Mailchimp is a powerful email marketing platform that is extremely useful for any business to have. Since I’ve recently been working with an Esports organization on their newsletter project, I thought it would be useful to learn the basics and try to implement an automated email strategy for the organization.
Importing contacts
The first thing I had to do was familiarize myself with Mailchimp. After spending about 10 minutes looking through all the features Mailchimp has to offer, I was able to find the import contact feature within Mailchimp.
Since that is essentially the first place to start when setting up Mailchimp, I decided to start here. I saw that it prompted me to upload a CSV file which is pretty easy to do.
Since all my contacts currently live on a google sheets spreadsheet all I had to do was download my spreadsheet as a CSV file. By uploading a CSV file, Mailchimp is then able to seamlessly import the data into the system.
Mailchimp also makes it easy to organize all of your contacts after you import them with the use of tags. Tags make it easy to label your contacts so that you can filter them in and out of specific email campaigns.
After you tag your contacts, you can double check and make sure the information is correct. I found that Mailchimp does a fairly good job reading the CSV file, so there weren’t many changes to be made.
Once Mailchimps finishes the upload, it imports your CSV file into your contacts. You are then able to start an email campaign.
Starting the campaign
So now it was time for the fun part, which was getting to write the email. I found that Mailchimp makes it easy for anyone to design awesome looking emails, as well as gives you the ability to automate emails.
After we fill out the “From” and “To” section of the email, the next step is to fill out the “subject line” and “preview text”. Before learning Mailchimp, I wasn’t familiar with the “preview text”. However, after researching it a little bit, I learned that it gives the email an extra hook to pull the reader in even more. Even though it might not be visible for some email clients, it’s still an important tool for those who can see it. The Preview text is meant to be short, sweet, and to the point.
After that, it was time to start designing the email. Mailchimp has an extensive source of templates and themes that make it easy to get started. I also was given some graphics from my organization’s graphic design team to use.
As you can see in the screenshot, Mailchimp offers a wide assortment of tools that make it easy to move modules around, change the color of the text and background, as well as it gives you the ability to link your social media accounts.
I learned that after you design the email, Mailchimp then allows you to preview the email in both desktop mode, and mobile so that you can make sure that your email looks good across all devices. Mailchimp also has a send test email function so that you can make sure that everything is working the way it should be.
Mailchimp not only helps you create awesome looking emails, but can also provide the marketing team with valuable data by being able to track clicks and opens.
One of the best parts to using Mailchimp is its ability to automate emails. This will allow me to create emails that will automatically send to any new subscribers.
However, by hitting the custom option, we are given a few more advanced options so that we can automate this email for our specific needs. We can customize settings such as trigger, schedule, filter by segment or tag, and post send action. By being able to customize the trigger, you can do cool things, like send out specific emails once a campaign has been clicked, or have you ever wondered how a company knows when to send an email after you’ve abandoned a cart? Well, this is how.
Key takeaways
I have found that Mailchimp has a lot to offer when it comes to an email marketing platform. Mailchimp is simple enough for anyone to use, however has some advanced settings that take some time and a little bit of research to get used to. But once you learn your way around Mailchimp, it becomes an extremely useful tool.
Being able to create amazing email templates as well as automate those emails makes it an essential tool for any business, big or small. I still have a lot to learn, but after using Mailchimp for a little bit. I’ve decided that I will continue to use Mailchimp for my work with the Esports organization, since it has greatly sped up the process and makes email marketing that much easier.