1) Make sure to test (then double test)
Mailchimp has a handy preview and test feature that can help stop any embarrassing errors creeping into your campaigns. Many people open their emails on their mobile, so it is crucial to make sure your emails work on all screens. If your email doesn’t work for mobile, you will be wasting your time in the present and also damaging your future mail-outs if people think, “Last time I opened their email it didn’t work, so I’m not going to bother with this one.”
You can preview emails on Mailchimp preview itself, or you can send the test through to your mobile and check from there.
2) Use Mailchimp’s Send Time Optimisation tool
A question that is asked by email marketers around the world is “When should I send my email?”, and they are right to question this as it’s massively important to get your timing right. Luckily Mailchimp has already thought of this for you. The Send Time Optimisation feature will look at your subscriber click history to see what time your subscribers engage with your campaigns, and it will do this for all subscribers in your lists. It will then give you a time that will work best for your list. Please just be aware this is only available on paid accounts.
3) Automate to make your life easier
Perfect for setting something up and then just letting it do the work for you, automation is ideal for welcome emails, product emails and personalised emails. Mailchimp has a huge variety of options and triggers that you can set up giving you a wide variety of marketing opportunities for your business.
4) Understand your reports
Mailchimp gives you a ton of info in the reports it generates. That’s all well and good, but the key is understanding and acting on this info. For example, check the click map. This gives you an in-depth view of where people are clicking, so you can then see what kind of calls to action work best for your audience: images, buttons, gifs, etc. This is the kind of info you need to be looking for in your reports.
5) Use Mailchimp’s landing page builder
If you are running a small business or just doing something in your spare time for some extra pennies, a brand spanking new website may be out of your budget. Mailchimp has a fantastic landing page builder that can help you create a unique URL that you can post out on your socials.
6) Stay away from including info in images
Fancy images are great and eye-catching, so don’t be afraid to keep them in your email, but make sure any text info is outside of them as separate plain text. Some email providers will strip out images when they are displaying emails, so if all your info is contained in these, it is then lost. This can leave your campaign confusing and frustrating for the reader.
7) Avoid using video
Similar to the point above – although it is trendy to include video within email, it hits the same issue as images. Also, your subscribers may be on limited data plans, so they won’t appreciate receiving large emails that will use up a lot of data when they open them.
Follow these hacks and tips to fully maximise your efforts on Mailchimp. If you would like some more info, please get in touch.
