In this article, I want to address this new website builder form Mailchimp. Is this the right direction, are there really enough benefits to take their focus off email with a new “kinda related” software offering?
Mailchimp’s Website Builder
You read that right!!
I received this email (pictured below) from Mailchimp today and I was a bit taken back.
My first thoughts were about the website builder itself, I have seen so many builders and some of them are not user friendly, lacking in features or way over complicated.
Curious, I clicked the button and logged into my account.
I was pleased to see what they did, check out this quick sneak peak.
[wpvideo CdDSMC6H w=”800″ at=”60″ loop=”true”]
If you’re not familiar with Mailchimp’s user interface for email creation then let me explain.
It’s almost exactly the same. Which is brilliant.
If you do decide to use Mailchimp’s Website Builder and you already use Mailchimp for email marketing, you can have a site up quick since you don’t have to learn a new interface.
There is a Products Option
I was pleased to see they rolled this out with the ability to sell products.
I was disappointed that it only integrates with Square for payments.
The Business Decision
Now I’m pretty sure Mailchimp won’t really care for my thoughts here. I’m sure they’ve put plenty of thought and customer survey into this decision, but I still want to share my thoughts.
Mailchimp is a leader in email marketing, so shifting focus from that to put effort into building and marketing a website builder seems a take away from their core focus.
- Do we really need another website builder?
- Is there really that much of an advantage for them to offer a website builder? I mean, their forms are pretty easy to implement into existing website builders and WordPress.
In contrast, there is another company, ClickFunnels, that recently announced they are dropping a bunch of their projects and offerings to get more focused on their core product, which is their website builder software, ClickFunnels.
In hearing their announcement and the decision they are making to walk away from several million dollars a year to get refocused, made since to me.
Getting more focused on their core, will mean a better core product, which will mean happy customers, which will mean increased retention rates.
And I can think of one other, StudioPress, they also attempted to roll out a Website Builder solution called StuidoPress Sites. That didn’t last long, maybe a year, before it was shut down. However, they were acquired by WP Engine not too long after that, which might of had something to do with it.
I’m sure Mailchimp has it figured out, but I just hope this doesn’t get a bunch of attention then slowly fade out and become one of those things they maintain to only support the 25 users that signed up and built their site during beta.
What About the Landing Page Builder?
I know that they have been offering a “landing page” builder for some time now, which makes since for an email provider.
You really just need a simple landing page to get the email optin from your visitors.
But offering a full blown website builder gets a bit more advanced. It adds several different features and elements going beyond the goal of getting an email added to your list.
It just doesn’t seem like a good focus.
Why Mailchimp Can Make It Work
If anyone can make this a success, it’s Mailchimp. If you don’t know about their story, the most important parts are that they bootstrapped Mailchimp from day one. They were a 6 year side hustle that today is approaching 700 million dollars.
They were profitable from day one. And to put that into comparison for you, startups, like Slack, who is under 200 million dollars is still not profitable and using investor money to grow and trying to go public.
While I feel its a bit of distraction from their core offering, I’m sure they’re not just throwing stuff at the wall hoping it works, like some companies out there. And at the same time, they have already mastered the email thing.
The Wrap Up
If you like and use Mailchimp, like I do, go checkout their website builder.
Who knows, it may be exactly what you’re looking for.
I’d love to hear what you think of it and if you plan to use it, just drop your feedback in the comments.
I hope I am wrong about this, after all Mailchimp has been dominating the market for some time.
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