You've probably heard of MailChimp. Perhaps it is because you have thought about using it for your online store; perhaps because you receive emails where, at the bottom, they notify you that this tool is used. Or maybe for other reasons.
MailChimp has become a favorite digital tool for many to send newsletters to a large number of subscribers. But do you know what it is? How does it work? If this is your first time, or if you've already tried it but it's still not clear, now you might understand.
What is MailChimp
MailChimp is actually a tool you can use to run email marketing campaigns. These campaigns are very important because they help you connect with all your followers, while also sending offers, discounts, or simply emails to the people on your follower list.
In addition, it becomes a very powerful tool, because you can design, send and know what the impact of your emails is. For example, imagine that you send one saying that the business is closed for holidays. And the impact is 1%; What does it mean? That almost no one has paid attention to that email. Instead, you send one saying that your store offers a 50% discount on everything; obviously the impact will be 70% (or 30, or 100%, you never know). And it implies that it will be successful.
For sure, it is not possible to know if an email by MailChimp is going to be successful or not, but it will give you statistics that will help you know if what you do is really effective or if you should change to properly promote your business.
You should know that MailChimp has two versions: free and paid. The free account allows you to send 12.000 emails per month, but only to 2.000 contacts. The paid account offers more advantages (for example, autoresponders, which are automatic email sending; or triggers, which allow you to send emails for a specific event), but if you don't reach those 2.000 contacts, it's not worth paying extra for just a few benefits.
What to use it for
Continuing with the same MailChimp theme, you should know that this tool has multiple uses. Not only does it take care of managing newsletter shipments, but it is also capable of tracking them.
Furthermore, this isn't just valid for online stores. It's also for businesses that implement a registration form on their websites where users can leave their email address. The reason is that this large database allows you to connect with all those people. But doing it one by one isn't ideal (it takes too much time, and email providers might consider it spam and send everything you send to that folder (which almost nobody actually sees).
But that's not all. MailChimp will help you create forms on your blog, comply with anti-spam laws, run tests, and make content go viral. And much more that only experts in this tool can achieve.
In this sense, the advantages that MailChimp has over traditional email sending are:
- Being able to measure the results of each campaign.
- Create personalized and designed emails that grab attention.
- Track the response of the recipient (for example, if they open the email, if they click on the link, if they directly delete it ...).
How to create a MailChimp account
Before you start thinking about how you're going to send emails to your subscribers, or the type of campaign you're going to run, you need to register and complete all the steps to have a MailChimp account.
To do this, the first step you must do is go to the official page of the tool, https://mailchimp.com/.
Once there, you must click on "Sign Up Free". Put your data in the form, as well as the password you are going to use. This will send you an email to verify your registration. You must click on the button «Activate Account».
At that moment, a new screen will open in which you will have to fill in more information: personal information, company name, address, if you have sent something, if you have social networks and want to connect them ... At the same time, you will receive an email welcoming you and offering you a help manual so that you can understand the tool, use it correctly and, above all, learn some tricks of its use.
How to use the tool for your company
Using MailChimp well is not a matter of hours, it is almost days, because the best advice we can give you is to read a lot about the tool to get the most out of it. Therefore, we are going to leave you the main uses it has and how you should do them.
How to create a contact list in MailChimp
Creating a contact list is important because, who are you going to send your emails to? That's why you need to consider this key step. To do this, you must be clear about the type of customer you're going to target. For example, you can't create a list of children's toys with people or users who don't have children.
Once you are in MailChimp, you must click on the Lists section, which is where the list is created. There you will see, on the right, a little button that says Create List. Go ahead.
Now you will have to fill in a page with the details, that is, the name of the list, what email you are going to use to send to that list, and what the name of the sender will be. Sometimes, you can put the reason why they subscribed to that list, as well as keep in mind that they can be deleted from it.
Once everything is done, click Save and you will have your own contact list.
How to import the list of subscribers in MailChimp
You might already have subscriber lists and not want to upload emails to MailChimp one by one. In that case, you have several options for importing them. How? Well, you can do it this way:
- From Excel.
- From a CSV or a text document.
- Or from applications such as Google Drive, Zendesk, Eventbrite ...
How to create an email
You already have the lists. Now it's time to create the email you want your subscribers to receive. To do this, go to Campaigns and then click the Create Campaign button on the right.
Now, in the search field you can find different campaign templates that can come in handy, such as welcoming new subscribers, or remembering that you have abandoned carts in your online store. There is also a thank you ...
Once you have it, you must give your campaign a name, as well as the list you want to receive that email. And you hit Begin.
Next, it's time to design the email. This is done in Design Email (on the right), where you will have to fill in the information requested.
Next, you have to choose a template for the email, which will depend on your taste. You can preview it, so you just have to be guided by your business and the impression you want to give.
Of course, you can customize the text, images and whatever you want.
Important, always add the possibility of canceling the subscription, since it is the user's right. And one more contribution, try that everything is in the right language. That is, if you address users from Spain, in Spanish (including the footer); but if they are English, better all the text in English.