How to sign up for MailChimp
To start using MailChimp, create user lists and send newsletters, the creating an account. The registration procedure is free and takes just a few minutes.
Then connect to the MailChimp site and enter your data in the fields Email, Username e Password (minimum 8 characters and containing at least one number, one special character, one lowercase and one uppercase letter) and click the button Sign Up. Within a few moments you will receive an email containing an activation link: press on the item Activate account but I will complete the registration.
On the newly opened page, complete the captcha (if required), choose a plan from those available - then click Free if you want to use the service for free - and press the button Continue. Then enter your details in the form that appeared on the screen: First name e Last name, then name and surname; then the name and site of your business in the fields Business name? e website URL (optional) and telephone number in the field phone number (optional) and press the button Continue.
Now, enter the data relating to the location of your business by entering them in the fields Address line 1, City, State / Province / Region, ZIP / Postal code e Country, then press the button Continue, put the check mark next to the items Yes o No to indicate if you have a contact list (if so, indicate its size), click on Continue and indicates that type of services you intend to offer (by ticking one of the available boxes). You can also skip this step by pressing on Skip.
As a last step, choose whether to subscribe to the MailChimp newsletter and press the button Continue but I will complete the registration.
MailChimp prices
MailChimp is a service that can be used for free with some limitations, such as a maximum number of subscribers to the newsletter and a monthly limit of mailings. If your needs are not met with the free plan offered by MailChimp, you can choose one of the subscription plans available.
- New Business: it is the free plan of MailChimp dedicated to those who have less than 2.000 subscribers and send a maximum number of 10.000 emails each month.
- Essentials: for € 8,44 / month it offers 50.000 contacts, 500.000 monthly mailings and the possibility of removing the site logo from the email footer.
- Standard: costs 12,67 euros / month and includes 100.000 contacts, 1,2 million monthly mailings and advanced tools for audience analysis.
- Premium: costs € 252,65 / month and includes all the benefits of previous plans with over 200.000 contacts, over 3 million monthly mailings and advanced features for larger businesses.
If after creating a free account you want to activate a subscription plan, log into your account and click on yours avatar at the bottom left and press the button Upgrade Now.
Add contacts
It's possible add contacts on MailChimp either by manually entering user data or by importing CSV or TXT files.
To create a new list of contacts, press the icon Audience present in the left menu and click on the button Import your contacts, if you want to import contacts from a CSV / TXT file or paste contacts from a spreadsheet.
Alternatively, select the item All contacts from the side menu, click on the button Add contacts, select the voice Add a subscriber from the menu that opens and manually fill in the contact form with the data of the user you want to add (be sure to tick the option This person gave me permission to email them, to confirm that you have permission to add the person to your contacts).
In the add contacts form you can also assign gods tag. Tags are labels that allow you to organize your contacts based on categories or other parameters. To create and manage tags, you can select the item Tags from the side menu; then to create a tag without assigning it to any particular contact, you can click on the button Create Tag, while to create a tag and assign it to a series of contacts at the same time you can press the button Bulk Tag Contacts (You will then be offered a form in which to insert the tag in the field Name your tag and choose the list of contacts to assign to the latter by importing a file or pasting the addresses "manually").
Another tool that allows you to optimally organize your contacts are the Segments, also accessible from the side menu of MailChimp. By creating a segment (via the button Create segment) you can create automated groups of contacts based on certain parameters, for example campaigns in which they are included, activity, rating, activity on the landing page, address of residence or date of birth, in order to target your campaigns only to users who they might be really interested.
The beauty is that you can set more conditions, even negative ones (for example, triggering the entry of a contact in a segment if this does not live in a certain place or was not born in a certain year). Just use the drop-down menus and, in a few clicks, you're done!
How to create and send a newsletter
After setting up your contacts, all you have to do is create your campaign on MailChimp and schedule it to be sent. Then click on the icon Campaigns present in the menu on the left and click on the button Create campaign, up. Then select the option Email, enter the name of your newsletter in the field Campaign name e pulsing sul pulsating Begin.
Now, click on the entry Add recipients and select the contacts to which to direct the campaign; then choose if you intend to send the newsletter to all subscribers (All subcribers Iin audience), to a specific group of users (Group o new segment). Alternatively, you can choose to send the newsletter to the most active users (Active subscribers), to those less active (inactive subscribers), to those associated with a particular tag and so on.
Continue with the creation of your campaign by pressing on the voice Add from, make sure the name and l 'email address displayed are correct and click on the button Save. Hence the option Add subject, enter the subject of the email in the field Subject and type a preview text (maximum 150 characters) in the field Preview text.
In conclusion, press the button Email design to choose the template to apply to your newsletter: press the tab layout to choose basic templates, click on the item Themes to browse a rich catalog of templates with more captivating graphics or press the option Saved templates to choose a template that you have previously created.
In the new open page, you can build your newsletter: on the left side you can see a preview of the layout you are editing, while on the right side of the page the contents are available (Blocks) that you can put in the email, such as Text (texts), Image (Images), Button (buttons), Video, Share (options for sharing on social networks), Code (code) etc. Also, by pressing on the option Style you can customize the graphic appearance of the chosen layout, changing the colors, the font of the text and setting a style for mobile devices.
You can also apply changes by intervening in the preview of the newsletter, selecting the individual blocks that make it up. Then click on block of your interest and presses the icon of arrows present on the left to move the block, otherwise you can press the icon of pencil to change its content or on the button + to duplicate the block. If you can delete individual blocks instead, you can click the del icon basket And that's it.
Once you have finished customizing your template, press the button Continue to return to the campaign creation screen and you are ready to send your first newsletter.
Finally, press on the voices Send e Send now to send the newsletter immediately, or on the option Schedule to schedule sending. In the latter case, enter the submission date in the field Delivery date, set the time by selecting it via the drop-down menu under the item Delivery time and click sul pulsating Schedule campaign to set up scheduled sending. It wasn't difficult, was it?
Alternative a MailChimp
MailChimp is not the only service that allows you to easily create and manage newsletters. If you are looking for a valid alternative, you can contact, for example, a Sendinblue.
Sendinblue is a very complete marketing platform, with interface and customer support in in your languagen (via chat, email and telephone), which is used every day by over 180.000 users worldwide to send more than 100 million emails and SMS.
Its free plan allows you to send up to 300 emails every day with unlimited contacts and unlimited contact lists (where competitors often impose very high prices to allow a large contact list and to create personalized contact lists); after which there is the possibility of activating modular tariff plans, starting from 19 euros / month for the sending of 10.000 emails without a daily sending fee, designed to adapt to the specific needs of each customer and without unnecessary expenses.
Sendinblue also includes everything you need foremail marketing (including the management of transactional emails, which other services offer only with paid add-ons, A / B tests, Facebook ads & Retargeting and Landing pages) andSMS marketing resulting an ideal solution for everyone: marketing professionals, established companies, startup, agencies, online stores e NGO. Its marketing automation tools then allow you to target potential customers with personalized campaigns based on the activities carried out by the latter on a website (pages visited, clicks, purchase history and so on).
Another very important aspect to underline is that Sendinblue is compliant with the GDPR for the processing of personal data, therefore protecting both the data of users and those of customers subscribed to the newsletters. It also offers advanced deliverability options, such as free dedicated IP starting from 350.000 emails / month, and for theautomatic import of data from MailChimp, for quick and easy transfer of contact lists.
To create your newsletter with Sendinblue, connected to the main page of the service, press the button for sign up for free and fill out the form that is proposed to you, or click on the button to log in with Google. Afterward, open the confirmation link that was sent to you by e-mail, enter the requested data, accept the condizioni d'uso of the service e verify your mobile number by entering the code that you will receive via SMS.
Once the registration phase is complete, you will see the Sendinblue dashboard with instructions to validate your account and start creating new campaigns. The steps to take are: fill in the profile form, import the contacts and plan the first email campaign.
I profile data you should have already entered them, however you can change them by pressing on you don't know, top right, and choosing yours email address from the menu that opens; for import contacts select the item instead Contacts located at the top and choose whether to import contacts via CSV file, TXT file or copy-and-paste (using the options in the side menu you can also create list). If you want import contacts from MailChimpclick on your button + placed at the top, go up Integrations> MailChimp Contacts, assign a name integration, connect your MailChimp account and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the procedure.
To create your own first email campaign, then select the item Campaigns from the top menu, press the button for create an email campaign and follow the Sendinblue wizard. It's all very simple: it's a matter of filling out a starter form with name, object, e-mail e sender name of the campaign, and then click the button to go to next phase.
You will so design the newsletter choosing whether to use thedrag and drop editor (recommended choice) or theadvanced text editoris paste the code HTML of the newsletter, if you access the Template gallery to select a ready-to-use template or if import a model external. Next, you will need to select the users e confirm sending the campaign, scheduling it according to your needs.
As you can see, it's all extremely intuitive. To find out more and find out even better how Sendinblue compares with services such as MailChimp, visit the official website.
Article created in collaboration with Sendinblue.
How MailChimp works
