This is a sign that choosing the right tool is more important now than ever.

Email marketing isn’t dead. On the contrary, it’s one of the most effective channels for engagement and revenue, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Africa. 

With inbox clutter increasing and mobile adoption high, choosing the right platform can be the difference between campaigns that engage and ones that get ignored. 

Today, we break down Mailchimp and Brevo, two of the most used tools, in terms that are most relevant to growing African businesses; deliverability, automation, pricing, SMS/email combos, smart tools, and local payment realities.

Deliverability: Gets the Message In

Getting your emails into customers’ inboxes is the foundation of any email programme. If your messages land in promotions or spam folders, they might not be seen.

• Several comparative reports reveal that Mailchimp usually shows higher deliverability rates than many competitors in standard tests.
• Some older data also pointed to Brevo’s deliverability performance being very close or slightly ahead under certain conditions, though results vary by audience and setup.

What this tells me as a marketer is that both platforms are capable of strong deliverability, but how you configure your domain authentication, sender reputation, and list hygiene is usually more important than the platform itself. Test both with your own lists before committing, especially if inbox placement is mission-critical.

Automation Workflows: How Much You Can Do Without Help

Automation is a way to save time and send more relevant messages.

• Mailchimp has a mature automation suite with a strong visual workflow builder and customer journey tools. You can start simple for abandoned carts or re-engagement and scale to multi-step journeys. 
• Brevo also provides automation with branching triggers and tags, and it bundles email, SMS and even WhatsApp actions into the same sequences, a big plus if you want truly multi-channel campaigns without extra add-ons.

In utilising both, I find Mailchimp better when you want in-depth segmentation and data-driven flows. Brevo comes top for simplicity and multi-channel triggers without needing third-party tools.

Cost for Small Lists: What You Actually Pay

Budget is essential most for early-stage African SMEs.

• Mailchimp’s pricing scales with contacts. The more subscribers you have, the more you pay, even if you send a few emails.
• Brevo prices by email volume (not contacts), and offers unlimited contacts even on basic plans.

That difference is huge. If you have a large list but send monthly newsletters only, Brevo can be far more cost-efficient. On the other hand, if you send frequent campaigns with smaller lists, Mailchimp’s entry points can be competitive.

For many entrepreneurs I’ve seen, Brevo usually costs less as lists grow, while Mailchimp becomes expensive quickly.

SMS/Email Combos: Multi-Channel Outreach Built In

Africa’s mobile-first audience means SMS and WhatsApp matter.

• Brevo includes SMS and WhatsApp options in the platform and lets you weave them into automated workflows.
• Mailchimp doesn’t include unified SMS out of the box, you typically need integrations or third-party services.

If your strategy includes both SMS and email under one roof, Brevo saves time and money.

Smart Tools & Content Support

Creating email copy and creative can slow teams down.

Both Mailchimp and Brevo platforms provide built-in content tools, including templates and writing helpers. Mailchimp has extensive ready-made templates and advanced content editing features. Brevo has simpler editors but supports automation triggers directly tied into content blocks.

Neither is far ahead in everyday content help, so I’d make decisions based on workflow needs rather than creative features.

Local Situation: Payments & Support for African SMEs

A key, often overlooked, point:

• Platforms may charge in USD/EUR and expect credit card or PayPal billing.
• Neither currently offers native local payment billing options for African currencies.

The effect? SMEs face foreign exchange costs and billing friction. Plan budgets accordingly. On support, user reviews show Brevo’s ease of use and support ratings slightly higher among smaller teams, while Mailchimp’s extensive help library still impresses many users.

Which Should You Pick?

Here’s the takeaway, based on usage patterns:

Choose Brevo if you want:

• Low cost as your list grows.
• Email, SMS and WhatsApp in one dashboard.
• Solid automation without steep learning curves.
• Unlimited contacts without artificial price jumps.

Choose Mailchimp if you want:

• Deep automation and analytics.
• Huge ecosystem of integrations.
• Advanced reporting and campaign insights.
• Tried-and-tested deliverability with premium options.

Both Mailchimp and Brevo are solid choices. But for many African SMEs just starting or scaling, Brevo gives more value per dollar, especially when multichannel outreach matters.

Quick Comparison at a Glance

I recommend testing both with campaigns. Run a few weeks of identical sends, measure deliverability, opens and conversions, and then decide. 

Theory helps, but your list is the final judge.

This online event is slated to take place on Friday 17 March, 2023 by 10 AM.

The webinar titled ‘Email Marketing Trends: How To Scale Up Your Business By Over 50% in 2023’ will educate attendees on leveraging artificial intelligence to write powerful emails, email segmentation and deliverability, email marketing campaign measurement amongst other important tips.

Tribearc enters the Nigerian market with exciting offers and a feature that allows all its users to purchase its different products in the currency of their choice. Nigerians can pay for its products using their Naira debit cards. Tribearc also offers 99.9% guaranteed email deliverability and automatic email verification ensuring all transactional mails are sent quickly.

“Tribearc is invested in helping marketers, developers, content creators and entrepreneurs gain more leads, verify these leads and nurture their customers with email automation, apply useful APIs and webhooks, engage customers with its well tested free email marketing copies, build landing pages, host online courses and many more features,” says Opeyemi Emmanuel, CEO at Tribearc. “We provide everything a developer and marketer needs to succeed in business. We believe that by sharing the best tools with Africans, we can continue to improve the business environment and empower the tech ecosystem.”

Statistica estimates that the number of  email users across the world were 4.3 billion people as at 2022, growing to at least 4.6 billion and yielding an estimated revenue of at least US $11 billion by the end of 2023. This makes software providers like Tribearc ever more relevant.

Email marketing is fast becoming the go-to marketing strategy for many Nigerian businesses due to its affordability, detailed data analysis and good audience reach.

Email marketing continues to serve as a personal means of communicating a brand’s message while directly increasing traffic for a business’ website.

Hence Tribearc’s mandate is to ensure that more entrepreneurs, developers and marketers have the necessary digital tools to succeed in the African continent. Tribearc is available on www.tribearc.com.

The Tribearc team can be contacted via email on hello@tribearc.com Calls and messages can be sent to +234-704-212-4554 and +234-708-000-9967 Also follow @tribearc on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Here we are in 2023, do you intend utilizing same strategies as previous years? With everything from social media to mobile apps taking giant leaps, you can’t remain behind, you should be ready for them and take up dynamism in your business.

You might already be thinking of new strategies, so whether you are or not, here are areas you need to focus on improving or making better:

#1: A great team

Without a good team, your business will suffer. You might be doing good in this aspect already, but take note of consistency in the drive and hunger of team members that have their personal goals and aspirations.

A good team needs to be able to communicate with each other and work together on tasks. You’ll also want them to be able to delegate those tasks out so that they aren’t always doing everything themselves. A good leader will trust his or her employees enough to let them take charge of certain aspects of their jobs rather than micromanaging them all the time (or at least not micromanaging them too much). And finally, there needs to be motivation among everyone involved—it’s no surprise that we all like getting paid for what we do!

#2: An online presence

Yes, you have an online presence and a website, but how are they helping your business grow? Consider user-friendliness and responsiveness. You’ll also want to have a social media presence with at least Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as LinkedIn and Instagram handles if possible. 

How well do you interact with old and new users as well as visitors or passers-by? Can your online presence attract them so much that they come back over and over again?

#3: A good headshot

It might seem funny to you adding this, but really, a good headshot is one essential tool for your business.

A headshot is a high-resolution photo of your face. It can be used in any type of business marketing material, including social media profiles, websites and email newsletters.

The best way to take a good headshot is by having it taken professionally by an experienced photographer who specializes in this area. They’ll make sure that the lighting is perfect so you don’t look orange or washed out; they’ll also ensure there’s enough space around your face so people can see what kind of person you are—and vice versa! If possible, try wearing something professional like a suit or sweater vest for this session too (or whatever else works).

#4: A strong personal brand

Your brand is the sum total of who you are and what you stand for. It’s not about how many followers or followers per month; it’s about being consistent with who you are, so people know exactly what to expect from your business.

A strong personal brand can help boost your business in several ways:

It gives potential clients an idea of how they should interact with your company (and vice versa). For example, if someone has worked with another company in the past and knows that they’re known for their friendly attitude, then it will be easier for them to trust that same type of treatment when working with yours!

You’ll be able to avoid any misunderstandings about whether or not something was okay during a project—if someone has been working on similar projects before meeting up again later on down the line after finishing up their current ones together.

#5: A social media strategy

A social media strategy is a must-have for any business. It’s not just about posting content, but also about scheduling and analyzing your posts to ensure they’re reaching the right people at the right time. Social media tools will help you do this more efficiently than ever before:

Scheduling tools – These are used to schedule when and where you want your social media posts published so that they reach their intended audience as soon as possible. You can also use these tools to curate content from other sources (such as blogs) that fit your brand message or industry standards and then republish them on multiple platforms simultaneously if necessary!

Analytics – Once you’ve created an editorial calendar for all of your different types of posts (Facebook ads, Instagram stories), it’s important that each one receives equal attention throughout its lifespan so there aren’t any gaps between when something goes live versus being seen by potential followers/patrons.

#6: A good website

A good website is a key part of your online presence. It should be easy to navigate and load quickly, with a professional headshot that shows off your best features. You should also have it mobile-friendly so visitors can access the site from any device they like (including smart TVs).

#7: SEO and SEM strategies

SEO and SEM strategies are essential for any business. The goal of SEO is to get your website to the top of search engines, while SEM is a way to get your website to the top of search engine results, but also pay for it.

In both cases, you need to have a strategy that will help you reach your target audience so they can find and engage with your content.

#8: Social listening tools for marketing

Monitor social media to see what people are saying about you, your competitors, and the industry.

Use tools like Hootsuite or Radian6 to monitor social media.

Use tools like Brand24 or SocialMention to monitor social media.

Use tools like Google Alerts to monitor social media

#9: Ads on Youtube, Facebook, and LinkedIn

Youtube, Facebook and LinkedIn are among the most popular social media platforms in the world. These sites allow you to reach your target audience with ads that can be targeted to specific audiences. This is a great way to reach potential customers because they will see your ad every time they log into their account. However, this also means that you’ll need to spend money on ads on these platforms if you want them to appear frequently in front of people who may be interested in what your business has available for sale or services offered by its employees

#10: Google Analytics and Google Data Studio

If you want to see exactly how your website is performing, Google Analytics and Google Data Studio are two tools that can help. Both of these tools will provide a lot of useful data about your business and its performance on the web.

You might be thinking: “What good does this information do for me?” Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that it helps you keep track of traffic trends over time—which in turn allows you to make decisions based on data instead of assumptions or hunches.

Another benefit is knowing which parts of your site are working well (and what needs improvement). This means that when someone uses one part of your site they don’t get stuck trying out another feature they didn’t expect—they only have access to what’s relevant at each point in time!

#11: Content marketing strategies that work for you

Content marketing is a great way to build your brand, attract new customers and sell products or services.

You can use content marketing to build an email list of people who are interested in what you have to say.

You can use it to create content that’s helpful for your customers and prospects (but also fun). In other words, it should be something that interests them as well as informing them about what they need.

You could use this same strategy when promoting yourself through social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram – by posting interesting photos of yourself with animals, perhaps!

#12: Email marketing tools like MailChimp, Constant Contact, and Zoho Campaigns for building your email list and sending out newsletters

Email marketing is a great way to build your email list, send out newsletters and stay in touch with customers. There are several tools that you can use for managing your email list:

MailChimp – This tool makes it easy to create, send and track emails. You can add contacts from all of your social media accounts into the same inbox as well as reply-to-all messages so they don’t get lost in cyberspace. It also has analytics built into its dashboard so you can see how many people have opened each of your emails or clicked on links within them.

Constant Contact – The most popular tool when it comes to building lists goes by another name: Constant Contact is one of the top providers in this niche field due to its wide range of features available at no cost (that includes templates). They even offer an app that allows users without any coding knowledge whatsoever access their platform!

#13: A great CRM (customer relationship management) software like HubSpot or Salesforce to keep track of your sales team’s outreach efforts, managing leads, organizing contacts, and maintaining relationships with current customers

CRM software is a great tool for managing your sales team’s outreach efforts. It can be used to manage leads, organize contacts, and maintain relationships with current customers. There are many different CRM solutions available that you can choose from depending on what features you need most in order to run your business smoothly. HubSpot and Salesforce are two popular CRM solutions that offer easy-to-use platforms for managing any type of business or organization online (including small businesses).

Conclusion

The tools and strategies we’ve outlined here will help you build a strong digital presence, as well as grow your business. As we mentioned earlier, it’s important to stay on top of trends in order to be ahead of your competitors—and this is where Google Analytics comes into play. If you use this tool effectively, it can provide insights into how people are interacting with your website or app and help improve user experiences across all platforms (not just mobile).

Internet penetration in Nigeria reached 50.0% in January 2021, according to this report.

So what does this mean?

The growth in digital transformation means more Nigerians are online, and more opportunity reach for businesses to connect and acquire new customers.

In Nigeria, businesses have several ways in which they use for brand visibility and marketing of their product and services. Some of them are; running social media ads, partnerships via events and digital publicity.

But here is the problem…

​​Nigerian businesses spend an average of 20-30% of their annual budget on marketing (at least the average enterprise businesses) and with the high cost of customer acquisition and retention, they now struggle with:

• Inefficient customer communication channels
• Expensive marketing platforms
• Poor customer data management

How can businesses improve customer communication and engagement?

Gaining visibility through social media ads and related campaigns is just one solution to the problem, retaining and keeping customers through engagement is the second puzzle for businesses and this is the value of email and sms marketing and why we built Yournotify!

Yournotify is a marketing platform that helps businesses create efficient customer communication and engagement via email and sms in one platform. In return, businesses:

• Get higher marketing conversions (RIO)
• Increase their customer engagement (CLV)
• Save 70% on CAC (by retaining existing customers)

Communicating with customers is hard and expensive for Nigerian businesses. Competitors like Mailchimp, Sendgrid all charge in USD for their marketing campaigns and that comes with a monthly subscription model. And for businesses that need SMS marketing?

You also have to run that from a separate platform – making it even harder to manage your campaigns in one place.

Yournotify is building an affordable (pay-as-you-go) and efficient customer communication platform for the African market.

As digital transformation continues to grow across Africa, businesses need to be positioned for this growth and start building integrated marketing solutions that allows them to effectively manage their customer data, save time and reduce cost of their marketing campaigns.