Why we recommend Mailchimp as one of the best email marketing tools for small businesses

Why email marketing still matters in 2025

Email marketing continues to deliver exceptional value for small businesses in 2025. As we've previously discussed, email marketing remains one of the most powerful yet underutilised marketing tools available to small businesses.

Whilst social media platforms come and go, email marketing provides a direct line to your customers that you actually own and control. Recent studies show that email marketing delivers an average return on investment of £42 for every £1 spent, making it more effective than most other digital marketing channels.

Many small businesses still rely too heavily on social media alone, but smart business owners understand that email marketing works alongside social media to create a comprehensive marketing strategy that builds lasting relationships with customers.

Why choose Mailchimp for your email marketing

If you're planning any structured email marketing activities, you'll need a dedicated email marketing platform rather than trying to send emails through your regular email account. Mailchimp has established itself as the leading choice for small businesses, and here's why we continue to recommend it in 2025.

Perhaps you're not sending any marketing emails to customers at all right now. Maybe you're using Outlook to send individual emails to contacts, or you're doing mail merges from Excel spreadsheets to send occasional promotional emails. You might even be sending group emails with newsletter PDFs attached.

If any of these approaches sound familiar, switching to Mailchimp will transform your email marketing efforts. You'll be able to send professional campaigns that are safe, legal, and much more effective at engaging your audience.

Important changes to Mailchimp's free plan

Important update for 2025: Mailchimp has made significant changes to its free plan that you need to know about. The free plan now supports up to 500 contacts and 1,000 email sends per month (with a daily limit of 500 emails). This is more restrictive than previous years, but still provides excellent value for businesses just starting with email marketing.

For existing users (often called "legacy" users), many of the features you're already using will continue to work. However, if you're new to Mailchimp after 2025, you'll be on the updated free plan with these new limitations.

The good news is that once your email marketing grows beyond these limits, upgrading to a paid plan gives you access to much more powerful features. The Essentials plan starts at £10 per month and includes automation features that can significantly improve your marketing results.

Simple, user-friendly interface

Mailchimp has built its reputation on being incredibly easy to use, even for complete beginners. The platform uses a straightforward, wizard-based approach that guides you through setting up your account and creating your first campaigns step by step.

The main navigation is built around clear, logical sections that make sense to non-technical users. You'll spend most of your time in two main areas: "Audience" (where your contacts live) and "Campaigns" (where you create and manage your email campaigns).

Unlike some complex marketing platforms that require extensive training, Mailchimp's interface is intuitive enough that most small business owners can start creating professional emails within their first session.

Built-in analytics and tracking

One of the biggest advantages of using a professional email marketing platform instead of your regular email account is the detailed analytics Mailchimp provides. You'll see exactly how many people open your emails, which links they click, and what content resonates most with your audience.

This data is invaluable for improving your email marketing over time. You can identify your most engaged subscribers, understand which subject lines work best, and track how your email campaigns drive traffic to your website and generate sales.

The analytics dashboard presents this information in easy-to-understand charts and graphs, so you don't need to be a data analyst to make sense of your results. You can even export this data to integrate with other systems like your CRM if needed.

Easy website and social media integration

Building your email list should be as automatic as possible, and Mailchimp excels at this. The platform offers multiple ways to capture email addresses from people who visit your website or engage with your business online.

You can easily add signup forms to your website, create pop-up forms that offer valuable content in exchange for email addresses, and set up dedicated landing pages for specific campaigns. Mailchimp integrates seamlessly with popular website builders and e-commerce platforms like WordPress, Shopify, and WooCommerce.

In 2025, Mailchimp has expanded its social media integrations significantly. You can now connect with Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google Ads, LinkedIn, and Snapchat to create unified marketing campaigns that work across multiple channels.

GDPR compliance made easy

GDPR compliance isn't optional – there are strict rules about who you can market to and how you must handle personal data. Mailchimp takes care of most of this compliance burden for you, significantly reducing the risk of making costly mistakes.

The platform automatically includes the required legal information in your email footers and manages the unsubscribe process properly. This eliminates common errors like accidentally putting email addresses in the CC field instead of BCC – a serious GDPR breach that's impossible when using Mailchimp.

Mailchimp also provides clear guidance about who you can and should add to your email lists, helping ensure you have proper consent for email marketing. The platform's double opt-in features make it easy to prove that contacts have explicitly agreed to receive your emails.

Powerful marketing automation tools

Major update for 2025: Mailchimp has rebranded its automation features from "Customer Journey Builder" to "Marketing Automation Flows" and made significant improvements to these tools.

Marketing automation allows you to send the right message to the right person at the right time, without having to manually send each email. You can set up welcome email sequences for new subscribers, abandoned cart reminders for e-commerce customers, and re-engagement campaigns for inactive subscribers.

These automated flows can generate up to 9 times more revenue than traditional bulk email campaigns, according to Mailchimp's latest data. For small businesses with limited time and resources, automation is a game-changer that allows you to maintain consistent customer communication without constant manual effort.

The automation tools are now easier to set up than ever, with pre-built templates for common scenarios like welcome series, birthday campaigns, and win-back campaigns for lapsed customers.

Professional email templates and design tools

Mailchimp offers hundreds of professionally designed email templates for every type of campaign you might want to create – newsletters, product announcements, event invitations, seasonal promotions, and much more.

The drag-and-drop email builder makes it easy to customise these templates with your own branding, images, and content. You don't need any coding or design skills to create emails that look professional and engaging.

New for 2025: Mailchimp has introduced AI-powered content generation and enhanced design tools. You can now access stock images from Shutterstock directly within the email builder, and the improved column controls give you much more flexibility in how your emails display on mobile devices.

This is particularly important because over 55% of emails are now opened on mobile devices. Mailchimp's templates are fully responsive, ensuring your emails look great whether they're viewed on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer.

New features and improvements in 2025

Mailchimp continues to innovate and add new features that make email marketing more effective for small businesses:

AI-powered email content generator

The new Email Content Generator uses artificial intelligence to help you write compelling email content. Simply provide a prompt about what you want to communicate, and the AI will generate professional copy that matches your brand voice.

Enhanced SMS marketing integration

SMS marketing is now available as an add-on in more countries, including the UK. Businesses using both email and SMS see up to 58% higher click-through rates compared to email-only campaigns.

Improved social media connections

Beyond Facebook and Instagram, you can now integrate with TikTok, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and Google Ads to create comprehensive multi-channel marketing campaigns.

Advanced segmentation and personalisation

New predictive segmentation tools help identify your most valuable customers, while enhanced personalisation options go beyond just including names – you can customise content based on purchase history, browsing behaviour, and engagement patterns.

How to get started with Mailchimp

Getting started with Mailchimp is straightforward, but here's a step-by-step approach that works well for small businesses:

Step 1: Sign up and set up your account

Create your free Mailchimp account and complete the basic setup process. Make sure to verify your email address and add your business information.

Step 2: Import your existing contacts

If you already have customer email addresses, you can import them into Mailchimp. However, make sure you have proper consent to email these contacts for marketing purposes.

Step 3: Create your first signup form

Add a signup form to your website to start capturing new email addresses. Offer something valuable in return – a discount, free guide, or exclusive content.

Step 4: Design your first campaign

Start with a simple welcome email or newsletter using one of Mailchimp's templates. Focus on providing value rather than just promoting your products or services.

Step 5: Set up basic automation

Create a welcome email sequence for new subscribers. This is one of the most effective ways to start building relationships with your audience.

Email marketing best practices for small businesses

To get the most from Mailchimp and email marketing in general, follow these proven best practices:

Focus on providing value

Every email should offer something valuable to your subscribers – useful information, exclusive offers, or entertaining content. Avoid making every email a sales pitch.

Segment your audience

Not all your subscribers are the same. Use Mailchimp's segmentation tools to send more targeted emails based on customer behaviour, preferences, or purchase history.

Optimise for mobile

With most emails opened on mobile devices, ensure your campaigns look good on smartphones. Mailchimp's templates handle this automatically, but always send test emails to yourself.

Test and improve

Use Mailchimp's A/B testing features to try different subject lines, content, and send times. Small improvements can lead to significantly better results over time.

Maintain list hygiene

Regularly clean your email list by removing inactive subscribers and invalid email addresses. This improves your deliverability and reduces costs.