• by Ray Schultz , May 13, 2019

Mailchimp has introduced a one-stop marketing platform for small businesses covering websites, ad retargeting and social media.

The platform, in development for two years, answers the need by SMBs to expand beyond email to other channels, the company says.

Mailchimp has added Facebook ads, Google remarketing ads, postcards, social posting, and CRM tools over the past two years.

“This week, we’re bringing it all together” with an integrated app experiences, writes co-founder Ben Chestnut. The firm is also introducing new pricing packages. Packages for new customers take effect this Wednesday. 

Existing paid customers can maintain their current pricing structure and features, or they can move to new packages when they choose, the company adds.

Chestnut says this may seem like a big change for longtime customers, but is a response to what they say they need, and is "strategically based on how we know marketing platforms can help small businesses grow.” 

According to Mailchimp, the platform features include: 

• Websites — Businesses can buy a domain in Mailchimp and build a website from templates.
• Ad Retargeting — In addition to Google, which Mailchimp has had for some time, users can now retarget customers through ads on Facebook and Instagram. 
• Social Posting—Clients can repurpose content created in Mailchimp and post to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
• Smart Recommendations — Suggestions are made based on insights from users’ data, industry best practices and AI insights.
• Recurring Postcards — Mailchimp has added promo codes and recurring postcards to the direct mail product it launched last fall.
• Marketing CRM — This allow users to see the full audience in one place. They can tag users based on their full interaction with the company, and see their lifetime value based on open rates, clicks and other interactions.

Chestnut says “small business owners and entrepreneurs don’t have time to manage three, four, or five different platforms that each serve one specific purpose, and they don’t want their data all over the place," so this tool will bring it all together for them in one place.