Email Newsletters (Using MailChimp)

Part of the "Cross Media Communication and Production" course I gave at the SAE Amsterdam in 2012. (The information herein can also be found in the MailChimp guides and on the internet)

1. SAE INSTITUTE, 15 October, Sidney De Koning Email Newsletters Cross Media Communication & Production
2. Introduction ✤ Who are you? ✤ Who am i?
3. Sidney de Koning ✤ Love coding ✤ Blogger: O’Reilly, FITC, FFDM, Funky Monkey, Culinerd ✤ Writer: Automating Actionscript Projects. ✤ Business owner - Mobile: Mannetje de Koning / Appcouture ✤ www.funky-monkey.nl ✤ www.culinerd.nl ✤ www.mannetjedekoning.nl
4. Overview ✤ Email Marketing Basics ✤ Finding an email delivery service ✤ MailChimp
5. Email Marketing Basics ✤ Spam! Or what not to do ✤ Legal issues with permission-based emails ✤ Building an address list ✤ Planning email campaign ✤ Free templates / Creating content for campaigns ✤ Understanding design constraints of HTML email
6. Finding an Email Delivery Service ✤ Why choose a Email delivery service? ✤ Their policies - Spamming, blacklist, whitelist ✤ What about their pricing? ✤ Do they offer support? ✤ Do they have references? ✤ Ease of use - Dashboard, interface and reporting tools ✤ Who to choose? MailChimp, SendGrid, Postmark
7. MailChimp ✤ Signup ✤ Dashboard ✤ Explore interface - just click around. ✤ Sending an email ✤ Create a list ✤ Create a campaign ✤ Publishing / scheduling email delivery
8. Spam! Or what not to do ✤ What is spam? And where does it come from? ✤ DON’TS: ✤ Don’t attach large files to newsletters ✤ Don’t change your email, pick one and stay with it. ✤ Don’t change your name, be consistent with the senders name. ✤ Avoid writing like a used car sales man.
9. Spam! How spam filters think. ✤ Going crazy with exclamation points!!!!!! ✤ USING ALL CAPS--IT'S LIKE YELLING IN EMAIL. ✤ Coding sloppy HTML (usually from pasting a Microsoft Word file to HTML) ✤ Coloring fonts bright red or green ✤ Using the word "test" in the subject line ✤ Creating an HTML email that’s nothing but one big image, with little or no text
10. Spam! Or what not to do
11. Spam! Lawsuits ✤ Subject lines ✤ False promises ✤ Dumping address books / buying lists ✤ More info at: ✤ https://mailchimp.com/resources/guides/ spam-lawsuits/ “C’mon, it’s just an email. What’s the worst that can happen?”
12. Permission-based email marketing ✤ People give you their emails. They “ask” to be on your list. ✤ Don’t think one night stand, think relationship and trust. ✤ Don’t go with these rules - blacklisted, marked as spam. ✤ Users are ruthless and will not easily forgive you. ✤ Turn it around - How would you react?
13. Building an email list ✤ How do you get people on you list? You ask, politely. ✤ Offering free stuff - ebooks, expert tips, tricks, downloads, mp3’s, software etc. ✤ Subscriptions - news, updates, etc.
14. Planning an email campaign ✤ Send regularly - if you promise once a week, keep it ✤ Best days are tuesday, wednesday and thursday, 2 to 5 PM ✤ If you use a date - check it! In title’s headers, etc. ✤ Use a tagline - [My Newsletter] Topics for this week are... ✤ Avoid complex HTML structures / Use inline CSS. ✤ Test your newsletter. Via Free Content Checker, SpamCheck, Contactology
15. Planning an email campaign
16. Planning an email campaign
17. Free! HTML Templates ✤ Most EDM sites offer free templates for free to use with their service. ✤ MailChimp: http://mailchimp.com/features/email-templates/ ✤ Campaign Monitor: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/templates/
18. Understanding design constraints of HTML email
19. Understanding design constraints of HTML email
20. ✤ Email likes it dirty: ✤ Inline CSS ✤ Table layout. No CSS Positioning. Not only that, but… ✤ Embedded Tables (gasp!) Shim-GIFs (double gasp!) ✤ Videos, Flash, ActionScript, DHTML, JavaScript, and all that other fancyschmancy stuff is not going to work. Most anti-virus software block them from working inside email apps. ✤ Learn To Fall. Gracefully. Turn off CSS. Turn off images Understanding design constraints of HTML email
21. Questions? ✤ Thank you!