How to Use Mailchimp for Email Marketing?

Time is money and you must start working on the ideas, as soon as they come to your mind. Getting started quickly after realizing the purpose to launch something new is the best way to stay ahead in the race.

This logic is similar in the case of email marketing. By doing so, you can ensure maximum return on investment as the creation of client base, software selection, strategy, etc by you at the initial stage, will leave competitors way behind in the race.

There are various email marketing software available today. But, Mailchimp can help your business flourish at large. Before you make up the mind to use this software, here is why it should be used.

Why Should you use Mailchimp?

Incepted over a decade ago, i.e. in 2001, Mailchimp is one of the most popularly used email marketing software across the world. At present, Mailchimp has over 20 million users and the company is valued at $4.2 billion.

Reasons to use Mailchimp for Email Marketing:

1. Simple to Use
2. Smart Features
3. Reliable
4. Zero Charges to Begin with
5. Great User Interface
6. Customer Journey Builder and analysis
7. Great A/B testing with unlimited templates

Here, we let you know how to use Mailchimp, one of the best email marketing software. Before that you must know about the software. Let’s begin with:

What is Mailchimp?

Established in 2001, Mailchimp is an email marketing company that was solely launched with the purpose to create email lists for its clients. The company worked in the same manner for nearly five to six years.

However, things changed in 2007, when the founders decided to focus on Mailchimp as a serious business and utilize the profit earned for this company’s growth.

Mailchimp started growing rapidly and soon became one of the best email marketing software that changed the concept of online marketing upside down across the globe.

• Website: Mailchimp.com
• Founded in: 2001
• Founder : Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzus
• Head Office: Atlanta GA
• Market Share in Email Marketing: 60.51%
• Total Customers: 12Million
• Email Sent a Day: 1 billion
• Countries- 200 countries using Mailchimp

Let’s move on to getting started with one of the top email marketing software that is Mailchimp.

Getting Started with Mailchimp for Email Marketing

Step 1: Explore all section of Mailchimp

Visit Mailchimp’s website and click the “Sign Up for Free” button. This button can be seen in the top right corner. Fill in details such as your email, username, and password, once the signup form pops up on the screen.

Apart from this explore all sections on the top or just spend some time reading all tabs and their importance for you. There are some of the important section in Mailchimp you should learn about them such as-

You will find the lists of products Mailchimp is offering like

1. Get your business Online and
2. Market your business

You should go with the 2nd option Market your business. Here you will see the ‘Email’ Option.

Click on this and move to the next steps. You can read more details of Mailchimp here and find the best and suitable Email Plan.

 Step 2 Create a Mailchimp Account and Activate it

After signup in Mailchimp, You will receive an email from Mailchimp after the submission of details. In this email, Mailchimp will ask you to activate your account. For this, you need to click on the “Activate Account” button.

Step 3– Create Your First Contact List on Mailchimp

Now you can create Email list. This is your first email list on Mailchimp so be careful while adding the contact details of the subscribers. You can add First Name, Last Name, Email, phone No, and any other information of the opt-in data of your customers.

Either you can create an excel file and upload and map the fields or You can copy and paste the data from excel file in the list on Mailchimp.
All the data you are putting here should be opt-in data. If you have purchased data from market or if this is not opt-in data, your email list cant be created.
There are chance for account suspension in future if you use such database for email marketing

Step 4– Set up Landing Page or Create contact form using Mailchimp

Now you can create a contact form on Mailchimp where you can collect contact details of the subscribers and generate leads for your business. You will find some options here like-:

• General forms
• Embedded forms
• Subscriber pop up forms
• or Integrate your existing landing page on your website

Either you can use your own landing page or you can create it from scratch on Mailchimp. This will require you design, develop and test all fields in that you want to collect users information’s

Step-5 Choose the right template or create Email Template

Now you have pre-designed templates by Mailchimp. pick one template and edit this as per your business or campaign requirements. If you want to create your own you can do that too. there option of creating your own templates

Step 6- Create your first campaign

Now you have set up everything. Its your first campaign to build campaign. Click on the campaign and keep following the steps to launch the email campaign

Sending Broadcast Emails with Mailchimp

Broadcast email is the one that can be sent only once. This is usually preferred for important events such as a product launch.

The same is possible in the Mailchimp. In the Mailchimp software, click on the “Create” button shown in the upper right corner of the screen. Next step is to click on the  “Email” tab, after which select the “Regular” tab, and the click on “Begin” button.

Now, select the target audience to whom you wish to send this email. Now fill the address in To, From, Subject Line and Mail body. Now, click on the send button to shoot the email. 

You have to select a layout for the content. You can choose from given layout options or can upload a custom layout, whichever you are comfortable with:

The layout is added to structure the email to make the content presentable.

Layouts can be customised with the drag and drop option, which enables you to place elements anywhere you wish to:

You can browse through themes, offer a distinct look. For this, you need to click on the themes tab, given on the top.

Now that you have begun the email marketing journey, it is important to track the performance of the email marketing campaign. To know the success rate, you need to keep below-given points in mind:

Mailchimp Pricing Plan

Mailchimp pricing are very competitive with other email marketing tools. In the beginning with 2000 contacts its free to use. The other thing is as your contact list grow you will have to pay more money to use this email marketing software.

If you are looking a tool which cheap in pricing than this is not right tool for you. Also its not good for mass mailing

Things to Know for Tracking Email Marketing Campaign Performance

Improve Your Email Marketing with Data

Mailchimp lets you track the performance of your email campaigns in the real-time. This software also allows you to know the important and relevant data in addition to increase in the target audience.

This functionality plays a vital role in the process, as  you can know the types of emails that can perform better in comparison to others.

Also, it lets you know the right time to send mailers to the target audience to receive the best open rate, click rate and more.

Search for the _Report_ section in Mailchimp given on the top, after sending at least one email.

By clicking on the above-mentioned section, you will see an overview graph that shows the open rate and click rate of your emails in comparison to the industry average.

Most of the data shown here is relevant to you. However, if you wish to know things in detail, then scroll down the page and click on the “View Report” option on the right side. It will help you track the mailer’s performance in depth.

It will also help you know the mailer campaign data report in detail. 

Conclusion

Before selecting any tool for Email Marketing. I will suggest you to compare the features, plans and usages of the tool. There are 100s of tools which claim to use the same system but fail to deliver.

Mailchimp is good for building email list and contact forms however I don’t recommend this tool to use if you have a tight budget for email marketing. Also this is not right fit for mass mailing and for purchase data.

You account might be suspended if you use a data that is not opt-in.

If you have any suggestions or add one please write in comment box