Mail Chimp, a free RSS-to-email and email marketing service

Updated September 2010.

Recently I began using Mail Chimp to deliver emails to people who wish to receive the latest from my websites and I’ve been very happy with it. As the title of this post indicates, Mail Chimp has two main functions:

1. Taking a RSS feed and converting it into emails (What is RSS (and how to use it)?)
2. Sending out email marketing: this can be a family newsletter, a sales pitch, or whatever.

I believe that RSS-to-email is an extremely valuable tool, for the following reasons:

• RSS is great but few people I know use it – let alone know what it is – and it’s on the geeky side of mainstream. In contrast, use of email is near-universal in developed countries, so if you can offer an email subscription service you can reach a lot of people who wouldn’t use RSS or remember to check your website for new content.
• Many people find that receiving email updates from a blog or whatever is very convenient, so you’re helping your readers when you offer this.
• Mail Chimp’s RSS-to-email service is set-and-forget, which is ideal for bloggers and other authors: just add a post to your blog and an email will go out.

In this post I’ll cover some of Mail Chimp’s key features and concepts, but I’m not going to attempt to do more than scratch the surface of Mail Chimp’s huge basket of features.

No spam

I’m glad to say that Mail Chimp is not a spammer’s service, and you’re only allowed to send emails to people who have agreed to receive them (opt-in only).

Price

The free option is available if you have no more than 1,000 subscribers and send no more than 6,000 emails per month. Your emails and web forms will have a Mail Chimp logo at the bottom, but this is unobtrusive and a worthwhile trade in my book. A few of the luxury features will be disabled, but I have not found that to be a hindrance: ‘free’ does not mean ‘crippled’. Click here for a full list of features.

If you aren’t eligible for a free account there are monthly or pay-as-you-go plans; the latter are like buying postage stamps. You can get rid of the Mail Chimp logo in your emails, or keep it as an affiliate plan: if someone signs up via the button you both get a $30 credit at Mail Chimp. There are discounts for non-profit organisations.

Two important concepts: lists and campaigns

Lists are who you are sending emails to: your recipients.

A campaign is a combination of what you are sending and who you are sending it to, the what being an email (or, more specifically, the contents of that email). So, when you create a new campaign you create an email and tell Mail Chimp who you want to send it to (part or all of your list). That email can be something that you’ve typed, or it can be the contents of a RSS feed.

If you’re not used to thinking in terms of ‘campaigns’ the analogy of a door to door sales campaign might be helpful. Such a sales drive has three main components:

1. The person who oversees everything and writes the sales pitch (that’s you).
2. The staff who go knocking on doors and deliver your sales pitch (that’s the emails).
3. The people in their homes (that’s your list).

Getting started

1. Create a list
2. Create a campaign
3. Push ‘send’

It really is that easy, although the devil is in the details. I’m just giving you this road map so you know where you’re going.

You can import existing lists, and Mail Chimp tells you about acceptable and unacceptable list types.

The four types of campaign

When you click Campaigns tab>Create new campaign you’ll see four options:

1. HTML campaign, that’s HTML emails with or without a plain-text alternative.
2. Plain-text campaign, that’s plain-text emails.
3. RSS campaign, that’s where Mail Chimp converts your RSS feed into emails.
4. A/B split campaign. This is for marketing people who want to test various email parameters and see which is the most effective (more info).

If you’re not sure what to do then I recommend sending HTML emails with an included plain-text version (some people can’t or won’t read HTML emails. Those who do use HTML won’t see the plain-text version). When you create a campaign you’ll make your HTML email and the next step is creating the plain-text version: I just click the button which converts my HTML email into a plain-text one.

Why use HTML emails? Basically because they look pretty, you can add pictures and clickable links, and they’re what almost everyone expects these days.

List (sub)groups

I have five websites, and instead of having five recipient lists I have one list with five subgroups. When people go to my email sign up form they tick the boxes to indicate which websites they’re interested in, and they’ll be assigned to one or more groups accordingly.

When you create your sign up form you can ask people for whatever information you desire and create groups accordingly, e.g. you could have one group for people who prefer plain chocolate and another group for people who prefer chocolate with nuts.

Another example: if recipients have entered their city when they sign up you can create a campaign that will email only those people who live in Waikikamukau (why not?).

ChimpFeedr

This is an excellent feature with a bizarre name. If I wanted it to ChimpFeedr would take the five RSS feeds from my websites and combine them into one, which would then be delivered as an email.

ChimpFeedr will appear as an option when you’re creating a new campaign.

You can have more than one list

This is great for webmasters, web designers, and other people who want to have more than one client on one Mail Chimp account.

Full control over visual design

You can control the appearance of your emails and web forms (sign up form, etc.). There is an online wizard with templates that you can modify, or you can design from scratch using HTML, CSS, and other options. The online wizard is the best place to start if you’re not an expert and it gives a very high level of control. I used one of their templates, modified it, and saved it as a template: the process is much the same for emails and forms.

To design your sign up and other forms click List tab>forms. Email design is one of the steps in creating a new campaign.

Stunning stats

After a campaign (an email) has been sent out you can see very detailed statistical information which tells you how many people have opened the email, how many people have clicked on which links in the emails, and so forth.

How I use Mail Chimp

I have five websites, and when people who wish to receive the latest via email go to the sign up form they tick boxes to indicate which website(s) they’re interested in. My list has five (sub)groups, and each person is assigned to one or more groups according to their desires.

Each website has its own RSS-to-email campaign, and each campaign is set to go to the relevant group (quick reminder: a campaign is a combination of an email and a list of recipients).

I send HTML emails which include a plain-text version; people choose one or the other when they sign up. The emails are designed using colours and logos copied from the relevant website, to give a coherent look (branding, in marketing-speak).

Conclusion

Mail Chimp is one of the best options available for those people who are looking for a RSS-to-email or email marketing service. Mail Chimp is user friendly, but the sheer range of options available might make it seem otherwise. Setting up your lists, emails, and web forms is time consuming, but once you’re past that stage everything is quick and easy, more so if you do things like creating and saving email templates. Mail chimp is suitable for a wide range of users: families sending newsletters, bloggers, and marketing staff working for a multinational corporation. I highly recommend it.

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