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MARKETING TOOLS FOR STARTUPS

The marketing platform that unlocks your business potential

Spend less effort on marketing and more time growing your business. Mailchimp’s platform helps you scale faster so you can keep moving in the right direction.

A person showing their co-founder all the progress their business has made since signing up for Mailchimp.

Establish yourself in the market by finding your first customers

An array of e-commerce websites built in Mailchimp with different brand variations.

Build a unique landing page in minutes

Getting interest from beta users is key in your pre-launch stage. Create landing pages based on demographics, interests, or behaviors to get early sign-ups. Then spot patterns in user behavior in your audience dashboard to find your target audience.

Turn visitors into leads with custom forms and surveys

Create effective lead generation pop-up forms that appear when and where you want them, and are tailored to your brand. You can even add your form to your website in just a few clicks.

An example e-commerce landing page with a signup form for collecting visitors' email addresses.

Organize and manage your newly acquired contacts

Understand customer data and act on it–all in one dashboard using Mailchimp’s audience dashboard. Our audience dashboard will help you get to know your audience at a glance, visually showing you segments within your audience data that you can send targeted campaigns to with just a few clicks.

A variety of example segments that can be targeted with Mailchimp campaigns, like “Local Customer” and “Repeat Customer”.

Easily get started with a personalized product tour

Schedule a call with an onboarding specialist during your first 90 days to help you get started with confidence –it’s already included with Standard and Premium plans.*

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Spend less effort on marketing and more time growing your business

Mailchimp’s Content Builder in the process of customizing colors with just a few clicks.

Simple email design powered by the #1 email marketing and automations platform*

Create beautifully branded emails in minutes with a drag-and-drop editor and fully customizable templates that let your unique brand shine through.

Get more time on your side using marketing automations

Mailchimp’s platform helps you scale faster with time-saving automations that are personal and adaptable to your audience’s interests and business needs.

A Customer Journey automation that sends a discount code one day after a visitor signs up for your newsletter.
A variety of themes available in Mailchimp, applied to pre-built layouts like “event calendar” and “thank you discount”.

Create engaging email content with the power of AI

Whether you’re short on time or short on staff, you can still design eye-catching campaigns in no time with pre-built templates and AI-powered content creation tools. Design emails, publish landing pages, create ads, post to social feeds, and more–all without ever leaving Mailchimp.

Real-time analytics for real-time decision making

Know what’s working in real time

Our reports make it easy to monitor campaign performance, audience growth, clicks, and more, so you can make smart decisions about how to spend your marketing budget. We analyze hundreds of millions of data points and then give you suggestions for making your marketing better.

An example marketing email shown next to open and clickthrough stats from Mailchimp.

Create engaging content with AI recommendations

Make sure your message is coming through loud and clear with our data-driven suggestions for making your email copy more skimmable and boost engagement.

Mailchimp’s Content Optimizer suggesting an email be made shorter to improve how easy it is to skim.

Start on the right foot with app integrations

Start your free trial today

Best value

Best value

Premium

Scale fast with dedicated onboarding, unlimited contacts, and priority support; built for teams.

  • Phone & Priority Support
  • Custom-coded and Pre-built Email Templates
  • Multivariate and A/B Testing
  • Enhanced Automated Customer Journeys
  • Dedicated Personalized Onboarding
  • Predictive Segmentation
  • Campaign Manager

Best value

Best value

Standard

Sell even more with personalization, optimization tools, and enhanced automations.

  • 24/7 Email & Chat Support
  • Custom-coded and Pre-built Email Templates
  • Multivariate & A/B Testing
  • Enhanced Automated Customer Journeys
  • Personalized Onboarding
  • Predictive Segmentation
  • Campaign Manager

Best value

Best value

Essentials

Send the right content at the right time with testing and scheduling features.

  • 24/7 Email & Chat Support
  • Pre-built Email Templates
  • A/B Testing
  • Basic Automated Customer Journeys
  • Personalized Onboarding

  • Predictive Segmentation

  • Campaign Manager

Best value

Best value

Free

Easily create email campaigns and learn more about your customers.

  • Email support for first 30 days
  • Pre-built Email Templates
  • A/B Testing

  • Basic Automated Customer Journeys

  • Onboarding

  • Predictive Segmentation

  • Campaign Manager

*
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*Overages apply if contact or email send limit is exceeded. Free plan sending will be paused if contact or email send limit is exceeded.

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FAQs

  • No two startups are exactly the same, which means marketing strategies vary, too. But all successful marketing strategies include these key components:

    Goals: For many startups, goals for marketing efforts often fall under one of two categories: raising brand awareness and acquiring new customers. And while both categories are important in the development of your startup, it can be helpful to prioritize the goals that make the most sense for you. Having a good idea of your goals will help you discover what digital marketing tools will be essential to your success.

    Target audience: No matter the type of startup, it’s crucial for your marketing to reach the right people with the right message. As you’re developing a marketing strategy, take time to think about who your ideal audience is—or who you want your audience to be. A few questions to ask might include what you're offering your potential customers, what makes you unique in the market, and why a customer would choose you over your competitors.

    Place in the market: Lack of demand in the marketplace is the number one reason startups fail. Common pitfalls include the startup's product or service not being effective or unique enough, its focus being too narrow to scale, or not being positioned correctly and never having the chance to reach the right people. To give your new startup a better chance of avoiding these pitfalls, take time to thoroughly research other products on the market and gauge interest from your potential customers.

    Budget: The marketing budget for a startup will be affected by several factors, including operational costs and revenue forecasts. But no matter how much money you’re able to set aside for marketing, it’s important to spend wisely. Think about your goals, and focus your marketing efforts on the channels that will help you achieve them. Don’t be afraid to make adjustments along the way or to try something new if a particular channel doesn’t prove fruitful.

  • Marketing costs for startups can vary significantly depending on factors such as the industry, target audience, marketing strategies employed, and desired outcomes. Startups should allocate a budget for digital marketing activities like branding, online advertising, content creation, social media management, and email marketing, along with any needed marketing tools for startups. It's a good idea to conduct market research and seek professional advice to determine a suitable marketing budget for your specific startup.

  • Unfortunately, there's no true average marketing budget for startups because every business is different. That said, most small businesses tend to spend anywhere from 2% to 5% of their revenue on marketing. However, depending on your goals and revenue, you may be able to—or need to—spend more.

    B2B businesses tend to spend less on marketing efforts because they have sales representatives. Meanwhile, B2C businesses need to spend more on marketing efforts because they don't have an active team of individuals reaching out to prospects.

    Setting SMART—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound—goals is crucial before you determine your budget. This framework should help you set clear, trackable goals whether you're working on social media marketing, SEO, or an email marketing strategy.

    Mailchimp makes it easy to maximize your marketing budget with a stack of marketing tools to increase web traffic and reach, create compelling content, and measure the effectiveness of your campaigns.

  • Typically, market research covers various segments of data collection, such as the overall demand for your product or service, the size of your target market, the demographics and economic strength of your potential customers, and the availability and prices of similar solutions.

    You can start by defining your target market and identifying your target audience's needs, preferences, and behavior. Next, decide on one or more research methods, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, or observation. Whatever you do, make sure to also analyze industry reports and competitor offerings.

    Then, make a plan or template for your chosen research methods that includes the things you want to know, and reach out to your target audience for feedback. This can involve methods like digital ads, email marketing, or hiring a professional market researcher.

    Finally, collect and analyze your research data to gain insights into market trends, customer demographics, competitors, and potential opportunities. This information will help you make informed decisions about your marketing strategies and product/service offerings.

    By using Mailchimp, you can perform your market research through digital avenues, while also benefiting from intelligent analysis and reporting tools. By utilizing our all-in-one email platform’s automation, customization, and segmentation features, you can get the most out of each research effort by your brand.

  • A marketing plan will look different for every business. However, there are a few key components you should make sure to include:

    Executive summary: The first part of your marketing plan. It should include basic information about your business, such as your marketing goals, company milestones, and other important facts about your brand.

    Mission statement: One sentence that describes your business’s purpose in a meaningful and impactful way. It should be short and to the point, while still clearly conveying the "why" behind your business.

    Marketing objectives: How you’re going to achieve your business’s goals. You should have S.M.A.R.T. objectives, which means they should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example: Generate X% of sales from X campaign by X date.

    Situational & SWOT analysis: The landscape your business is operating in, as well as your business's SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). Strengths and weaknesses are typically internal factors that come from within your business, while opportunities and threats are external factors that your business will face. For example, a strength might be an experienced team with passion for the company, and a weakness could be that team not having experience with social media. An opportunity can be that your industry is currently growing, but a threat might be competitors who sell the same product at a lower price.

    Market research: An overview of your target audience and the market that you’re selling to. This helps you obtain important information about your business landscape. You also need to figure out your buyer persona, which is who you want to buy your product or service, and who you'll be tailoring your offerings and marketing to. You’ll also need to create a competitive analysis, which includes researching competitors to gain insight into their products, sales, and marketing strategies so you can see how yours compares.

    Budget: Without a clearly defined budget, it can be all too easy to overspend, which can put your business at risk of financial instability. It’s imperative that you’re spending wisely when it comes to your marketing strategy so you get the best return on investment. Don't spend money on a digital marketing tool that yields no return. Your budget should cover all aspects of your marketing campaign, such as digital ads, social media posts, events, content, and any other aspects that make up your marketing strategy.

    Marketing strategy: Once you’ve finalized all the other elements, you can develop your marketing strategy. You know what your goals are, and how you’re going to achieve them: now it’s time to actually execute.

    Mailchimp can be an asset as you move forward with your marketing plan. Our marketing platform gives you access to a variety of marketing tools for startups, such as our email marketing tool, CRM (customer relationship management) tool, social media management tools, and marketing automation tools, that can help you grow and build your business. You can then use these tools to create successful marketing campaigns, connect with your customers, and ultimately increase revenue for your brand. So whether you need help with email campaigns, social media marketing efforts, or all of it, Mailchimp has you covered.

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