your audience; those reposts and #throwbackthursdays are only going to get you so far.

Further, our most recent findings across social media algorithms have shown that, particularly over Instagram, if you aren’t posting more than five times a week, don’t expect results.

Staying Up to Date with Changes in Habits, Platforms & Algorithms

People’s habits change, new software is created and platforms need to update their algorithms to keep up with the influx of data all fighting for first place. This can influence how people use and react to social media marketing, as well as how marketers (us!) reach our target audiences.

We all need to make sure we stay ahead of the curve when it comes to social media. Doing so ensures you have the right tools at your disposal, an up-to-date strategy, and the required skills to make the most of your digital presence.

Content Packages Specifically for Entrepreneurs & Small Businesses

From blogs to photos and videos it can all get overwhelming to keep creating kick-arse posts for your business. It’s a fulltime job, right? Well, what if I said we can help with that?

Our professional photography and videography services are designed specifically for entrepreneurs and small business owners to help tell their stories.

Our friends over at Hubspot in their most recent 2020 Video Marketing data shows that 72% of customers would rather learn about a product or service by way of video. Additionally, they found that people who don’t currently use video are set to bite the bullet this year, with 59% of them expecting to utilize it in 2020.

We Recommend Quarterly Media Shoots to Stay Seasonally Relevant

But, we aren’t here to just push video – because sometimes it just doesn’t apply to your business offerings. That’s why we offer photography services, too. We typically recommend quarterly photoshoots, to ensure that your content is seasonally relevant. These pictures can be used in blogs and as social media content. Not only do they tell your story, but they help your audience resonate with you and build trust.

Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t be. We are here to help. Believe it or not, our process is very streamlined, and you can have fresh content ready for posting in less than a week.

Our Process:

  1. Content Planning Session
  2. Photo/Video Shoot
  3. Editing
  4. Use Your Photos! Options: Either the client can manage their social with special training from Rosewood on BEST practices OR Rosewood can manage your social media presence

Want to know more? Check out our Videography and Photography page HERE for all of our package details. We even have a special running for January to give your social media the 2020 facelift it needs.

The sooner you contact us, the sooner we can get started!

Looking forward to seeing you through the lens,

Georgie

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