This project dives into a comparison of these two email marketing companies, and ultimately makes a recommendation for a specific client.

1. VS
Emily Bowler MARK 4650

2. Table of Contents
Company Overview .....................................................Page 3
Business Needs ............................................................Page 4
Target Audience & Approach ....................................Page 5
Finalists .......................................................................Page 6
Segmentation ..............................................................Page 7
Pricing ..........................................................................Page 9
Reporting .....................................................................Page 11
Interface ......................................................................Page 13
Customer Support .......................................................Page 15
Additional Features ....................................................Page 17
Comparison Summary ................................................Page 19
Final Recommendation ..............................................Page 20

3. Company Overview
Alan's is a popular Metro Atlanta
Deli/Bakery/Confectionery. Its 10 shops are
conveniently located near large office buildings
in Downtown and in the affluent northern
suburbs. Alan's offers fresh, locally sourced,
beautiful breakfast and/or lunch items in an
upscale yet informal dining experience. In
addition to the retail breakfast/lunch crowd,
Alan’s also does a great deal of catering for
offices. Whether it’s a breakfast meeting of
bagels and coffee, boxed lunches, or staffing a
chef to prepare hot foods on site, Alan’s is ready
to serve. With their strong reputation for
quality, reliability and a friendly staff you can't
go wrong with Alan's!
Alan’s is also one of the best
bakery/confectionary in
Atlanta. They are known for
creating fabulous wedding
cakes; brides constantly choose
Alan’s because they believe they
can have anything they want.
Additionally, the bakery makes
cakes and other deserts for
birthdays, holidays and special
occasions.

4. Business Needs
Alan's is in search of an email provider so that they can encourage repeat
business by staying in touch with their customers. They intend to use
this service to send emails containing information such as:
- Menu Specials of the day / Place order online
- Reminder about catering options for 10+ people
- Send special emails targeting brides with offers
for wine/cake tasting parties
- Invite VIPs to “best customer events”
- Offers to cater office Christmas parties, summer
picnics, etc.

5. Target Audience & Approach
Alan's marketing department currently has a target market of 200k names
that they have gotten by purchasing a mailing list of local bride's email
addresses as well as from collecting information at the registers of the stores
around town.
Using these contacts, Alan's is looking for a mail provider that can help them:
- Send emails out twice weekly to a total audience of ~200k people
- Segment brides based on wedding month and send about 12
emails per campaign.
- Send a special email each month to people who have
purchased specialty cakes or desserts before reminding them that the
anniversary of their special day is coming and that Alan’s is ready to help them
celebrate

6. Finalists
Based off of Alan's business needs, it is clear that they need a email provider
that they need an email provider to achieve their goals. The marketing
department has narrowed the search down to two finalists so far, MailChimp
and Constant Contact. Throughout the next few pages I will analyze these
two email providers based on their segmentation, price, reporting, interface,
customer support, and additional features in order to make a final decision on
which company Alan's should use.

7. Segmentation
MailChimp offers extensive
segmentation options that can target
subscribers by their signup date,
engagement levels, purchase history, or
demographics
Offers the use of split testing with 4
variables
Allows you to save segments that will
automatically update when new clients
are added
They also offer an advanced
segmentation tool for those who
upgrade to MailChimp Pro, this upgrade
comes with:
Advanced segmentation
Additional list fields
Predicted demographics
With Constant Contact, you can use
details that you have collected from
your sign-up form to segment lists by
geography, age group, interest, or
industry.
Offers easy to use list building tools
that you can integrate on your
website, Facebook, from your tablet,
from apps, and even through text
Automatic A/B testing is available
for one test only.
Unlimited storage and custom fields
Autoresponder that sends
personalized welcome, birthday, and
anniversary emails
In addition to lists, they allow you to
add tags to subscribers

8. Segmentation Analysis
Both MailChimp and Constant Contact offer advanced features that make the
segmentation process easier for any company, but which segmentation options
are best for Alan's? Both of these companies offer up the ability to
automatically update segments when new clients are either added or dropped
from a list, which is something that will be very beneficial to Alan's. Constant
Contact offers up the ability to use tags to help categorize contacts to add an
extra level of organization and information for the segmenting process. On the
other hand, MailChimp provides more segmentation options overall in that
they not only can target based off of demographics, but they can also look into
subscriber engagement and customer behavior. They also offer further
advanced segmentation with an upgrade to MailChimp Pro. After analyzing the
segmentation tools for both of these companies I am deeming MailChimp the
winner since their options exceed what Constant Contact has to offer.

9. Pricing
$875/month for 185,001-
200,000 subscribers
Limited to 2,400,000 emails
per month
In order to upgrade to a Pro
subscription it is an
additional $199/month
$799/month to send emails
to 200,000 subscribers
Offers free 60-day trial

10. Pricing Analysis
Pricing can really make or break the decision for a company who is
debating between two competitors. At first glance, the pricing decision
seems simple. Constant Contact offers a lower rate than MailChimp and
they even provide new customers with a 60-day free trial, while
MailChimp does not have the option to try before you buy. Also, with
MailChimp if you want to have access to all of their premium features
you have to pay an extra $199/month. Taking all of this into
consideration I am going to give Constant Contact the winners badge
when it comes to pricing.

11. Reporting
With MailChimp, you can review your
individual campaign reports after
every email you send, or monitor your
audience growth, campaign
engagement, and e-commerce
performance directly from your
account dashboard.
Their interactive graphs show you
how many emails were delivered, how
many people opened your email, what
percentage clicked, and more.
Keeps you updated on open, click,
bounce, and unsubscribed rate
Offer data on Subscriber Activity,
which give you a real‑time report for
every subscriber’s email activities
Industry comparison capabilities
Specific email domain performance
Email click map overlap options
Constant Contact offers easy-to-
read engagement reports that track
sends, opens, and clicks
They have campaign comparison
reports where users can compare up
to 5 email campaigns based on open,
click-through, and bounce rates
Click tracking heat map capabilities
Compares mobile and desktop open
rates

12. Reporting Analysis
Not only is it important for Alan's to be able to send out specifically targeted
emails, but they also need to have the ability to analyze the success of their
emails to see what is and is not working. Constant Contact offers data that is
useful and important for a company to be able to obtain, such as engagement
rates, campaign comparisons, and click tracking capabilities. While these are
all great features, MailChimp also offers them and many more! MailChimp
takes their reporting a step further by offering more comparison capabilities as
well as a more in-depth analysis of different trends. For example, MailChimp
allows its users to perform industry comparisons to gauge how effective their
email marketing is relative to their competitors. This would be an effective
tool for Alan's marketing department to be able to use in order to determine
how they can stay on top of the competition. Due to the fact that MailChimp
offers more advanced reports, they are the winners of this section!

13. Interface
Customizable email templates with
drag-and-drop features
Email template reference guide for
coding
Built-in photo editing
Unlimited photo uploads
All templates are mobile optimized
Intuitive content manager that makes
it easy to filter, search, and organize
images and files
Automatic link checker that saves time
by verifying every URL in your email.
Landing page creation capabilities that
allows you to highlight best-selling
products, promote an ongoing sale in
store, and anything in between.
Mobile App for iOS and Android
that gives you the power to create and
send campaigns, manage subscribers,
and keep tabs on your account activity
Customizable email templates with
drag-and-drop features
Personalized templates for special
occasion such as birthdays and
anniversaries
Access to free stock photos, but they
limit the amount of personal photos
that you can upload
Ability to easily integrate content
blocks that can collect information,
drive to social networks, request
donation, offer discounts, ask for
RSVPs, etc.
Mobile App that lets you create and
send emails, and monitor and track
the success of sent emails

14. Interface Analysis
Both MailChimp and Constant Contact offer great options for creating
beautiful emails, but the real question is which interface is going to be the
easiest and most beneficial to Alan's? As a reminder, Alan's is looking to
constantly create innovative emails that will allow them to send out menu
specials, remind about catering options, target brides with offers for
wine/cake tasting parties, invite VIP's to events, and offer catering options.
With this in mind it is obvious that they are going to need to pick a company
that can help them achieve these goals with ease. While MailChimp and
Constant Contact both offer customizable email templates with drag-and-
drop features, Constant Contact already has a plethora of personalizable
templates for the majority of the occasions that Alan's wants to offer. The
fact that Constant Contact goes above and beyond to make creating enticing
emails as easy as possible, they win this round!

15. Customer Support
MailChimp's website provides access
to a support page that can help guide
users through any step of the email
service process
They link articles and provide videos
to explain anything that might be
confusing to a novice
Break down their support by category
so the information is easy to get to
Search bar application
Provide several options for contacting
them for extra support
Constant Contact's website includes
a FAQ & Tutorials page that
provides users with different sources
of information
Search bar for searching knowledge
base how-to-articles, tutorials, and
guides
Provide information on how you can
contact them for further 24/7
support

16. Customer Support Analysis
It is clear that both of these companies have covered their basis when it
comes to customer support. Both MailChimp and Constant Contact have
entire pages filled with information and links that can answer questions
and provide detailed guides about almost any problem a user might come
across. Yet one email provider still stands out the most. MailChimp goes
the extra mile in helping the user navigate their page by putting the
potential concerns into categories. Instead of only having the option to
type in key words relating to your problem in the search bar, with
MailChimp's customer support page you can first find the category that
your problem resides in and make the process of finding an answer shorter.
With that in mind, MailChimp comes out on top for customer support.

17. Additional Features
Marketing Automation
Abandoned cart notifications
Google Remarketing ads that give
you the power to recapture the
attention of people who leave your
website
Facebook and Instagram Ad
campaign creation options
Multi-user accounts
Can integrate profile with hundreds
of apps
Merge tags that allow you to
dynamically add content to your
email
Email Beamer that allows you to
create campaigns without even
logging in
Event marketing options
Ability to create online surveys and
polls
Social Share feature that lets you
promote your email on social media
channels — including Facebook,
Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Multi-user accounts
Can integrate your profile with
hundreds of apps

18. Additional Features Analysis
These days there are so many different tools that make certain aspects of our
lives increasingly easier. Since Alan's is looking for ease and access to the
latest technology, it is important that they not only look at segmentation,
pricing, reporting, interface, and customer support but they also need to
compare the additional features that MailChimp and Constant Contact offer.
After thoroughly reviewing their websites I found that both companies offer
social media options, multi-user accounts, and the ability to integrate your
profiles with hundreds of other apps. While Constant Contacts additional
features list is not much longer than that, MailChimp's list continues on.
MailChimp offers features such as abandoned cart notifications, Google
Remarketing ads, merge tags, and an email beamer option. These features
will be extremely useful to Alan's and will allow them to increase the data
that they have on users and hopefully increase their sales. These innovative
features are the reason why MailChimp is crowned the winner for this
category.

19. Comparison Summary
1. Segmentation: MailChimp offers advanced
segmentation options that Constant Contact
can't compete with, such as segmentation by
date, last purchase, subscriber engagement
and even customer behavior.
2. Reporting: MailChimp takes their
reporting a step further than their
competitor by offering more comparison
capabilities as well as a more in-depth
analysis of different trends.
3.Customer Support: MailChimp goes the
extra mile in helping the user navigate their
support page by putting the potential
concerns into categories which shortens the
time it takes the user to reach their answer.
4. Additional Features: MailChimps list of
additional features goes above and beyond
what Constant Contact has to offer.
1. Pricing: Constant Contact
offers a lower rate than
MailChimp and they even
provide new customers with a
60-day free trial, while
MailChimp does not have the
option to try before you buy.
2. Interface: Constant Contact
has a plethora of personalizable
templates that will be extremely
helpful for the different types of
emails and promotions that
Alan's wants to offer.

20. Final Recommendation
While both of these companies gave a valiant effort throughout this race,
I am going to be recommending that Alan's use MailChimp as their email
service provider. Even though MailChimp ended up lagging behind
Constant Contact when it came to pricing and an easy-to-use interface,
MailChimp more than made up for that with its wins in the other
categories. I believe that Alan's is going to be completely satisfied with
the amount of tools and resources that MailChimp will be able to provide
them. With the help of MailChimp, Alan's is going to be able to create and
distribute amazing emails to their target market of 200,000 brides and
current customers. The amount of data that they will be able to collect
and learn from with these email marketing campaigns is going to place
them high above their competitors and keep their customers coming back
to try their irresistible daily menu specials and get a sneak peak at the
decadent wedding cakes they are making.