Testing MailChimp Email Campaigns

Would you be surprised to hear that one of the best marketing techniques year-after-year is email marketing? That’s right, email isn’t dead, it is still a fantastic way to market to your customer base.

Because of the importance of email marketing, I decided to test out one of the most popular email marketing services – MailChimp. It’s a pretty great platform for sending well-designed emails and it includes a forever free option.

If you need to send out emails for specific marketing campaigns or are interested in a new marketing technique, then keep reading to find out what I learned through testing MailChimp’s email campaign capabilities.

What is MailChimp

MailChimp is an online service that allows users to send out mass emails that can be customized to fit the needs of the user. As a staple for marketing professionals, email marketing services like this are valuable assets to have at your disposal.

Mailchimp is a feature-rich resource, including the ability to create contact lists for different audience segments, pre-made email templates, and easy integration features that allow you to link your various accounts into your MailChimp account.

While it’s not the only game in town, it is one of the most popular services out there. You’ll likely find that many businesses, big and small, use this software to help them market their business. In fact, there’s a lot of familiarity for the brand in marketing circles, making it super easy to find talented professionals for your own email marketing campaign.

Why Use MailChimp

Alright, it sounds like a pretty cool program, but why should you actually use it?

I'd recommend using this email service simply because of how easy it is to use. Here are a few things that I really liked about it:

· You can sign up and start sending emails in minutes

· It allows you to easily upload contact lists

· Easy email design capabilities

· Tons of pre-made email templates

· Access to campaign analytics

· Link social media accounts to incorporate in emails

· Easy integration into HTML applications like WordPress

There are a ton of features available to you, but these are just a few features that I think make the service stand out.

Testing – One, Two

I recently set up a new account and started an email campaign to get a better idea of the capabilities of the service. I didn’t go into anything too fancy, but I did create a few emails to act as a short marketing campaign.

Here's an example of a simple email I created:

Pretty professional, right? Now let’s get into the process of creating this bad boy.

Importing Contact List

The first thing I started with was creating my contact list. What’s the point of creating a fancy email if you have no one to send it to? Luckily, importing your contact list is a simple task.

First, start by choosing your upload method.

MailChimp gives you the option to upload contacts in a few different ways:

I happened to have my contact list in an Excel doc I made previously, so I chose the copy and paste method, but there were options for text files and integrated services import options as well.

Once you have chosen the method that works best for you, just follow the on-screen instructions to create a contact list for your marketing campaigns.

You can have multiple lists inside your MailChimp account for your different market segments, but I only used one here.

Design Your Email

After you have people to send things to (yay, friends!), it’s time to get to designing your first email.

MailChimp makes it easy to design new emails using a building block design that resembles WordPress functionality.

It’s super simple to design the whole email using these different functional blocks.

Need text? Add a text block.

Need a picture? Add an image card block.

You can see all the changes you’re making in real-time too. This enables you to constantly see how your edits change the outcome of your end email.

This functionality makes designing a beautiful email campaign take mere minutes. Plus, it’s kind of fun too.

The Results Are In

All in all, I definitely recommend this application for all of your email marketing needs. It’s a useful tool for creating engaging emails for your campaign, and its forever free version makes it a great starting place for any business.

Have you used MailChimp before? How’d your experience go? Let me know more in the comments below.