MailChimp versus Constant Contact – Which Works Best For Booster Club Email Updates?

Introduction

Having an email list is important for booster club marketing. It’s how you’ll contact and reach out to a wide range of volunteers, donors, students, and other interested parties with just the click of a few buttons. Being able to send booster club email updates is important for communication, fundraising, and promotion as well as several other great reasons. But, having a great email marketing platform to use is even more important. To help we are looking at Mailchimp versus Constant Contact to determine which is best for booster clubs.

We chose two of the biggest and most well known email marketing platforms to review: MailChimp and Constant Contact. Both are used by everything from booster clubs to bloggers and small businesses and both have their own pros and cons. Before settling on a specific company to use you should compare MailChimp to Constant Contact and see which one better meets the current needs and future needs of your booster club.

MailChimp versus Constant Contact

There are a lot of differences between these two companies but they also share a lot in common. For example:

• Both companies help you to make an email list and send out automated emails to your email subscribers.
• Both allow you to be GDPR compliant with double-opt in’s making sure that you are following in accordance with the laws of states and global internet usage.
• They both offer different options for placing sign up forms online. Embedded boxes within your booster club website, pop-ups for your website as well as landing pages and then some.
• They also offer a lot of templates to use where you simply add photos and text to the appropriate places to get nice looking emails with hardly any effort. A much easier solution than creating the templates from scratch.
• If you choose to make an email template from scratch you can also save it and reuse it every time you send emails so that you can have branded emails with hardly any work after the initial designing process.

But now that we’ve talked about the things that they have in common, let’s dive deeper into MailChimp vs. Constant Contact and see exactly what sets them apart.

MailChimp

To send booster club emails with MailChimp you will first need to sign up for a free account. There are many different payment options ranging from free to paid monthly services. Depending on how many email subscribers you have you can qualify for a free account.

MailChimp offers free accounts for up to 2,000 email subscribers and 10,000 emails per month (with ads) but the next tier on the pricing plan starts as low as $10 per month.

While MailChimp is great for the booster club on a budget and can do the main things that you’re looking for, you could be unimpressed with the lack of navigation on the website as things can get very confusing with lack of explanations or poor wording choices. You often find yourself opening one tab just to learn more about what you’re doing on another. For ease of use, Constant Contact is often preferred over MailChimp. This is something you’ll no doubt learn for yourself when you compare MailChimp vs. Constant Contact.

Constant Contact

In a fight of MailChimp versus Constant Contact, Constant Contact loses in the pricing category but gains huge strides in ease of use.  While MailChimp is cheaper, Constant Contact prices start at $20 per month. If the value is more important than the price tag, this is definitely the way to go.

Constant Contact offers more sign up form placement options and more customizability. Where MailChimp gives you basic sign up forms and CSS codes to customize on your own, not everyone can or is willing to learn how to add their own coding to make a form look unique. Constant Contact has plenty of options as far as designs, layouts, and placement.

Choosing to send booster club emails with Constant Contact can also be easier than with MailChimp because the email subscribers are much more organized. On your screen you can see the list divided by active members, non active members and more. MailChimp isn’t as organized and this is definitely one way that Constant Contact wins in a battle of MailChimp vs. Constant Contact.

Successful booster club email marketing means targeting those that are active and keeping the email open rates high. Don’t be afraid to remove people from the list if they don’t open for an extended period of time. You’re paying for people to be on your email list with your Constant Contact subscription so keeping the list contained to the interested parties that are actually opening your emails means there’s more room for other active members to join and that your money isn’t being wasted.

When you compare MailChimp vs. Constant Contact you will find that there are some very obvious reasons to choose one over the other. While costs always play a factor, you should make sure that they aren’t the only factor being considered. While it might make sense to choose a cheaper option as you’re getting started, eventually your booster club will grow and so will your email list.

Other things to consider about the email platforms

There are free trials for both email platforms so if you’re comparing MailChimp vs. Constant Contact, you can try both for free and get a look behind-the-scenes and find one with better ease of use.

Finding the platform that has a better ease of use for your booster club volunteers means that you can alternate, rotate or transition the responsibility of sending booster club emails much more easily. Like any position in a booster club, tasks must be rotated around for any wide range of reasons and email marketing is no different.

No matter which email platform you choose to use,  you can always change your mind later if you find that your current needs aren’t being met. With both platforms offering a free option for importing your current email subscribers, you can change seamlessly without losing a single member.

So take everything into consideration when comparing MailChimp versus Constant Contact and make a list of everything that is important to the booster club now and in the future. Prioritize that list in order of importance and what is needed first and foremost. Then seek out both email marketing platforms to determine which is the better fit for your group. With any luck, you’ll find the perfect email marketing platform in no time.