If you run a business in 2017, there are three things that you’ll need to have in place to reach current and potential customers: a website, strong social media presence, and an e-mail marketing campaign. At the heart of such a campaign is the ability to communicate with clients through a seemingly personalized experience with a single click. Do you currently subscribe to the Finish Line Blog? If not, what are you waiting for? On the right side of the page, enter your e-mail address, first and last name, and click “Subscribe”, and our latest Post will appear in your e-mail inbox every Monday at 3 P.M. While this might sound like a “shameless(?)” plug, this is actually the basis for today’s edition of the Blog. I wanted to find a way to send my posts to my client base in a professional way. After I did my research, Mailchimp certainly fit the bill. The fact that it’s free really put it over the top!
Just so you don’t think this is some fly-by-night operation, I’ll tell you that Mailchimp was founded in 2001, and in 2014 (the most current information I could find), sent 10 billion e-mails per month on behalf of its members. Mailchimp is perfect for a small business, as a free account will allow you to send 12,000 e-mails to up to 2,000 subscribers per month. I routinely recommend this option to non-profit organizations that I work with, as well. If your business is larger, their “Growing Business” plan starts at $10 per month, and the “Pro Marketer” option is a hefty $199 per month. While the aforementioned free plan is free forever, additional services and options can be purchased should the need arise. With a free account, your e-mail campaign can be integrated with Facebook, Twitter, SurveyMonkey, Google, Eventbrite, Salesforce, FreshBooks, ZenDesk, Zoho, Capsule, and PayPal. Facebook and Instagram ads can be created based on a budget and audience that you dictate.
If you’re really going bananas over what you’ve read and would like to sign up, head to https://mailchimp.com/ and click on “Sign Up Free”. Enter your e-mail address, create a password, confirm the password, and click “Get Started”. Once your account has been created, you can log in with the e-mail address and password you’ve provided and get started. If you’d like to manually create a list of subscribers, click on “Lists” at the top of the screen, then “Create List”. After inputting the necessary information, you may add contacts by clicking on the “add person” icon. Contacts may be imported from spreadsheets and Google Contacts, among other services. Once your list is created, you can then begin composing an e-mail campaign which will go out to the contacts in your newly created list. Click on “Campaigns” then “Create Campaign”. Choose between “Create an Email” or “Create an Add”, then give the campaign a name. Next, click “Begin”. Select “Entire List” to e-mail everyone on your list, then click “Next”. Enter your final settings such as “Email subject”, “From name” and “From email address”, and click “Next” when you’re finished. The next screen will allow you to choose a template that will work with the message you’re trying to convey to your contacts. After choosing your template or layout, you’re finally to the fun part: designing and composing your masterpiece. When you’ve completed your e-mail, click “Next”, and then decide whether you’d like to send the e-mail immediately, or schedule a specific time and date. All that’s left to do now is sit back and wait! I should mention that if you’d like to include a sign up form on your website, there are really two ways to go about doing it: by using a generated html code that allows you to place the form exactly where you want it, or a WordPress plugin to be used in concert with a WordPress site. Also, Mailchimp has an app for both iOS and Android devices for administration on the go.
As was previously mentioned, e-mail marketing has become a very important business strategy. I don’t know about you, but it seems like more and more e-mails appear from businesses daily that I don’t even remember signing up for. Mailchimp was attractive for me, because it was easy to opt-out from receiving my e-mails. Obviously I hope no one will do that, but I also don’t want people to get annoyed with me and have to go through an act of Congress to unsubscribe to my weekly posts. Even before that, if you decide to fill out the subscription form to receive the Blog, you’ll have to confirm that you actually wanted to sign up for it in the first place before it’s actually delivered to you. Don’t you wish other mailing lists were so considerate?
According to an Email Statistic Report from The Radacati Group, it’s projected that over one-third of the world’s population will be using e-mail by the year 2019. That’s 2.9 billion people. With numbers like these, it’s easy to see why so many businesses take advantage of e-mail marketing campaigns. Your business should too. “Don’t Monkey Around with Mailing Lists”! Let Mailchimp manage them for you!