How To Use MailChimp

Marketers use MailChimp – a web-based application – to send bulk emails to clients and subscribers. Even if you’ve never used an email service provider before, MailChimp is easy to learn; it is user-friendly and free for lists under 2,000 subscribers.

If you’re ready to get started, here’s a basic rundown on how to use MailChimp.

Sign Up & Create a List

Once you sign up on MailChimp, you’ll need to create an email list of contacts/subscribers. To create a new list, click “create list” located in the top right hand of the window. A secondary box will pop up asking “New List or Groups?” Click “create list,” fill out the list details and click save.

Once your list is created, you can import subscribers.

Import Subscribers From CSV, TXT or Excel

Click on the list, click “add subscribers” and “import.” Choose the appropriate option for the type of file you have and click next.

If you are uploading a CSV or TXT file, you’ll browse and choose the file from your computer. If you’re importing from Excel, simply copy and paste the contact information into the provided field.

After you click next, you’ll go to the “import subscribers” step. This will allow you to match the columns in the file you’re importing to the columns in MailChimp. For the email address column, click save. The column in your import file that contains the email address will automatically be matched to the MailChimp email address field in your list.

For the second column, you can click the drop down menu to select a field type or create a new column in your list. Each editing pane includes the current column name, type, and sample content from your list. To eliminate a column from the final import, simply click “skip.”

Repeat this for all columns that are unmatched. In order to complete the import, you must match or skip every column. Once all are successful, you’ll be able to click “next.” Review the settings and import details, and then click on “import.”

Depending on the size of the file, it may take a while for the import to complete. You’re free to navigate to other sites and MailChimp will email you once the file is successfully imported.

For those who don’t have any subscribers yet, MailChimp generates a signup sheet for your list that can be posted on your website or social networking sites to build an email list.

Once you’ve established an email list, you can Create a Campaign.