For many small businesses, getting a mobile app created for their restaurant, coffee shop or retail store seems time consuming and expensive. But it doesn’t have to be. Lately we’ve noticed several applications popping up that make creating a mobile app as easy as creating a web page. One particularly neat example of this (and the newest app to create an integration with MailChimp via the integration fund) is Bizness Apps.

Bizness Apps is “making mobile apps affordable and simple for small businesses.” They make it easy for anyone to create, edit and manage an iPhone and/or Android app online without any programming knowledge. But, what good is your new app if your customers can’t get it on iTunes or in the Android app store? Don’t worry, the staff at Bizness Apps will handle that part for you.

Even better, thanks to the integration fund, Bizness Apps now integrates with MailChimp, making it super simple to add a newsletter sign up form to your mobile app and have all your new subscribers automatically added to your MailChimp list.

For a complete walk through of how to set up the MailChimp integration in Bizness Apps, check out this tutorial or this screencast.

One of the neat things about the integration fund is that it allows us to fund development work with a huge variety of applications – including those that are targeted to specific industries. For example, we’ve got hundreds of churches using MailChimp to communicate with their congregations and, just like any other non profit, they have a hard time keeping track of their members, ministries, contributions, events etc. Which is why I’m excited to announce the next integration to launch out of our fund.

Church Office Online’s flagship product, Church Membership Online, is an inexpensive, user-friendly and accessible church management software with to goal of helping churches use technology to keep track of their ministries, volunteers, attendance trends, contributions, plus manage events, meetings, fundraisers etc.

Now they are integrated with MailChimp, allowing churches to sync data from their Church Membership Online account into their MailChimp lists, all with just a click of a button. Sending regular newsletters to update your membership as a whole or stay in touch with smaller segments like youth ministry or the softball team just got a whole lot easier.

They even put together a nice step by step video that walks you through using MailChimp with your Church Membership Online account.

Yesterday we announced the integration of MarkdownMail with MailChimp! Today we’ve got some more exciting news with this application. As mentioned in the original post, the app is $3.99 on the App Store. Not a bad price, but how does FREE sound? Little better, huh? We’ve decided to reimburse you for the cost of the application if you decide to use it within the next 30 days. The reimbursement comes in the form of MonkeyRewards credits, so you will have $3.99 added to your MailChimp account to go towards your monthly plan, pay-as-you-go credits or Inbox Inspections. To qualify for the credit, MailChimp subscribers will need to set up a draft campaign using the Markdownmail app before February 11, 2011 and we’ll automatically add the credit to your account. Yay!

About a year ago we blogged about a hack that allows you to add a newsletter signup form to your Facebook Fan Page using static FBML and your lists’s embed code. But now with MailChimp v5.2 we’ve developed an actual Facebook app that allows you to seamlessly add a signup form to your profile and/or fan page, and easily change it as often as you like:

Having your subscribe form connected to your Page is especially useful because it keeps your Fans from having to leave Facebook, or even your page, to sign up for your list. When you make things easy for your Fans and followers, they’re more likely to take action. And since they don’t have to leave Facebook, this makes your page more interactive and more sticky with very little additional effort.

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Vzaar is an online video player that positions its core product as “online video without the limitations of YouTube.” Some key features include the ability to add unbranded video players to your site, no duration limits on your uploads, no distracting links to competitor videos under the guise of “related features”, and now, the ability to include a MailChimp email signup form at the end of your video.

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