Unlock the Power of MailChimp Campaigns: Best Practices

According to HubSpot, there are 4 billion daily email users; this presents marketers with the opportunity to leverage this highly popular platform and this can be done through outlets such as a MailChimp campaign. 

Customising, sending your email to an entire subscriber list and then tracking the results can take up a lot of time and effort, but this is where we recommend you set up a MailChimp campaign; a popular platform enabling businesses to create targeted email campaigns. With pre-designed templates, automation features, analytics, and simple broadcasting options, MailChimp takes care of all the technical details so you can focus on creating content and connecting with your contacts.

In this post, we’ll be going through a step-by -step guide on how to set up a MailChimp campaign for your business from setting up your account and defining your audience to crafting a compelling campaign and tracking the results, it’ll all be covered here. Whether you want to promote a sale, drive traffic to your website, welcome new subscribers, or keep customers engaged, MailChimp has everything you need. 

Let’s show you how to set up a MailChimp campaign!

Setting Up a MailChimp Account

Here’s a guide on how to set up a MailChimp account:

1. Go to MailChimp.com
2. Click on “Sign Up Free”
3. Select which plan you’d like to set up.
4. Provide the information required e.g. your name, email address, create a password, and set up the correct timezone.
5. Answer any questions related to your goals; type of business you have/industry you’re in; and your experience level with email marketing.
6. Connect your MailChimp to your website.
7. Set up business details e.g. name, address
8. Establish your administrator user roles and permissions.

It’s a very easy process and you’re ready to set your first MailChimp campaign!

Choosing an Audience

Now that you have your account set up, it’s time to build your mailing lists and subscriber groups. You can set up multiple lists from here, for example, a broad list of all your subscribers or categorise them into different segments.

You could segment your subscribers based on whether they are current customers or prospective ones; their geolocation; their purchase history on your site; and the types of content they consume online.

So how do you create a list? It’s easy, here’s the steps:

1. Head over to your MailChimp dashboard.
2. Hit the “Create List” button.
3. Add your subscribers manually or via third-party apps.
4. Ensure that subscriber details include name, email address, and location.

By segmenting your subscriber list, it means you can customise emails tailored specifically to different groups and enhance the relevancy of your campaign messages to a certain group. This will lead to better deliverability, open rates, and subscriber satisfaction.

Choose an Email Template

MailChimp has a wide array of email templates for your MailChimp campaign. There’s templates with different layouts, designs and styles so it’s up to you to choose the one that you feel will resonate most with your audience whilst upholding your brand’s identity.

You can look for the perfect template based on a certain keyword, or you can filter by formats and colours, or simply have a scroll through. Here’s our top tips on choosing the perfect email template for your MailChimp campaign:

• Your brand aesthetic: Select a template that aligns with your brand’s overall aesthetic and look, for example, is your brand minimalist and sleek or playful and fun?
• Campaign type: There’s different campaign templates depending on the type of your campaign, for example, is it a promotional email or a newsletter?
• Target audience: As highlighted above, you’ll want to choose a template that will resonate with your audience.
• Mobile-friendly: Choose a template that’s mobile-friendly as 65% of emails are opened on mobile devices.

Customise Your Email Content

Now that you’ve got the perfect template that matches your brand aesthetic while also appealing to your audience, you’ll want to customise it to make it your own! Let’s talk through the features you should add to your template:

• Compelling Subject Line: Get your open rate up by creating an attention-grabbing, strong subject line (remember though: do not clickbait – this will diminish your credibility and have a negative impact on future campaigns).
• Concise Body Text: Make your body text scannable and include only relevant information. Break it up by adding images and videos.
• Personalisation: One of the amazing things about the MailChimp campaign is that you can personalise it based on the subscriber’s name, their purchase history or their interests.
• Call to Action: Like social media captions, you’ll want a clear, strong, call to action to guide the subscriber to where you want them to go from your email or what you want them to do next.
• Branding: Make the template your own by incorporating your brand colours, font styles, and logos. This will help increase brand awareness and recognition.
• Proofread, proofread, proofread: To look credible and professional, you’ll want to make sure to avoid any SPG mistakes.

Schedule and Send Your Campaign

Your MailChimp campaign is now ready to be sent out to your subscribers! In the Campaign Builder screen, you’ll want to go to the “Send” tab, then either send immediately or schedule a date and time for your campaign to be sent out. We highly recommend avoiding weekends and evenings as this wouldn’t typically be an active time on email platforms. MailChimp also has a built-in Send Time Optimisation feature which will pick up the optimal time to send your emails, leading to higher open and engagement rates. We do recommend sending a test email to yourself to ensure your email looks exactly how you want it to.

You can also A/B test your MailChimp campaign from this tab which is where MailChimp will send out a slightly adapted version to different groups to see which works best for you.

Review Campaign Analytics

Once your MailChimp campaign has reached its subscribers, it’s time to review your campaign performance. You’ll want to analyse stats such as:

• Open Rate: % of recipients who opened your email.
• Click-through-rate: % of recipients who clicked on a link within the email.
• Unsubscribe Rate: % of recipients who unsubscribed from your list after receiving email.
• Bounce Rate: % of emails that were returned as undeliverable due to invalid email addresses or spam filters.
• Conversion Rate: % of recipients who took the desired action e.g. purchased a product.

As you continue to create email campaigns, you’ll want to make a note of those that perform well against those that don’t as this will enable you to continually optimise your MailChimp campaign and boost open rates, engagement, and ultimately, conversions.

Key Takeaways on Setting Up a MailChimp Campaign

By now, you should know the basics on how to get started with your MailChimp campaign. We went through the process of setting up your account; choosing your audience; picking the perfect template; customising elements to fit your brand; sending out your campaign; and finally, reviewing campaign analytics. Let’s cover some of the key points to remember:

• Organise your subscriber list by segmenting them; this gives you the ability to send highly targeted and relevant emails to each group.
• Ensure the template you choose is mobile-friendly.
• Customise the template by adding your own branding, images, and calls-to-action.
• Review vital post-send analytics like open, click through and unsubscribe rates to continually improve your MailChimp campaigns.

By leveraging the many features that Mailchimp offers, you can create high-quality, effective email campaigns tailored to your business goals and audience needs. Be sure to continually test and optimise based on past performance data as well.

Learn more about email marketing in the video below: