It was bound to happen. Mailchimp released a GPT-powered tool to help businesses write better marketing emails this week, following in the footsteps of Cidewalk, Birdeye, Evocalize, and dozens of other digital marketing vendors that have all found ways to integrate generative AI into their platforms in recent months.
As one of the most well-known email marketing platforms serving the SMB market, Mailchimp’s move to integrate generative AI and work directly with OpenAI’s GPT technology marks an important milestone for the company. Mailchimp has been working toward incorporating AI and machine learning capabilities into its platform for the past several years. The new Email Content Generator is still in beta, however, it’s expected to become part of a suite of AI-powered features available broadly within the Mailchimp platform in the coming months.
“We’re on a mission to make Mailchimp the only place where marketers can effortlessly create content optimized for their brand, their marketing channels, their objectives, and every member of their audience,” said Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar in a blog post announcing the new feature. “AI and text generation tools like ChatGPT have received a lot of attention recently, and for a good reason. We see this as a supportive technology for marketers, and we want to provide them with approachable ways to use AI so that they can automate, generate, and optimize content to save time and trust that what we’re serving them is tailored to help them reach their goals.”
Using Mailchimp’s Email Content Generator, businesses will be able to create marketing email campaigns based on industry, marketing intent, and brand voice. Rather than starting each email from scratch, they’ll be able to use the tool to find inspiration and quickly generate text that’s optimized for their unique voice and marketing objectives. Users can enter a natural language prompt, like “write an email about our updated business hours and offer 50%-off to customers who come in on Saturday mornings only,” and the Email Content Generator will create three content options based on that prompt. Users can then select the option they like best and drag it into an email campaign.
Variant testing will also be available to help businesses deliver more personalized and engaging content. Based on the results of a variant test, users can further customize their email messaging in a way that feels authentic and relevant to their customers.
Mailchimp’s decision to release Email Content Generator in beta comes on the heels of a recent Adobe survey showing that content demands are soaring. Eighty-eight percent of brands say the demand for content has doubled in 2023 over 2022, and two-thirds of that group expect to see 5x the demand over the next two years.
Mailchimp’s decision to utilize GPT technology comes after years of acquisitions and partnerships with companies in the AI space. The company acquired Sawa in 2019 and Inspector 6 in 2020. Its SMB platform now includes more than 20 AI and data science features, including a creative assistant, content optimizer, send-day and send-time optimization, predictive segmentation, and product recommendations. The company says it generated more than 8 million data-backed recommendations with AI-powered features in 2022 alone.
Are you a small business owner who’s looking to give Mailchimp’s AI tools a try? We’d love to hear about your experiences and find out whether the technology is actually helping you create more effective marketing emails.
