Email Marketing (MailChimp)
Think about Email Marketing as way to gain subscribers so that you can send them newsletters.
Bear in mind that you have a free tool you’ve configured already under Settings > Reading > Newsletter Settings
What the “Tools” tab offers you, is more complex.
MailChimp is a marketing automation platform. It basically collects information from your readers (names, emails, etc) so that you can send them newsletters.
How does it collect information? You link your MailChimp account to your blog, and you’ll have a new “Form Block” which you’d need to link to MailChimp
It is also a CRM, a Customer Relationship Management platform, and you’ll see plenty of these on the web. Take your time (as in “months”) to compare prices and test them using the free trials.
However, MailChimp is a big platform, and it is going to take you several days to learn how to use it, configure everything, create templates for your emails and etc. And none of this matters if you don’t content nor visitors. This, can wait.
With MailChimp, you can have great features for free until you gain 500 subscribers. And, it has a free and beautiful “pop-up” (Trust me, you need this) I’d suggest you to start with this one, as you get familiar with social marketing.
