I’m going to keep this simple because as far as Mail Chimp is concerned, I have a very simple understanding of how it all works. So if I tried to go into too much detail, I wouldn’t only be losing you…heck I’d be lost myself.
Needless to say, I promised I’d share with you all what I’ve been doing about the different Giveaways I’ve been involved in lately and one of the many consequences from all those giveaways are multiple lists of new subscribers. Now those subscribers are wonderful, don’t get me wrong, I love having them as new fans, receiving my newsletter but there are difficulties that have to be faced.
#1 – I now have a number of lists of people from the various Giveaways. Some are Contemporary Romance readers who signed onto Giveaways formed around that genre. Others are Fantasy, Suspense and even Spicy. So I cannot place them all onto one newsletter list because in many cases, they wouldn’t be interested in the products I’d be promoting and they would unsubscribe.
#2 – Therefore, I’m forced to form categories in my List. Right? Except I’m not too sure how that’s done. So I went to Mail Chimp and researched it only to find my eyes were crossing, drool was forming a pond on my desk and my snores woke me. Finally, I broke down and decided to try watching a u-tube video on how-to use Mail Chimp. Luckily, there was a new Mail Chimp video for 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE0k7tuKEa0that was very clear and easy to follow. (I’ll admit, I had to watch it more than once to really let it sink in J
But it answered my questions. I found out how to combine all those lists and yet keep them in separate groups. The reason you want to do this is because as soon as you combine the lists, Mail Chimp automatically streams out the duplicates. That’s important because many fans join all the Giveaways they can find so it’s possible for you to have the same people on multiple lists.
Remember… you have to pay for your subscribers once you’ve reached 1,500. And then again at 2,000, and each time the price goes up, it jumps radically. So it’s important to keep your lists pared down as much as possible.
#3- Next, I’ll eventually need to send a notice to those fans who’d signed up mainly to win prizes and free books but who have no intention of continuing to open my e-mails nor can hey be bothered to unsubscribe. This means I’m paying for those people who are actually driving down my open rates. I will need to send out forms to them and see if they are truly wanting to get my newsletters or not. So again… I went to Mail Chimp and found this very simple form. I went to Listsand then on the right where you see Stats, I clicked it open and found sign-up forms.
On the “Build it tab” of the Form Builder, you can add or remove form fields, customize text, and add a message to the top of your form.
I wrote a message telling everyone how much I appreciated their support and that I would love to have them re-sign to my newsletter, which would always give them options to win prizes, free books and great sales.
On the “Design it” tab of the Form Builder, you can make your design more exciting with custom colors, fonts, or images.
In this example, you’ll learn how to change the form’s color scheme, and replace the header text with an image.
On the “Translate it” tab of the Form Builder, you can set your default language, turn on auto-translate, customize default form text, or change text direction.
The sign up form has an address Url that showed up automatically that takes the subscriber to your newsletter so if they do sign up, they’ll be added to a new list. If you send this notice out at least 3 times over a few weeks, you will give everyone a fair chance to open the form and stay with you and at the end of that time, Delete the ones who never signed up.
Good luck with setting up your lists and make a point of trying out some of the many Giveaways available so you can build your list. (I listed some in my last post.)
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