mail chimp - send a new campaign

We find that using Mail Chimp is a much smoother ride using the browser Firefox. DOWNLOAD FIREFOX FREE HERE. When using Mail Chimp, give each page and window plenty of time to load and refresh. This site uses some pretty advanced techniques and you need to let the pages load before you start typing information in.

1. Log in to your Mail Chimp account
2. Either on the DASHBOARD or the CAMPAIGNS tab, click the giant orange CREATE CAMPAIGN button
3. If you want to send out a formatted newsletter with the template we designed for you, click the REGULAR OL' CAMPAIGN button.
4. Under the WHICH LIST WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEND THIS CAMPAIGN TO, select the name of the group (you will probably only have one) then click SEND TO ENTIRE LIST.
5. Under CAMPAIGN INFO section:-
   Name your campaign - this is purely for your own use from within Mail Chimp
   Message Subject - this is displayed in the subject field when you send out your campaign
   From Name - type your business name in here
   Reply-to-Email - you can probably leave this one set as it is, but if you want replies to this campaign to go to a different email address, type it in here.
   Personalize the To field - this can be used if you have collected personal data on all your subscribers (ie: Name)
   Under TRACKING PREFERENCES section:-
   Track Opens - leave ticked if you want to know how many of your newsletters were opened
   Track HTML Clicks - leave ticked if you want to know which links in your newsletter were clicked on, and how many time.
   Track Plain Text Clicks - leave this one un-ticked
   Authenticate the Campaign - leave this one ticked
   Add Google Analytics tracking to all URL's - leave this one un-ticked unless you're running Google Analytics
   CLICK NEXT
6. Click the MY TEMPLATES tab. Click the USE TEMPLATE button underneath the template you want to use (you may only have one, but some people will have multiple templates set up)
7. Click anywhere in the middle section to bring up the EDIT YOUR CONTENT section.
8. Make the necessary changes and click SAVE (see below for tips for formatting your content)
9. To see what your newsletter will look like, click the POPUP PREVIEW button
10. To send a test version of the newsletter to yourself - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - click the SEND TEST button, Type your email address in the box provided and click the SEND TEST button underneath. Go check your email and make sure you're happy before going any further.
11. Click the NEXT link (with the green arrow)
12. In the ENTER YOUR PLAIN-TEXT MESSAGE BELOW, type your message in plain text. You will see something already there from your HTML version. It may not look like you want it to though, so strip out anything you don't want. At the bottom make sure you leave the Unsubscribe *|EMAIL|* from this list: *|UNSUB|* so your message complies with Anti-Spam laws.
13. As per step 9 & 10, preview and send a test version of the PLAIN TEXT version of your newsletter.
14. Click NEXT.
15. Read through the checklist to make sure everything's correct. If not, click the EDIT link to make any adjustments.
16. To send the campaign out immediately - click the SEND NOW button. In the ARE YOU SURE pop up, click SEND CAMPAIGN.
17. To schedule the campaign to be sent out later - click the SCHEDULE CAMPAIGN button. Type in the date and the time you want the campaign delivery to start and ensure the Timezone is set correctly (it should be) then click the SCHEDULE button.

tips for formatting your content

TO INSERT AN IMAGE THAT'S ALREADY ON THE WEB

1. Open up your web browser. Right click on the image, click PROPERTIES.
2. Highlight what you see in the Address section, right click and click COPY
3. With the address on your clipboard, go back to MAIL CHIMP. Place your cursor where you want the image to appear (if you're replacing text or another image, highlight or delete it first)
4. Click the INSERT/EDIT IMAGE icon
5. In the IMAGE PROPERTIES pop up, paste the address in the URL box on the IMAGE INFO tab.
6. Optional: TO LINK THE IMAGE TO A WEB PAGE - while still in the IMAGE PROPERTIES pop up, click on the LINK tab.
7. Open up your web browser. Surf to the page you want to link to. Highlight the address in the address bar, right click and copy to your clipboard
8. Back in Mail Chimp, paste the address in the URL field.
9. Click OK

TO INSERT AN IMAGE THAT'S ON YOUR COMPUTER (and make it link to a web page)

1. Click the INSERT/EDIT IMAGE icon (below)
   
2. In the IMAGE PROPERTIES pop up, click the UPLOAD tab
3. Click the BROWSE button to find the image on your computer.
4. Locate the file and click OPEN
5. Back in the IMAGE PROPERTIES pop up, click SEND IT TO THE SERVER
6. Click OK when the upload is complete.
7. Optional: TO LINK THE IMAGE TO A WEB PAGE - while still in the IMAGE PROPERTIES pop up, click on the LINK tab.
8. Open up your web browser. Surf to the page you want to link to. Highlight the address in the address bar, right click and copy to your clipboard
9. Back in Mail Chimp, paste the address in the URL field.
10. Click OK

LINK TEXT TO A WEB PAGE

1. Open up your web browser. Surf to the page you want to link to. Highlight the address in the address bar, right click and copy to your clipboard
2. Back in Mail Chimp, highlight the text you want to link.
3. Click the HYPERLINK icon (below)
   
4. In the LINK pop up box, make sure Link Type is URL (this is the default), Protocol is http:// (this is the default) and then paste the address in the URL field
5. Click OK

HAVING TROUBLE GETTING YOUR FORMATTED TEXT TO SIT PROPERLY

There isn't a 'what you see is what you get' editor on the market that works as well as Microsoft Word. They all have their quirks. This one, however is better than most.

If you have something as a heading that's not supposed to be and you want to strip out all the formatting & start again, while in the EDIT YOUR CONTENT POP-UP:-

1. Click on SOURCE. You now get to see the HTML coding behind the newsletter.