Ronn TorossianRonn Torossian

In May, news broke that bootstrap email marketing platform Mailchimp is expanding to offer a full suite of marketing and customer relationship management tools.

Mailchimp, which competes in a space heavily populated by new names each week, has put its name in the ring as a contender to host marketing tools that businesses need. Given the success it’s seen with its email marketing products, this seems to be a logical next step for the brand.

Earnings from this change are projected to boost company numbers to $700 million this year, a bold prediction for the company, which reports a little over $500 million in annual earnings up to this point.

Mailchimp is a name that has become a force to be reckoned with in its 18-year tenure. Its global impact has grown to 11 million active customers and four billion audience members, numbers worth taking seriously.

So, what does this big move mean or signify for the digital marketing landscape?

First, this move signals a shift in an industry that has, until now, revolved around multiple “a la carte” options designed to suit one need of a marketing professional or business.

The marketing industry is filled with project management tools, CRM platforms, email marketing managers and social media scheduling tools. This list is by no means inclusive. Now Mailchimp is making a move to begin solving all of the marketing professional’s problems in one fell swoop.

The new Mailchimp marketing platform is aimed at smaller businesses. Featuring among the new offerings of the platform are customer lead management, website building and domain purchasing abilities, ad retargeting and social media management.

With one product, Mailchimp will now consolidate the efforts that multiple software currently offer on an individual basis. Mailchimp was in this same boat, but now it’s changing the name of the game, and quickly.

Time will tell how successful the platform will be in this expansion effort. However, there are several factors working to its advantage. Remember those 11 million active customers? Those are now 11 million potentially upgraded customers, which is more traction than any startup could dream of having for whom to offer a new product.

In addition, these new services solve a problem. For marketers who love to have all of their moving parts in one place, Mailchimp will offer a new solution that can’t be found elsewhere (yet). The convenience factor alone — assuming the platform is user-friendly and free of glitches — will be enough to convert marketing professionals and small businesses away from the existing programs they use.

While the revolution that Mailchimp hopes to start likely won’t happen overnight, this move represents an interesting shift within the digital marketing industry. Other software and tech businesses will be taking note of Mailchimp’s success and, likely more importantly, what mistakes it makes so that future product offerings can be made to solve these new pain points.

As Mailchimp aims to target the underserved, look for other platforms to follow suit. Could we be looking at a new landscape within the digital marketing world? Time will most certainly tell, but in a world that’s constantly changing, it should come as no surprise.

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Ronn Torossian is CEO of 5WPR.