EMAIL TOOL RECOMENDATION

Comparing Constant Contact & MailChimp

ALAN'S BAKERY

Lisee Pullara

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Company Overview ............................................................ 3

Business Objectives + Goal ........................................... 4, 5

Target Market ......................................................................... 6

Strategies + Tactics ............................................................ 7, 8

MailChimp vs. Constant Contact       - Segmentation ............................................................. 9       - Price ................................................................................... 10       - Data Reporting .......................................................... 11       - Interface ......................................................................... 12       - Customer Service ................................................... 13       - Other Features .......................................................... 14

Summary + Recommendation .................................. 15, 16

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COMPANY OVERVIEW

Alan's Bakery is a popular bakery and deli in Metro Atlanta with 10 locations. Alan's is popular with business professionals, brides and the general lunch crowd. The bakery provides an informal yet upscale dining experience with freshly made, locally sourced and beautifully displayed menu items.  In addition to their usual menu, Alan's also makes specialty cakes for weddings, birthdays and events. 

ALAN'S BAKERY

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200, 000

STAY IN TOUCH WITH CUSTOMERSAlan's hopes to  use the new email service provider to better keep in touch with their customers about specials of the day and "VIP" customer invites. 

UTILIZE EMAIL CONTACT LISTAlan's currently has an email database of 200,000 emails, segmented by location as well as an additional list of bride-to-be emails. Emails will be sent out about twice a week. 

ENCOURAGE REPEAT BUSINESSAlan's plans to increase repeat business using the new

email service provider with emails about online ordering and reminders that promote catering. 

BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

BRIDAL TARGETINGAlan's needs a tool where we can

segment brides by wedding month and target them for wine and cake

tastings. We will send about 12 emails per campaign. 

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To best accomplish Alan's Bakery's business objectives we need to choose an email service

provider. In preliminary research, we narrowed the options down to MailChimp and Constant Contact. To make the best decision, I will analyze these platforms

based on segmentation capabilities, price, data reporting, interface and customer service to find the

perfect fit for our business' needs 

GOAL

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TARGET MARKETSCorporate Catering Alan's is perfect for a morning meeting with bagels and coffee, prepared boxed lunches for large corporate events or a staffed chef to prepare food onsite to woo clients. 

Brides  With Alan's reputation, brides-to-be are naturally interested in getting a cake from the bakery. Wine and cake tasting parties are a hit with brides and help them choose Alan's for their big day.

Frequent Customers Alan's wants to give back to their frequent and VIP customers with special events and updates about the daily specials.  6

STRATEGIESOur email list is composed of 200,000 previous customers as well as a paid list of brides. The main goal will be to encourage repeat business by cultivating interest from current customers, keeping Alan's top-of-mind for companies and expanding business with current customers into special occasion cakes and event catering. Additionally, Alan's will encourage brides to attend a wine and cake tasting in hopes of sealing the deal for their wedding cake.  

Encourage Repeat + Bridal Business

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TacticsDAILY SPECIALS ORDERING ONLINE CATERING SPECIAL EVENT OFFERS VIP EVENT INVITES BRIDAL CAMPAIGNS

Alan's Bakery will achieve their goals by sending emails about:

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MailChimp

SEGMENTATIONConstant Contact

MailChimp's depth and specificity of reporting outshines that of Constant Contact. With MailChimp, you can easily split test

and create segment lists to do A/B testing. 

A feature especially relevant to Alan's Bakery is the ability to send targeted email invitations for "VIP" customers who are

highly engaged in the email campaigns.  

There are advanced features that allow for segmentation based on campaign activity, purchase data and campaign activity that

create the most diverse and thorough segmentation. 

One of Constant Contact's most attractive features for Alan's is their automatic emails set up for birthday and anniversary

reminders. Birthdays and anniversaries are a huge part of Alan's email campaign strategy. Additionally, a set of auto-emails can

be set up for new subscribers.   

Both MailChimp and Constant Contact can segment by age, location and customer behavior. 

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$875 / MONTH

MailChimp

PRICE

Constant Contact$799 / MONTH

On the issue of price, Constant Contact is much cheaper than MailChimp. If Alan's were to go with MailChimp it would cost almost $1000 more a year for unnecessary additional features. 

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MailChimp

DATA REPORTINGConstant Contact

MailChimp clearly shines in its reporting capabilities. They have more features including:

Constant Contact's reporting is extremely different from MailChimp's but the basic features are the same. 

Bounce ratesClickable graphs and mapsSubscriber activity reports Revenue reports 

Industry comparisonsUnsubscribesPerformance trackingDomain performance 

Performance TrackingClickable mapsTrend MonitoringCampaign Comparisons 

MailChimp is set up to allow for easy A/B testing and this is included in their reporting features. They even offer suggestions

on your campaigns and have additional "Pro" features if Alan's decides to upgrade down the road. 

Constant Contact reports are much simpler than MailChimp's and A/B testing would need to be analyzed independently of

the platform's features. 

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MailChimp

INTERFACEConstant Contact

MailChimp has a lot of different features and tools but most of them aren't relevant to Alan's Bakery.

Constant Contact's is more relevant to Alan's Bakery's needs and customers. 

Pre-made Templates Drag-and-drop to build  Photo editingCan view in preview mode and send test emails

Can customize content with coding Has a mobile appChecks links automatically 

Pre-made Templates Drag-and-drop to build  Social and mobile friendlyFeatures for event registration

Can send and analyze coupons Has personalized emails for birthdays and anniversariesToolKit mobile app  

Constant Contact provides the best platform relevancy for Alan's Bakery. The ability to send coupons, have event registrations and automatically send birthday emails makes Constant Contact the right fit. 

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MailChimp

CUSTOMER SERVICEConstant Contact

MailChimp wants you to help yourself.  Constant Contact's provides multiple ways to get one-on-one and comprehensive help. 

Email and phone help supportCategory page for "Self Service" 

Constant Contact's video tutorials not only help you solve problems but also can improve your skills and email marketing techniques.  MailChimp has users read through all of the "Self Service" page without a lot of help, 

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Email and phone help supportFAQ pageVideo tutorials 

MailChimp

OTHER FEATURESConstant Contact

MailChimp has many features but they might be more useful for an e-commerce site than a bakery. 

Constant Contact's features resonate more with Alan's business and goals. 

Visually appealing email templates Can connect to an online storeIntegrates easily with other apps

Campaign ideasEasy upload email lists from Excel, Gmail or OutlookThe platform can expand beyond email with events, surveys and coupons in an upgraded version. 

As a designer, I am drawn to MailChimps email templates. They are clean, beautiful and easy to use but unfortunately many of

the other features aren't useful for Alan's Bakery.  

For Alan's Bakery, Constant Contact simply makes sense. These additional features will be useful and drive the best marketing

results for the bakery.  

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MailChimp delivers high quality, in-depth segmentation and reporting, but this may ultimately be too complex for Alan's needs and can't justify the extra $900 a year it would cost the bakery to operate. Constant Contact provides a more

applicable interface at a lower price and became the clear choice for Alan's Bakery. Though I prefer the visual appeal of

the MailChimp design, the campaign ideas and special occasion reminders on Constant Contact are more useful to

the business and our customers. 

SUMMARY

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Constant Contact should be the email platform used by Alan's Bakery due to its easy-to-use interface, low

price, birthday emails, campaign ideas, coupon capabilities and event features. 

RECOMENDATION Constant Contact

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