Lemlist vs Mailchimp: Best Cold Outreach Tool 2024

Lemlist's Sequences feature provides a flexible and powerful way to create multi-channel campaigns for sales engagement. The visual sandbox editor allows users to build complex sequences with a mix of automated and manual steps across email and social platforms like LinkedIn.

Key features of Sequences campaign creation:

• Automated steps: Email, LinkedIn messages, and other touchpoints can be set up to send automatically based on predefined conditions.
• Manual steps: Users can add manual tasks like calls or personalized messages to sequences for a human touch.
• Branching and conditions: Complex workflows can be created using conditional branching, allowing sequences to adapt based on lead responses or other criteria.
• Multiple channels: Campaigns can incorporate email, LinkedIn, and other platforms to reach leads through their preferred channels.
• AI assistance: Lemlist offers AI-powered tools to help generate and optimize campaigns.

👍 "Using Lemlist to create 'custom' automated email campaigns" - r/Emailmarketing

Mailchimp, a popular email marketing tool, provides a user-friendly interface for creating and formatting emails using drag-and-drop tools. While originally designed for marketing emails, some users leverage Mailchimp for cold outreach as well.

Key features for campaign creation:

• Pre-built templates: Mailchimp offers a wide selection of templates categorized by email purpose, industry, and style, making it easy to find a suitable starting point for your campaign.
• Drag-and-drop editor: The intuitive editor allows you to customize your email layout and design by simply dragging and dropping elements like text, images, and buttons.
• Branded emails: Mailchimp provides tools to create branded emails that align with your company's visual identity, helping to maintain a consistent look and feel across your campaigns.

lemlist prioritizes email deliverability, offering built-in features and a separate product called lemwarm to help users maintain high inbox placement rates and avoid spam filters. The platform provides guidance and tools to optimize email campaigns for maximum deliverability.

Key features for deliverability:

• Sending limits: Customizable limits on emails, LinkedIn invites, and other actions per lemlist or lemwarm account to prevent triggering spam filters
• lemwarm: A separate product focused on email warming and maintaining a positive sending reputation
• Deliverability score: An overview of the account's current deliverability status with tips for improvement
• Custom tracking domain: Allows for tracking open and click rates safely by setting up a unique domain
• Smart Cluster: Intelligently groups similar accounts together to optimize deliverability (currently in beta)

Reddit users discuss strategies for using lemlist effectively without ending up in spam folders:

😐 "Be sure that DMARK/SPF/DKIM are working." - r/agency

😐 "Lemlist is good and also has a warming feature" - r/Emailmarketing

Mailchimp has a strong reputation for email deliverability due to its compliance with email best practices. The platform provides tools and features to help users maintain high deliverability rates and avoid spam filters.

• Domain authentication: Mailchimp allows users to authenticate their domains, which helps establish trust and improves deliverability. This process verifies that the user owns the domain and has permission to send emails from it.
• Monitoring engagement metrics: The email dashboard provides key engagement metrics such as open rates, click rates, and unsubscribe rates. By monitoring these metrics, users can identify potential deliverability issues and take corrective action.
• Compliance with email regulations: Mailchimp ensures compliance with email regulations such as CAN-SPAM and GDPR. This helps maintain a positive sending reputation and reduces the risk of emails being marked as spam.

However, it's important to note that Mailchimp does not offer email warming services. Email warming is the process of gradually increasing the volume of emails sent from a new IP address to establish a positive sending reputation. This feature is more commonly found in cold outreach tools.

Given its focus on compliance and best practices, Mailchimp is better suited for sending emails to existing subscribers and warm contacts rather than cold outreach. Users should build their email lists through opt-in methods and maintain a clean, engaged subscriber base to maximize deliverability with Mailchimp.

lemlist provides multiple ways to personalize your email campaigns within Sequences to make them more engaging and tailored to each lead:

• Custom variables: Insert dynamic fields like first name, last name, company name, etc. to automatically populate lead-specific information.
• Liquid syntax: Use conditional logic, pull data like current date, and set fallback values using the Liquid templating language.
• Custom images: Upload personalized images for each lead to further customize your emails.
• Custom landing pages: Direct leads to individualized landing pages to provide a unique experience.

Mailchimp provides a range of personalization options for signup forms and email campaigns using audience fields and merge tags:

• Audience fields: Manage the fields available on signup forms, such as email address, name, phone number, and birthday. Mark fields as required or visible as needed.
• Merge tags: Insert personalized content into campaigns using merge tags that correspond to audience field data. For example, *|FNAME|* or *|MERGE0|* can be used to include a subscriber's first name.
• Groups and segments: Create groups to categorize subscribers based on their interests or preferences, which can be used to send targeted content. Groups can also be displayed on signup forms for subscribers to self-select.
• Default values: Set default merge tag values to use as fallbacks when personalized data is unavailable for a particular subscriber, ensuring a cohesive experience for all recipients.

lemlist offers AI-powered features for generating personalized email campaigns, although the level of customization for individual emails and messages is limited compared to the campaign-level AI capabilities.

Key aspects of lemlist's AI features:

• Campaign-level AI: Robust tools for automatically creating entire campaigns based on user-defined parameters and tone.
• Email and message personalization: Basic AI commands for personalizing individual emails and messages, but with less user control compared to campaign generation.
• Customization options: Users can specify the desired tone, language, and some personalization details for AI-generated campaigns.

While lemlist's AI can generate complete campaigns, the options for customizing individual emails and messages using AI are more limited. Users have less control over the specific content and personalization of each message within the campaign.

Mailchimp's AI-powered content creation tool helps craft compelling email copy tailored to your audience. This feature allows you to generate text for various sections of your email campaign, such as the paragraph, making it easier to engage your subscribers effectively.

Key aspects of Mailchimp's AI content generation:

• Paragraph generation: Write entire paragraphs of email copy using AI, saving time and effort in crafting engaging content
• Customizable content type: Choose from different content types, such as paragraphs, to suit your email structure and goals
• Audience-specific optimization: AI-generated content is optimized for your specific audience, increasing the likelihood of resonating with your subscribers

lemlist's native enrichment feature provides basic lead information to help sales teams better understand their prospects. While not as comprehensive as dedicated data enrichment tools, it offers a quick way to gather essential details without leaving the platform.

Key aspects of lemlist's lead enrichment:

• Basic lead details: Company, job title, location, and email address
• Social media insights: LinkedIn profile and number of connections
• Industry information: Company size, industry, and department
• Data limitations: Less detailed and up-to-date compared to specialized enrichment tools

Mailchimp does not offer native lead enrichment capabilities within its platform. To gather additional data and insights about your leads, you will need to rely on integrations with external tools.

While this may be seen as a limitation, Mailchimp's extensive integration ecosystem allows you to connect with a wide range of third-party services that specialize in lead enrichment. By leveraging these integrations, you can still access valuable data points and buyer signals to inform your sales engagement strategies.

Some popular lead enrichment tools that integrate with Mailchimp include:

• Clearbit
• FullContact
• LeadGenius
• ZoomInfo

While native enrichment features are not available, Mailchimp's flexibility and integration options enable you to create a customized lead enrichment workflow that suits your specific needs.

lemlist's Sequences feature offers social automation for LinkedIn, enabling users to engage with prospects directly on the platform. By integrating LinkedIn actions into email sequences, lemlist provides a multichannel approach to sales engagement.

Key features of lemlist's LinkedIn automation:

• Browser extension: LinkedIn actions are performed locally via a browser extension, ensuring compliance with the platform's terms of service.
• Connection requests: Send personalized connection requests to targeted prospects as part of a sequence.
• Chat messages: Deliver targeted messages to LinkedIn connections, syncing with email campaigns for a cohesive outreach strategy.
• Post engagement: Automate likes, comments, and shares on prospect posts to build rapport and increase visibility.

By combining email and LinkedIn automation, lemlist Sequences enables users to create comprehensive, multichannel campaigns that effectively engage prospects and drive conversions.

Mailchimp, primarily known as an email marketing platform, offers limited social media automation capabilities compared to dedicated sales engagement tools. The platform allows for social media integration, but its focus is on cross-posting content and managing ads rather than lead enrichment.

Key aspects of Mailchimp's social media automation:

• Cross-posting: Share email campaigns on social media platforms for increased visibility
• Ad management: Create and manage social media ads within the Mailchimp platform
• Limited lead enrichment: Unable to leverage social media data for lead enrichment purposes

While Mailchimp's social media automation features can be useful for marketers looking to streamline their content sharing and ad management processes, it may not be the most comprehensive solution for sales teams seeking to enrich leads using social media data.

lemlist offers a range of pricing tiers to suit different needs and budgets, with plans starting at $39 per user per month for the Email Starter plan and going up to $159 per user per month for the Outreach Scale plan. The pricing model is based on a per-user, per-month basis.

Key aspects of lemlist's pricing:

• 14-day free trial: All plans come with a 14-day free trial, with no credit card required.
• Unlimited emails: Each plan includes unlimited email sending, but email verification credits may incur additional costs.
• Feature differences: Higher-tier plans include advanced features like a dedicated account manager, custom landing pages, and premium support.
• Enterprise pricing: For teams with more than 10 users, custom enterprise pricing is available by contacting the sales team.

Mailchimp provides a range of pricing options to suit different business needs, from a free plan for those just starting out to more advanced paid plans with additional features and higher sending limits.

• Free plan: Includes basic features for up to 1,000 contacts, making it a great option for small businesses or those new to email marketing.
• Essentials plan ($13/month*): Offers key features like A/B testing and scheduling for up to 5,000 contacts and 3 users.
• Standard plan ($20/month*): Provides enhanced personalization, optimization tools, and support for up to 6,000 contacts and 5 users.
• Premium plan ($350/month*): Includes unlimited contacts, users, and advanced features like personalized onboarding and priority support for larger teams and enterprises.

All paid plans offer a free trial, allowing you to test the features before committing. The billing model is based on the number of contacts and monthly email sends, with the option to upgrade or downgrade as needed.

*Overages apply if contact or email send limits are exceeded.