MailChimp is a cloud-based email marketing service that allows users to design professional email newsletters and campaigns. It offers both free and paid plans, with the free plan allowing up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month. MailChimp provides tools to create and send campaigns, track opens and clicks, and view detailed reports on campaign performance. It also ensures emails are complaint with privacy laws and are recognized as safe by email providers to maximize deliverability.

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The name may bring a smile to your face, but
this application is one of the most powerful
and professional of email marketing
platforms.
In use by more than 7 million people and
businesses around the world – sending
more than 500 million emails per day!
What is MailChimp?
MailChimp is a cloud based email marketing
service, which offers subscribers the ability to
design professional looking email newsletters
and campaigns. It easily automates and
streamlines the previously arduous task of email
marketing.
Before the emergence of online services such
as MailChimp; email marketing campaigns were
typically sent from a desktop PC, often from an
individual’s email address. Unless recipients
responded directly, senders had no way of
being able to monitor and track how successful
their campaign had been.
Alongside many other popular email marketing
services, MailChimp was developed to provide a
robust and efficient platform. This enables email
marketing and communication to be handled far
more professionally, efficiently and effectively.
How much does MailChimp cost?
MailChimp offers a range of different plans, but
if you have fewer than 2,000 subscribers and
send less than 12,000 emails a month, it is free
July 2015
of charge - and you do not require a contract.
Monthly plans, starting from around £7, depend
on the number of subscribers you have, but will
allow you to send an unlimited number of emails
per month.
Higher volume plans are also available for larger
organisations sending in excess of 1,000,000
emails per month and costs start around the
£300 mark for subscribers lists of 80,000 or
more.
MailChimp Features
MailChimp offer a wide range of features, and
integrations, allowing users to send marketing
emails, automated messages and targeted
campaigns. It has detailed reports to help you
keep improving your marketing over time.
The MailChimp platform guides users of all
abilities through setting up an email newsletter
or campaign. It helps by making sure that your
subscriber list is fully compliant, (which helps
avoid spam filters). This gives your campaign
the very best chance of a successful delivery
and desired outcome.
Approved Bulk Emailer
Typically many email services and Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) still limit the number of
emails you can send at one time, with the main
aim of preventing spamming.
MailChimp allows you to create campaigns and
send to an unlimited number of recipients,
ensuring greater deliverability and confidence
that your messages are reaching your

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subscribers email Inbox.
MailChimp emails are recognised by many ISPs
as being safe and approved. If there is a
problem with delivery, MailChimp will attempt to
re-send the email and when it fails, will provide
an insight into why the email may be bouncing.
Adherence to privacy laws
Email marketing campaigners are required by
law to provide an “unsubscribe” link in every
email, allowing subscribers the option to decide
not to receive any further email communication
from you.
MailChimp is one of a number of professional
email marketing platforms, which automatically
includes an “unsubscribe” link. This allows
recipients to make the choice; when selected, it
automatically updates their record on MailChimp
to remove them from future lists.
MailChimp also asks recipients why they are
removing themselves from the list. This is useful
information to help you understand whether your
content is relevant to your subscriber base.
A note of warning with subscriber lists
When MailChimp receives an “unsubscribe”
request from any of your campaigns,
subscribers may say that “they did not agree to
receive email marketing messages” from you.
This can happen from time to time as not
everyone remembers signing up to an email
newsletter!
If you are sending “unsolicited” emails on a
regular basis and your subscribers confirm they
did not give you permission, MailChimp
considers the as “abuse”.
They will not hesitate to close your account and
prevent you from continuing with future email
campaigns – you are “spamming” and they
cannot allow that to continue.
You should therefore always ensure that your
recipients have explicitly opted into any email
campaigns, rather than just sending to anyone
that you feel may be interested in your
marketing messages.
Importing and Creating Subscriber Lists
MailChimp allows you to import as many
subscriber lists as you may need in CSV or tab
delimited text file, even from third party
applications such as Salesforce or Google
Docs.
Imports are not restricted to a single list, but
they can be segmented lists or perhaps different
interest groups. This allows you the option to
target your campaigns more effectively.
Another great feature of MailChimp is that it
enables you the ability to create a “sign-up” form
to help you create new subscriber lists. You can
customise the form, and share and post on your
website or Facebook page.
MailChimp is serious about security and
reputation and the “sign-up” form requires a
subscriber to “opt-in”, which ensures the
integrity of your mailing lists. This is ultimately to
the benefit of all, improving the chance of
deliverability and overall success.
Creating Templates and Campaigns
The MailChimp “campaign builder” allows you to
use existing templates and design layouts.

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It has the additional benefit of being able to
customise and brand them to match your own
company or organisational requirements.
MailChimp allows you to save your own
templates too, so once you are happy with your
customised design, this can be saved as a
template.
All future email marketing campaigns can then
be branded and presented in the same
professional manner.
MailChimp allows campaigns to be built using
three different methods:
 HTML emails – the most popular type
with formatting, styling and inclusion of
images
 Plain Text emails – the simplest form of
message, without formatting, styling or
graphical content
 A/B Split campaigns – useful for testing
subject lines, sending two different
versions of your email to a small number
of recipients in your subscriber list.
This is useful to help you to track the
performance of your email and then send
the “winning” version to all remaining
subscribers
Preview and Testing your Campaign
MailChimp allows you to preview your campaign
before it is sent out to your subscribers.
This allows you to visualise how your campaign
will render on desktop and mobile devices.
The Preview and Test facility also allows you to
send a “test” email to your own personal email
address. This lets you check all the links and
ensure that you are happy with the campaign
before it is sent to your subscriber list.
Inbox Inspector
One of the features of the Preview and Testing
tools is the Inbox Inspector, which is a useful
feature to determine how your campaign will
render across different email software
applications.
This feature also runs a spam filter to help
identify any potential issues with your campaign
(e.g. words to avoid, etc.).
This is a paid service for “free” plans, but is
included in monthly paid accounts as part of this
service.
Sending your Campaign
When you have checked and tested your email
campaign, MailChimp runs through to make
sure all the steps have been completed and if
anything untoward is identified, you will be
alerted so you can resolve it before sending.
When you are ready to send, there are a
number of different options to choose from,
including the facility to schedule your campaign
for a specific date and time.
There is also the facility of “batch delivery”
which sends the campaign out to small numbers
of recipients, rather than the whole list at one.
MailChimp can also be set to analyse the
activity of past subscribers, allowing it to

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automatically determine the optimal sending
time.
For international subscriber campaigns, the
“timewarp” feature will automatically deliver a
campaign based on the recipient time zone,
rather than your own.
Avoiding Common Mistakes
MailChimp provides an intuitive and easy to use
platform, full of tips and guidance as you build
your subscriber list, build your campaign
template and send off your first emails.
Your knowledge and skill in using MailChimp will
quickly develop as you begin to use it, but there
are some useful tips to help you avoid some of
the more common mistakes:
 Avoid sending to recipients who have
never “subscribed” to receive emails from
you (this is classed by MailChimp as
abuse)
 Keep your lists current and avoid sending
to inactive or stale recipient lists.
 Avoid including words such as “free”,
“special offer”, “discount”, “money back
guarantee”, etc. as these keywords and
phrases are often blocked by spam filters
and therefore never reach Inboxes
 Avoid including any badly written code
(for those who are comfortable
customising the HTML code further), as
this could potentially cause issues with
links to your website, etc.
 Images – use them wisely, rather than
filling the entire email campaign with
images, balance the layout with text
MailChimp Campaign Reporting
Once your campaign has been sent, MailChimp
will get to work recording and analysing the
performance of your campaign.
The reports function provides a comprehensive
summary of how your campaign has performed,
identifying a wide range of useful information to
help you review the success and outcomes of
your email marketing:
Overview provides summary of how your
campaign has performed, including details of:
 Opens
 Clicks
 Social engagement
 Un-subscribes
 Bounces
Activity provides a more comprehensive report:
 How many subscribers opened
 How many didn’t
 How many clicked a link
 Which addresses bounced
 Who unsubscribed
 Who filed an abuse complaint
Links provides details about how each tracked
link in your campaign has performed.
With details of all tracked URLs, along with the
number of total and unique clicks for each one.

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Further information: www.mailchimp.com
Disclaimer:
We have no commercial links with these companies
or their products, and their appearance in this fact
sheet is not an endorsement.
This Fact Sheet does not constitute legal advice.
© John Ow ens 2015