Newsletters can be an effective way to share valuable content, promote offers or inform your audience of company updates – as well as add a personal touch that fosters trust between yourself and your audience.
Log into your Mailchimp account and choose from two types of campaigns – regular email and automation.
1. Create a list
Before sending email newsletters to subscribers, several essential components must first be in place. First is creating a list in Mailchimp; to do this simply log into your Mailchimp account and click “Create a campaign.” There are multiple options available here but for this tutorial we will select “Regular email.”
Name your list and assign an initial from and reply-to email address that won’t get flagged as spam – using either the company name or brand name should help keep things organized!
After this step is complete, it’s time to design your newsletter template. Mailchimp offers a selection of email marketing templates categorized by purpose, industry and plan type for you to choose from and customize accordingly – start with something basic first until you become more experienced in email marketing and progress from there.
Once you’ve chosen a template, it’s time to add content. A popular newsletter format is news roundup; here, you highlight recent events and updates in your business as well as articles, tips or surveys pertinent to your audience. It’s a great way to engage with readers while driving traffic back to your website!
If you maintain a blog, promoting its recent posts via newsletter will increase subscriber count while giving more details about your business to readers.
One effective strategy for growing your audience is using pop-up forms on your website. They are simple to integrate, boosting subscription rates by an average of 50.8%.
Mailchimp makes it easy and effective to create and send targeted emails based on shared data – known as segments. Segments allow you to reach your audience directly while providing highly tailored content. For more information on creating segments, refer to these two guides: All the Segmenting Options and How to Create and Send a Segment
2. Create a template
Your business newsletter can be an effective way to promote its products or services while building customer relationships. Mailchimp makes creating newsletters simple with built-in templates for quick start up, while for added flexibility you can design your own using its drag-and-drop editor.
Before creating your newsletter, decide what kind of content you’d like it to contain. This may range from product announcements and event promotions, employee spotlights and company updates – anything that will attract and engage readers is an effective strategy!
To create your newsletter, click ‘Create Campaign’ from the main menu bar. Begin by giving your campaign a name (only visible to yourself). Next step will be selecting which list(s) it should go out to as well as picking an eye-catching subject line to encourage readers to open and read your email message.
As your next step in your campaign, the next step should be adding a message. This email will appear in subscribers’ inboxes; use your business logo and provide brief details about what it contains as you send this newsletter out. Lastly, set a date and time when this campaign should take place.
After gathering all the required information, click ‘Next’. Mailchimp will prompt you to review and approve your campaign details before sending emails out to the list you specified – making sure that you possess the necessary permissions before doing so.
On clicking ‘Next, you will be taken to your campaign dashboard, which allows you to monitor the success of your email campaign in terms of opens and clicks received, subscriber activity reports, as well as subscriber statistics.
The dashboard also includes a link to your Mailchimp store, where you can customize and purchase email marketing tools that can enhance campaign performance. There’s also an extensive collection of free stock photos available for use in campaigns.
3. Add content
Newsletters are reports containing news and updates sent directly to an organization’s members, customers or subscribers. Mailchimp provides an easy solution for creating and sending out such newsletters – simply create one here with their easy newsletter creator!
Once your list has been established, Mailchimp provides templates to create newsletters with content tailored specifically for that list. There are pre-designed templates available which you can filter based on email purpose, industry and plan type (free or paid) so as to find something that meets your needs.
Each time you send out an email newsletter, it is necessary to select a topic and outline its contents. This could range from creating a simple email blast about what’s new at your business to writing an entire article or blog post as part of the content for the newsletter. A clear goal will help ensure its relevancy to your target audience.
Before creating your newsletter, take care to select both a campaign name and default from address for it. Your subscribers will see these addresses; while their campaign names help distinguish which emails belong to your series. In addition, be sure to designate an automatic reply-to address, where replies from recipients will be directed if someone hits reply on your newsletters.
Your next step should be entering both text and images for your newsletter, keeping in mind that humans are visual learners and an effective newsletter should include engaging graphics to draw in readers. In addition to images, GIFs and videos may also be added; just remember to provide ALT text for those unable or unwilling to watch these forms of media.
Once your email is complete and any necessary images have been added, take a moment to look over its appearance and ensure all is appropriate. When satisfied with what you see, click Next; when finished you have two options for sending or scheduling. When choosing when and how you send the email out – either immediately or at a later date. Whatever works for you just ensure its arrival is likely when its target subscribers will open and read it!
4. Send a test
Mailchimp makes creating newsletters an easy and cost-effective way to connect with your target audience, with each issue offering opportunities to showcase products or services, share industry updates, or give readers insight into your business’s culture. But be wary: your newsletter must remain timely and valuable to subscribers or risk becoming redundant over time and losing its impact.
Mailchimp is a popular marketing platform used by millions of businesses to easily create email marketing campaigns without needing graphic design or technical skills. Mailchimp also makes creating mobile-optimized newsletters easy so your messages reach all audience members no matter which device they access email on.
To begin your campaign in Mailchimp, begin by creating one in the Campaigns section. Give your campaign an internal name; in the following step select which list it should go out to and if necessary import or create forms to collect emails directly from visitors of your website.
Once your list has been chosen, Mailchimp makes selecting from pre-designed templates easy. There are two varieties to choose from: layouts and themes. Layouts focus more closely on presenting an actual newsletter structure while themes provide images and text to address various business scenarios from making an announcement to following up with users who abandoned their carts.
Once you have selected a template, you can personalize it by dragging and dropping blocks from the campaign preview on the left into its campaign preview on the right. These blocks may include text, videos, social reviews or even code for more advanced users. In addition, upload photos or use free imagery from sites such as Unsplash and Pexels as you create your campaign preview.
Once your newsletter is ready to send, it’s important to test it first before sending to your audience. To do so, select a segment, tag or list as the recipient for your test email, entering your own address into the To field and clicking Send a test email – once sent you can check how it looks in different email clients and devices.