The Real Problem With Mailchimp for Sports & Leisure

21 min · Olivier Rousseau & William Rochford · May 26, 2026

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About this episode

Mailchimp is often the first tool sports and leisure organizations reach for when they need to send emails, and that makes sense. It's known for newsletters, campaigns, and email marketing. But you're not just sending marketing emails. You're managing registrations, reminders, cancellations, waitlists, parent communication, recurring programs, memberships, and day-to-day updates tied to your activities. In this episode of AMplify, Olivier Rousseau and William Rochford explain why Mailchimp gets limiting for clubs, camps, swim schools, dance studios, gymnastics centers, and other class-based businesses, and why tools built for marketing teams don't fit how these businesses run.

What we discuss

What Mailchimp does well, and why it gets expensive: Olivier was paying $250 a month to send 10 to 12 newsletters a year Why a tool built for e-commerce can't segment by what families registered for, their membership status, or their kid's age The unsubscribe problem: parents who opt out of marketing emails also miss class reminders and cancellation notices Simple marketing based on your own data, like emailing every family with a six- or seven-year-old about a new class An automated email six to eight weeks before each child's birthday, sent only to the parents it applies to Leaving already-registered families out of campaign emails, which cut Olivier's unsubscribes even as he sent more emails Why opens and clicks don't tell you which campaign brought in registrations How sending operational and marketing emails from one system helps your emails stay out of spam Resources mentioned Why Google Forms Doesn’t Work for Sports Registrations (previous episode) Birthday Parties Might Be the Best Marketing Strategy for Sports Clubs (the birthday automation) Best Class Management Software: 6 Must-Have Features Before You Buy (our series on choosing registration software) Best Canadian Alternative to Mailchimp How To Replace Mailchimp, SurveyMonkey, Jotform, and Eventbrite With a Single Tool Activity Messenger email marketing Book a free demo of Activity Messenger Follow Olivier on LinkedIn About the hosts Olivier Rousseau co-founded Activity Messenger after spending 13 years running a kids' sports program that served 4,000 families. William Rochford is Activity Messenger's product expert. Want to share your story or ask a question? Email olivier@activitymessenger.com.

Full episode transcript

Read the full transcript

Intro[0:00] If you caught our latest episode, we talked about Google Forms and how it could be tempting to sort of um get into free or easily accessible tools or even popular tools. In this episode, we're going to talk about the email communication aspect of things. And of course, you've heard of Mailchimp. Everybody knows Mailchimp. It's ubiquitous. Everybody in business probably has touched it at least once is my guess. Um, but popular doesn't necessarily mean that it's adapted and especially not if you're running a business in the service sports[0:38] and rec industry. Um, so we're going to talk about why that is in this episode. Stay tuned. [music] Hi everybody and welcome back to AMplify. I'm your host Will. I'm here with Oli. How you doing Oli? Good. What's up? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I don't know if I'll ever change that intro. Um, so yeah, today we're talking aboutMailchimp gets expensive fast[1:07] Mailchimp. I'm sure you've heard of it. Uh, and the things that are important to consider when thinking about Mailchimp. So, Mailchimp starts out free, which is very enticing. Uh, but it will get you into a workflow and sooner than later I believe you will find that Mailchimp is no longer really responding to your true needs. Um, so let's talk about that. And the the first point that we want to bring up is how even though it's free in the beginning, Mailchimp actually ends up being too expensive for what it actually does. Yeah. I I think you know I went through[1:43] that phase when I started my you know sports and leisure business uh almost 13 years ago. Started with a free Mailchimp account was awesome. I was sending newsletters. [laughter] I was getting you know revenue from it. Excited. Uh and then it grows and then my business grew you know quite a very very large kind of email list where at some point I was paying you know $250 a a month just to send a newsletter a month. Right. I would send 10 Yeah. 10 to 12 um sendouts per year and it was costing me that much, right? So, it was like one[2:13] email but at the same time I was getting a lot of value out of it. I was able to monetize that and I was like I got to keep paying this, right? Um and then I saw all the developments and they Mailchimp is an amazing platform for very um you know new people to marketing but also very advanced, right? Mhm. But the thing is, if you're not using all the features, you're going to pay a lot for features you don't really need cuz you're going to as you grow your subscriber list and I wasn't using a lot of those things. So, what ended up happening is I started, you know, moved[2:40] away to Constant Contact. I tried MailerLite and I just ended up with the cheapest alter like alternative to Mailchimp because I was like, I'm just sending one email a month. I just need something that makes that work. And I kind of stayed there, right? Yeah. Um, and I never tried to push the automations to another level because I was never able to bring Mailchimp like strengths into the content of my business from my registration software. Huge frustration cuz I saw all these possibilities of retargeting of segmenting. But these the platforms[3:10] didn't talk and I wasn't able to do that, right? But now we live in a time where registration platforms have a lot of the features from Mailchimp, but they have all the content of your business. So even if they don't have all the advanced stuff from Mailchimp if they're designed for the sports and leisure, they will have the features you need and then all the context which will give you so much more value. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that youBuilt for ecommerce, not services[3:34] know that ties [snorts] into our second point which is that Mailchimp is essentially built for e-commerce logics, right? Like uh online marketing, it's very good. It like paired with Shopify, things like that, you know, it it works really really well. It's got those really advanced marketing tools. Yeah, but often times those are not the tools that you really need when you're doing, you know, service and w to be really tied to, you know, what classes you registered to. Uh are they still a member? Is their membership passed? Like target people on[4:07] on registration status instead of just bulk sending, you know, I got 10,000 subscribers and we're just going to send one newsletter a month. How can we segment it? And we can do se segmentation in Mailchimp, but all your data a lot of times lives in forms on, you know, on your registration software, who's a member, who's registered to what program, and that information is not in Mailchimp. So, it just removes all the segmentation in Mailchimp. It's not valuable if they don't. How do you how do you I don't even knowMissing operational emails[4:33] how this would work actually. I never tried it, but how how do you send class reminders from Mailchimp? Do you like you have to build a list? Yeah, you have to import list a lot of times or you can push list. Sometimes they have APIs that will connect to your registration software. But one of the it brings up another problem is like Mailchimp is meant for marketing, right? We're talking about marketing emails, which is super important. But in a service business, you're going to have a lot of non-marketing emails, reminders before classes start[5:01] at the end of class. Classes canceled. You got to email or text everybody. So, you want a software that can do both. Because I've had a lot of clients say, "I'm using Mailchimp. I send an email to my parents, something super important, and they say, "I never got it." And like, "Yeah, you unsubscribed." It's like, "Well, yeah, I don't want your your your uh marketing emails, but I'm still going to register to your programs, and I want all the contact the the communications around uh my child's registration, for example."[5:28] And this point is huge. I think this point alone uh could be is really the best argument. It's it's the most important one because [clears throat] you need to have those operational communications, you know, and you can't do it you can't do it with Mailchimp because just everything is just automatically marketing, right? And and so but it happens a lot and I've seen it happen a lot in a lot of our clients, you know, parents who unsubscribe Yeah.[5:55] from an email, but then they register to your classes and they need the context. They want that text before they want the email before camp starts. They want they want their cake and they want to eat it too pretty much. Yeah. [laughter] But you should be able to offer that. Like you should be able to communicate to your clients how they want to be, how they want to get. They want to get a text. They want to get the the not no more marketing emails. You need that built into your to[6:18] your software. Especially nowadays, I think communication between clients and companies has come to a point where it's a lot more personalized, a lot more automated. In many industries, if you don't do that, you might be left behind at that level. Yeah. Exactly. So, yeah, we've talked about this. It's not registration based. So, you don't know, you know, who registered, who dropped out of a class, uh, class makeup, all of these like complex workflows around switching classes, registering to classes, changing classes, returning for classes.[6:52] You have none of that data in in your your client management uh tool. This episode is sponsored by Activity Messenger, an online registration software I helped build after spending more than a decade managing kids sports programs and dealing with outdated, disconnected tools that slow everything down. I know the frustration of using a bunch of old tools that don't sync, don't scale, and definitely don't make life easier. Activity Messenger is built to fix that. Our goal is to be your all-in-one operating system, modern, mobile first, and to simplify your[7:25] entire workflow. Want to check it out? Visit activitymessenger.com to book your free demo. Now, let's get back to the show. Yeah. So, one of the pointsAdvanced but not useful[7:36] too that that we keep kind of bringing up is the fact that [clears throat] yeah, sure, you have advanced marketing tools in something like Mailchimp or other ones. You know, ActiveCampaign, I use that for a bit. I never use that advanced functionality. It's for marketers. It's it's really really like hardcore built for marketers. But it's not because it's advanced that it's, you know, necessarily something to consider or even want, right? It's like for for service for sports and rec, it's a different type[8:07] of advance that you want, right? And it's all all about the how you configure configured your business and how the data comes into your business. Yeah. So, you know, got to look at the context more than anything else. You want to segment based on context from registration, age, all these other things, levels, like there's a bunch of things you're going to want to do, but that's at the registration, not in all these advanced like, oh, they clicked here on this email, so send them this other email. Like, those are things[8:34] like, you know, [clears throat] that are for teams that have a whole marketing department. Yeah. A lot of the businesses I I owned a business for a long time. I was the marketing department and I was doing a million other things, right? So it's like I don't want to learn all these advanced options in Mailchimp. I don't think they have that much value. But I might have the idea of saying, "Oh, I'm going to open up a class for six- to seven-year-olds." Wouldn't it be nice to target every single person who came in[8:59] the last year who's six- to seven-year-old in this type of program and just send them a nice marketing email? That is simple marketing for me because it's my content. I'm not learning anything. I'm just it's an idea. I want to grow my business this way. The data is there and I just send it out. Easy. Yeah. And that's where you'll get a lot more personalization, a lot more value. People opening that up are getting something specific to what they like, what they what they've been registering for. Yeah. And then from there, you know, you get a[9:24] lot more value. And it's not more complex. It's just more about you, about your business and your needs. Exactly. And with those kinds of tools, you can get into what we might call, youNo real automation[9:37] know, industry specific automations. In other words, you can automate communications based on real contextual workflows. Yeah. You know, so um what's an example we were talking about earlier about uh birthday parties? Yeah. Yeah. Birthday parties, right? So So yeah, one one great example is if you if you run birthday parties, so if you have a gymnastics club, a dance studio, whatever, and you run birthday parties, um you might put in your newsletter every month, hey, we offer birthday parties. You might tell your clients now[10:10] because you have this context and the marketing email there, you can automate an email to go out 6 to 8 weeks before a child's birthday cuz you have that data when they register and then to be sent out to the parent saying, "Hey, we we noticed, you know, Will's birthday's coming up. We offer amazing parties. You know, he loves the programs. Does he want us Do you want to reserve that?" So, you're sending it exactly at the time the parent is either thinking about it or should be thinking about what to do for their child's birthday. And they're only getting one email a year.[10:37] You don't have to integrate it everywhere, but they're getting it at the exact time that that it makes sense for them for them to spend money with with you. And I used to run birthdays and I've had people come into our programs like, "Oh, I would have loved to have done a birthday with you." But, you know, too bad I didn't think about it. Well, it's not that. It's just it was a month ago and I didn't know you guys did birthdays. You know what I mean? Like, so all these things can really it it helps it better serve your client.[11:00] They're happy. If they want it, they're going to come and pick it up and everybody's happy, right? But you're going to bring a lot of revenue from that. I've had some people tell me this pays for the software. Imagine you get one birthday a month. Yep. Your your monthly fee is paid right from that one automation. Simple one little automation.Irrelevant communication problem[11:16] And the other thing I want to touch upon on context which this was a game changer when I when I switched from Mailchimp to Activity Messenger or MailerLite I think I was at that point. I remember I tried all of them almost. Uh but when I switched to um to Activity Messenger, the really cool thing about it was that I used to open up programs let's say for the summer and I would open up registration in January, right? So I would send an email blast and I would get hundreds of registration but that I'm not only going to send it in January because a lot of parents are[11:46] not, you know, they're like summer, you kidding me? Like [laughter] we're not thinking about that. So I would send another one February, another one March, April. Right now what would happen? two things, right? Sometimes people would unsubscribe that had registered because they registered in January and like why am I still getting these emails like they should know I'm registered, right? So it's out of context. So they would unsubscribe and I I would have people in April or May saying, "Am I registered?" Like I I thought I registered in[12:12] January. You keep sending me these emails, right? So you get more unsubscribes. But then what happened is I was like, "Oh, now I have the data in my system. I can see these 300 people have already subscribed. So, let me send this email specifically for a type of program. Remove everybody who's already registered. So, that person stops getting those emails about that program. And when I reopen it up in July for the fall session, they know that they're going to open it because they know there's context. They[12:38] know that if they're sending me an email, it's not that, oh, I relevant to me. It's relevant to my situation. That's exactly it. And that the thing that did I our unsubscribe lowered a lot cuz people were not getting as many emails. But the craziest part is I was actually sending more emails cuz I was like, "Oh, if I'm not bothering people who are already registered, I can add in the cadence." So somebody will unsubscribe, but then there's parents that are like, "Oh my in May, I forgot to sign up for, you know, my camp this summer, whatever it is, and[13:04] they're happy you got that email at the last minute." Right? So it was just such a great move on all aspects just because I had the context. It changed my whole strategy because I had the context, which technically you could do in Mailchimp. You have to import, remove people. It's just it I I didn't do it cuz it was a headache. It's a headache and then you just don't do it. Exactly. And I think that's that's probably one of the best pro tips we ever dropped on this podcast is like[13:29] it it was it was a game changer. Yeah. I can I can that contextual relevant to your client, you know, like I even say hyper relevant to your client. Even you want to bring revenue back, why not have um an email go out with a coupon code for everybody who hasn't been one of your programs for a year. Hey, we miss you. Yeah. Here's a coupon code. a bunch of people won't take it, but maybe somebody's going to be like, "Oh, right.[13:51] Two or three, four, get a few revenue, but you're only sending it to those people." And so you can have all these ideas kind of once you get the context like, "Wow, all these marketing ideas pop up that are not tool related. They're context related." And then you just apply them how you want. Exactly. And then the tool just becomes the help. It becomes what allows you to do it easily without that headache of having to piece together remove 17 different[14:18] I've done it been there lists um [clears throat] yeah so the otherNo registration tracking[14:24] thing too is you know these these types of CRM or or you know communication systems they will track clicks y in emails and they're usually very good at doing it But clicks do not equal actual registrations. And it's much more important for an admin to track those registrations. So that's usually something that's missing there, too. A good example I like to take is let's say you're in Mailchimp and you're like, I'm going to A/B test this campaign. So from Mailchimp, you get your A gets 100[15:01] opens, 75 clicks, right? Your B gets 50 opens, 35 clicks, right? So obviously A is better. Well, actually if you have the conversion rate, you might see that yeah, you got more open on this title, but at the end of the day, you only got five registration for all that noise. I'll call it noise. And on the other side, doesn't seem as impressive, but you got 15 registrations. I'm making up numbers, but it's just like if you don't have the conversion of who's actually going and making the payments, you know, you're A/B testing. What are[15:31] what are you really A/B testing? What are you testing? So I think it should be all revenue based. like when you're when you're trying to do market marketing to bring registrations in and if you don't have the context or the data, it's really hard to to know what's working. Um, did we miss anything?Marketing vs operations split[15:47] I'm not sure. I feel like we breezed right through that. Yeah, which was which was really uh really good. Uh, a lot of lot of good stuff. Um, yeah. Well, we you know, maybe just to to hammer on the the segmentation a little bit. Yeah, I think and well, yeah, maybe just something that just kind of popped up and we we uh we spoke about it earlier was the impact of having marketing and non-marketing emails in the same system for open rates and not[16:15] being in spam, right? So, what happens if you're sending one email a month per for Mailchimp? You know, chances are Gmail and all that stuff might put you in promotions or might put you in spam a bit more. Then, if you're using the same system and you're sending confirmation emails, you're sending reminder emails. You're see sending class cancellation emails, your open rates for those those emails are like 80 90%. It's sometimes 100%. Literally, you can send 23 kids, [clears throat] we got to cancel class today, and you'll get 100% open rate. that gives um legs[16:46] to your online reputation for email deliverability. So it really helps your your marketing and having all that there right. So a lot of people say you know we end up in spam sometimes. Well actually if you put all your communications and you don't spam you will get a much better you know email are going to be opened and and in inboxes all I can't believe we were about to miss this part because it's like the second most important one. But yeah, I mean having that distinction between operational or non-marketing emails and[17:15] marketing emails is an absolute game changer and like you said it really improves your sender score. Yeah. Right. Making your emails more deliverable, making less of those important marketing sendouts end up in the spam 100%. And so why wouldn't you want that? Everybody wants that. [laughter] It's like the bane of email marketers, you know, having things end up in spam. So,[17:40] you know, a registration platform worth its salt will allow you to do that. Whereas Mailchimp uh will will not because everything is just standard marketing. So, it's just like what we said earlier. If somebody unsubscribes, well, they're not going to get that class reminder. Um but somebody who does receive that class reminder is going to open it. Yeah. Right. And you know I think one thing that's important to know as well is that a lot of the softwares like say they have email marketing uh class management[18:07] software but then do they really have all the features from like a Mailchimp right can they configure your email address and not that the communication come out of like notifications at softwareabc.com right uh do they really can they make something nice and stuff so sometimes cuz I've had a lot of people say I'm keeping my Mailchimp I'm switching to your registration platform because they lost trust from what they had been sold that their other platform, they're like, "This is not like Mailchimp." Right? So, if you're curious, if you're like, "I love my[18:35] Mailchimp and I'm it's working. I don't want to like move away from it because you get a lot of value." And I used to be like that, too. I was like, "I'm getting so much value. I don't want to, you know, uh do something and it's going to break." But ain't broke. Don't fix it. Right? I would argue that you should look into getting all that context cuz I we just kind of gave you a few ideas and then you probably had two three more ideas pop in your mind of like, oh, I could do this marketing if I had the content, right? So[19:00] even if you would lose certain things from Mailchimp, the content is probably more valuable in our industry. So that's kind of a thought process for people who are on Mailchimp or Constant Contact that are enjoying it. Uh maybe they're paying a lot, but they're like, "It's I'm still getting a lot of value." you might get more value not from a more sophisticated software but just contextual right like as we were saying. Yep. Exactly. So I think that's that's a good place to end it, you know, like theOutro[19:25] the real conclusion here is that Mailchimp's a great tool. Yeah. And there are a lot of great tools like it. Um but what sports and rec or service industry organizations need is not super refined marketing campaign tools. What they need is contextual tools. Tools that rely on the context that you're going to get with all of your forms. All the data that you pull in to be able to communicate with people based on that context is so powerful for all the reasons we talked about.[20:00] So hopefully that inspires you. Hopefully that gives you some ideas and maybe it encourages you to uh look into making the switch. There's a lot of great options out there. Uh we represent one but there are a lot. So, uh, you know, we have some episodes that we just released previously on how to shop for a good registration platform. So, if you want to check those out if you haven't already, uh, feel free to go and and and browse our episode bank. And, uh, we have a lot of fun doing this. And as always, I want to remind[20:27] you if you have some comments, some questions, uh, suggestions for future episodes, just drop them below this video/podcast, wherever you listen to it. And uh it's always great to hear from you and to keep the conversation going. So, thanks a lot for listening and we'll see you next time. Take care everybody. See you all.

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