Prior this week, Microsoft recently launched an email marketing add-on to Office 365 which is completely cloud based subscription service that has main elements like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access.
As specified in the announcement, Microsoft Connections will include templates for newsletters, various announcements and client reference, subscription for signed up pages, and different reports on forums like rates, clicks, unsubscribes and lots more.
As compared to other cloud-based email marketing vendors this has fewer features unlike MailChimp which provides many more characteristics but what matters is the price of this package, this subscription as compared to other companies is much cheaper like zero dollars a month to companies that are already paying for Office 365.
Moreover, for small business firms, this will be excellent news as it is free of cost but possibly a very depressing news for MailChimp and its other categories or group.
The competitor business model of MailChimp has a free to play option in the initial junior level which points upwards with the increase in the list of subscribers. Likely, in MailChimp, you can send an email to a list of 2,000 subscribers per month, but as soon as you have 24,000 subscribers, you will have to pay $150 monthly.
This price difference creates silly problems in which few vendors charge as much as $150,000 per gigabyte for storing email addresses. Though logically for sending an email there is no costs involved which is the only reason why Amazon’s Simple Email Services (SES) is free.
It has already been denoted in above column that email marketing providers like MailChimp do not have sufficient business specimen at same prices. They’re quite advanced to charge a lower price than vendor whose pricing reflects actual costs.
In this price battle, Microsoft has a big and fantastic advantage of money to burn. The company already has $126 billion on their hand in cash, so providing products without money is not a big concern for them. (Though there is always some unknowing threat of another laws and regulations designed to protect trade and commerce from unfair business practices by legal action).
Moreover, Microsoft probably recognizes of providing free email marketing software, contact storage, and mass emailing as a planned and calculative method of progress above Amazon which does not have the capabilities which Microsoft have.
Eventually, Microsoft has a prolonged history of threatening the business model of different companies which receive revenue from the software programs that are useful to numerous industries namely horizontal applications.
Therefore the question is should small businesses rise rapidly? The answer is No, not so early.
The question for small businesses rises whether the relationship will be similar to Microsoft Media Player (which was excessively useful that it defeated Real Networks) or similar to Microsoft Money (which was so clunky that Quicken drove it canceled).
Since it is quick to comment or imagine the future; Connections will be weak at the starting point. Likely, the outline of illustration of the mobile version of an application namely on Apple and Android presently the given below:
Microsoft Connections is very simple and easy to manage application which is built keeping in mind of the customers loyalty, attract more new customers, and improve and expand the business. Customer referral or referring someone is the most beneficial form of marketing. Referred clients buy more, longevity of staying longer and help you to grow a business. Better Connections helps to make it simple for your customers to increase love.
However, email marketing is the best way to stay connected with the customer through referrals. I strongly believe that whosoever had written the description doesnt understand the basic idea of email marketing. Microsoft will not get this right as this is not a good mark.
Moreover, as described in previous columns, Microsofts long run record in the market of business applications, while not as remarkable as it indicates the failure of mobile devices, has been less in number than Stellar. (The company’s unfortunate attempts to break into CRM often remembered.)
From now onwards, small businesses should remove their introverted nature from Connections unless they are subscribing to Office 365, in other words, its worth trying. Fortunately, one good thing about email marketing is that once you’ve created a subscriber list, it’s very easy to move from stage to another.