MailChimp Blog

MailChimp Blog Moving

FYI, I'm in the process of moving this MailChimp blog over to MailChimp.com. If you're one of the 7 or 8 people who actually read this blog, please bookmark (or RSS or whatever) the new location:

Warning: It's really, really ugly right now. I'm working on it.

http://www.mailchimp.com/blog/

We've switched from TypePad to Wordpress, and so far so good.  I love TypePad, because it made it super easy to get started with blogging. But I want the traffic for all this blog content on our own domain. I'm just greedy that way. And I want to be able to customize the design any way I like (which is starting to sound more theoretical than practical).

Delta SkyMiles: Subscribe---or else!

Interesting tactic from Delta. You WILL subscribe to our email marketing, or else...

Your rewards go from 5 miles per dollar to 1 mile per dollar, unless you subscribe to their emails to earn "Engaged Member" status.

Thanks, Neil!

Holiday HTML Email Templates

MailChimp customers - we've posted our free holiday e-card graphics in the Resource Center. Download them, modify them if you want (use something like Photoshop or Fireworks) and then use them inside your MailChimp Postcard HTML email template.

Show us your work!
Send us your holiday e-card to get listed in our client showcase!

Opt-out hall of shame: No means Yes?

I thought the confusing opt-out example from Equifax that I posted a while back was pretty bad.

This one's a close second:

C'mon. If you don't want something, you say "NO."

Spell Checker Added to MailChimp

After launching a string of pretty powerful new features, this one's just kinda silly in comparison. But I bet it'll be used more than anything we've ever programmed.

We just added a spell checker button to our campaign content editor:

So if you ever need some speling help:

Kroger's Secret Marketing Weapon

Found this very cool article about how Kroger is using database mining to market to its customers.

It also explains why I'm getting so many coupons for twinkies in the mail.

This isn't directly related to email marketing, but it might inspire you to think about ways you can segment your customer email lists, then run experiments on them...

"At its core, the dunnhumby approach assigns a score to products on Kroger's shelves based on attributes like price, quality, freshness, and the size of the package. (Organic Swiss chard would have a much different score than, say, Twinkies.) Dunnhumby's computers then search for customers whose shopping carts have similar scores, and groups those shoppers together into segments. Kroger right now has seven segments, such as budget shoppers, those "watching the waistline," and so-called "family-focused." Each segment gets customized mailings, and can be further broken down if need be."

Read the full article at CNN Money: Kroger's Secret Weapon

If this kinda marketing stuff gets you excited, and if you're a MailChimp user, you can do this kinda stuff with your email offers too. Here are the tools you'll need:

• MailChimp's API - Sync your customer dB and purchase info with your email marketing efforts
• MailChimp AIM Reports - Track individual user-specific email open-click behavior
• MailChimp List Segmentation - Send campaigns to targeted subgroups based on their purchase behavior
• MailChimp A/B Testing - Test different offers, subject lines, and send times to optimize your results
• MailChimp's Inbox Inspector - Preview your campaign in different email apps and check them in spam filters before you send
• MailChimp Experts -   Need help getting all this done? Hire a MailChimp expert. Many of them specialize in databases.

Find a MailChimp Expert

MailChimp has always catered to small and medium sized businesses (and their agencies) who want a simple, affordable way to get their email marketing done. People who just want an easy way to design an HTML email, send it to their list, and get some stats on their campaigns.

But In the last 3 months or so, we added a slew of new power features to MailChimp. These upgrades are attracting lots of larger companies.

Stuff like:

• A/B Split Testing
• List segmentation
• Inbox Inspector
• More Powerful API

That's nice. But because of all these new features, we kinda created a new problem.

New Problem:
Those big customers have been asking us for help getting their internal systems (CRMs, CMS, E-commerce carts, databases, etc) integrated with MailChimp. And since we're a do-it-yourself product, we can't help them with those services. 

Find a MailChimp Expert:
So we put together a list of MailChimp Experts. These are developers who know MailChimp, who use MailChimp, and who can help companies integrate with MailChimp. Some of them specialize in super nerdy stuff, like programming and databases and APIs (heck, some of them have actually helped contribute to our API). Some specialize in HTML email design and coding. Most are jacks of all trades and can handle anything. We've got experts from Australia, Austria, the UK, and USA on the list (and it's growing everyday).

If you're a freelancer, or run a web-dev shop and want to get listed (and you have a MailChimp account), we'd love to send some business your way. Go to http://www.mailchimp.com/experts/ , scroll to the bottom, and click the "get listed" link.