MailChimp Basics: Email Marketing Tool

MailChimp is an email service provider  ESP. It is a very useful marketing tool in light of the continued strategic value of email marketing. Since MailChimp offers many packages, including a free one, it is attractive to a wide range of businesses. This post serves as a quick overview of MailChimp for the complete beginner. 

Immediately below is an image of the MailChimp top menu functions. It is always best to start with 'lists'. However, below is a quick rundown of some MailChimp functions.

• Lists (ie mailing lists). Start by creating a list. A list is simply a collection of recipients to whom you may broadcast correspondence. Members of a list have the same data fields. For instance, a school may place teachers and students into 2 separate lists. After all, the 2 groups are likely to have different data fields. Students may have fields for student grades, form teacher and so on which are unsuitable for teachers. In this example, it would therefore be best to have 2 separate lists for each group. However, you may create a segment within a list like 'final year students', 'junior year students' and so on. 
• Create lists. In addition to the segments options (mentioned below), you may also create segments within lists by creating and adding 'tags' to the relevant contact. Another alternative involves creating filters based on field values. 
• Add subscribers through manual entry or automatic entry (from other email collection apps)
• Integration with email collection apps (like Welcome Screen)
• Create segments. 
• Create signup forms (embedded, pop-ups and so on). You can create multiple types of form for a single mailing list. 

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• Email campaigns. This involves one-off emails with content related to anything like a newsletter (to announce one-off tentpole promotions, DIY instructions for a product, case studies related to a particular product or segment, contest results announcement, early-bird coupon for an upcoming sale and so on). See more newsletter content ideas. Also see how using Twitter hashtags (#) can extend your reach beyond only those people whose email addresses you have.
  

  

  Basic MailChimp Email Campaign. In addition to sending the campaign right away, you may schedule the campaign, a feature that is great for tentpoling and other time-sensitive events.
• Automation email marketing. This is a more complex type of campaign. It involves a timed sequence of emails that may be triggered when the lead completes an action like submitting a form, abandoning a shopping cart and so on. 

Your ideal starting point is to create a mailing list. Let's say that you have created and entered into a list (named 'Veg Gardening List'), the image below displays the dashboard for that list.

Once you have a list, start with 'General forms' to create a new subscription signup form for the 'Veg Gardening List'. This option allows you to enter all of the possible fields for which you wish to collect information, even if some fields are initially hidden during the initial signup. NB Most lists ask for nothing more than the email address and, in some cases, the first name. Subscribers will be automatically prompted to complete the other fields. If you subsequently choose other options like 'embedded', 'popup', etc, they will still relate to the same 'veg gardening list' with the full list of fields that relate to the list with the default setting the same regarding which fields will appear and which hidden.  

When you click on 'General forms', the following 'create forms' will appear. Start with just the basic 'subscribe' form pictured below in the drop down menu  of what may seem an intimidating set of list options. However, in reality, all those many options appearing below 'subscribe' are actually part of an automatically generated sequence of emails. They enable the subscription process. You can actually ignore them since the default templates are acceptable in most cases. However, when you have extra time, click on each to customize the wording of each email and element of the sequence.
  

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RELATED CONTENT TO USING MAILCHIMP FOR EMAIL MARKETING

• How to Create a MailChimp Mailing List
• Before creating a MailChimp campaign, use this Autoresponder Email Sequence template to create a campaign plan
• See how to use Twitter hashtags to extend market reach beyond those interested people whose email addresses you have.
• MailChimp VS GetResponse. Which should you choose? Your business type may determine the answer.

Email Marketing: Create MailChimp Lists

A MailChimp list is a collection of contacts to whom material such as marketing promotional emails and autoresponder email sequences may be sent, especially on a regular basis. Marketing mailing lists typically have, at least in the start, each contact's email address (and possibly first name).

Before beginning, write a plan. Throughout the process, consider your target market. Create a draft using this simple autoresponder email sequence template. A good first step in email marketing is creating a list as follows. (Subsequent steps include creating a campaign and building your audience.) This post assumes that you have atleast created a MailChimp account.

• Log in. You will arrive on the 'Dashboard' where you will see the main top menu with options like 'Lists', 'Campaigns' and so on. 
• Click 'Lists'. If you have lists already, they will appear here. Either way, there will be a 'Create List' button in the top right portion of the screen
• Click the 'Create a list' button. You will be given the opportunity to either create a new list or sub-divide an existing list.
• Click the 'Create list' button. You will be sent to 'List details'. Complete the fields (like 'list name' that subscribers will see, a 'from name', the from email address, street address and notifications). You will be directed to a page with the name of that new list with an empty database. You will see options to 'import subscribers' as pictured immediately below.

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An alternative to downloading entire lists is to manually enterisingle email addresses that you may have collected offline.

• Click 'Import subscribers' for the following options.

Below to the right is a copy of an automatically generated mailing list from a 'Welcome Screen' app landing page (on a Shopify website). The landing page only had the email address field. After downloading and opening it, the following details are available. 

Place the cursor within the next available space in the 'paste subscriber info' (below to the left) box. 

MailChimp updates the list as shown immediately below. NB MailChimp automatically removes duplicates and do not send confirmation emails as the source from which you gather mail should have done that already.

This list does not have the first names. However, if it did, they would appear on the same row of their corresponding email address after a few spaces.

  

• Agree to MailChimp terms and click 'Next' in the bottom right corner
• Click 'Edit' in the 2nd column. MailChimp automatically recognizes the first column as the 'email' column. However, it requires you to label subsequent columns. In the example pictured below, you will be able to label that 2nd column 'First name' either from a dropdown list of common column names or any custom name. 

• Click 'Next' button in the bottom right corner
• Select the appropriate category description for the subscribers you have just uploaded as either 'subscribed', 'unsubscribed', etc.
• You may proceed to create a signup form (an option within the 'Lists' dashboard). You can create multiple versions of the signup form (embedded, pop-up and so on) that deposit contact details into a single mailing list. Some common types include the following. MailChimp has a design flaw  / bug in that it is not possible to rearrange the order of some manually created fields like text and checkbox fields. This is a major oversight since text fields are best placed lower than no-typing fields in order to encourage response rate. Consequently, create your entire form beforehand on paper because you will never be allowed to make changes afterwards.
• 'Embedded' forms will become integrated into an external webpage along with other content
• 'General' forms generate clickable links on text or images that lead to a page that exclusively hosts that contact form. Since you can edit the header with many customizable elements, this page is ideal as a lead generating landing / squeeze page, with your choice of logos, images and text. Paste the automatically generated URL (as pictured immediately below) into HTML code. The resulting page will have a URL that incorporates your domain name in the earlier portion which makes leads more comfortable. See a comprehensive list of Landing page DOs & DON'Ts

MailChimp can be used to create lead generating landing pages

• 'Tablet' forms are MailChimp signup apps for androids and Apple mobile devices that allow you to collect and automatically sync addresses that you collect in person

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RELATED CONTENT

• MailChimp basics: What is MailChimp and what can I do with it?
• Before you begin a mailing campaign, create a campaign plan with this Autoresponder email sequence template
• Create MailChimp Campaign
• Did you know? MailChimp lists are independent of each other. For instance, a subscriber whose record exists in 2 different lists may update one list without that update having an effect on the other list. This makes some sense since the fields in any single list may be different.
• Build your audience
• Lists VS segments. Lists refer to a group that will have the same data fields. For instance, rather than put both teachers and students together in the same list, a school may place teachers and students into separate lists. After all, the 2 groups are likely to have different fields. Students may have fields regarding grades, form teacher and so on. Furthermore, you are unlikely to send both the same emails. However, you may create a segment within a list like 'final year students', 'junior years' and so on. You may create segments by creating and adding 'tags' to the relevant contact. However, a more automatic method may involve creating filters based on field values.