MailChimp’s new logo design has made its way into the app’s interface, and he’s got more funny things to say, thanks to our customers.
We got lots of famous movie lines, some music lyrics along with a video, and something that is apparently a popular Scottish cartoon. We think.
If you submitted a quote via our MailChimp Fan Page, and we selected it, you’ll be getting a MailChimp t-shirt in the mail shortly. Thanks!
In addition to the new logo and messages, MailChimp customers will notice the interface has been freshened up a little, and the color scheme is a little softer on the eyes. We’ve also added a bunch of new video tutorials throughout the interface. Hope you likey!
A couple days ago, Comcast sent an email asking for feedback about their feedback loop. Rare to see an ISP genuinely asking email senders what they think. Anyway, this meant I got to speak with one of their senior spam analysts on the phone today. Now I’ve spoken with a lot of ISPs, and I can tell you this was unlike any other conversation I’ve ever had. Comcast was human. Friendly, even. It was refreshingly Comcastic.
He gave me some tips that I could pass on to our readers. So here you go:
If you’ve never tried integrating Google Analytics with your email marketing campaigns before, this article explains how it all works.
BTW, MailChimp makes all this really easy. You just check a little box when you’re building your email campaign, and booya—we do all this tedious tagging work for you automatically.
And if you use our free Analytics360 add-on, we’ll even mash your Google Analytics stats into your email report (so you can track your performaince—even your ROI—all in one place). Here’s a video demo:
Now that’s full circle.
Check out these two case studies of MailChimp customers using our Google Analytics integration:
Here’s a common question I get: “My list is puny. If buying email lists is evil, how can I grow my subscriber base? Fast?”
Well, one way to get more people to signup for your email list is to give them something free when they subscribe. To make it automatic, you can add e-coupons, or links to whitepapers inside your welcome emails.
For example, let’s say you’re a music store, and when people signup for your email newsletter, you want to send them some free music tips. But you want those music tips to be customized to their interests.
If someone rocks the pan flute, they should receive a welcome email with an embedded link to download a PDF called “Zamfir’s Pan Flute Secrets.” If someone is a guitar hero, they get a free guide on guitar playing. You get the gist.
We would like to send a heartfelt congratulations to our friends at Scene 360 (who also happen to be MailChimp users) for winning the “Magazines” category in the 2008 Pixel Awards. Established by Erick and Lisa Laubach in 2006, The Pixel Awards take a fresh look at the best on the web by annually honoring 20 compelling sites that have shown excellence in web design and development. Scene 360 was up against some stiff competition this year, including adweek and Lifelounge, and we can’t think of anyone more deserving of the win!
I recently had the opportunity to speak with Adriana De Barros, Founding Editor and Art Director of Scene 360 about her initial idea for starting the publication, the evolution of the project and her thoughts about being nominated for a Pixel Award. When asked what the best part of her job is, Adriana replied:
The best part is learning something new every day. The reason why I launched this project was to continue reading more, studying and learning, and sharing the things that I liked with others. I’m still doing that today, almost nine years later.
To read more about Scene 360 and how they use MailChimp, check out the interview here.
Well, sort of– technically, we’re supporting Pseudo-Transactional Email Campaigns. (We are not your SMTP server… yet.) But what exactly is a Transactional Email Campaign? Our Transactional Email Campaigns aim to give you the ability to send the same campaign over and over again without changing much of the content. For example–
Welcome/Sign-up emails for your website or mailing list
Follow-up/Reminder emails
Forgotten Password emails
This all happens through the magic of our API, or Application Programming Interface, which is essentially a set of code that allows MailChimp to interact with other applications. Not a programmer? The API is for nerds only. If you can’t call a function or find a programmer in your company to bribe, you can always contact one of our MailChimp Experts.
A “permission reminder” is a little blurb in your email campaigns (usually in the footer) that helps your recipients remember how you got their email address. In some cases, it can help prevent you from getting reported or blacklisted as a spammer.
Here’s a good permission reminder:
And here’s a bad one from a campaign that received 300+ abuse complaints:
I wouldn’t go so far as to say this “bad” permission reminder is what caused hundreds of abuse complaints. It’s more of a symptom of a much larger problem. But that’s a topic for another blog post.
Back to the original question: What makes a good permission reminder?
As the first service to offer iPhone and Yahoo! Mobile access for email marketing, we would be remiss in not keeping up with the current trends in mobile technology. MailChimp is happy to announce that we have extended mobile access to all Google Android devices. From your T-Mobile G1 (or future Android enabled device), just navigate over to http://m.mailchimp.com and you will be redirected to the account login page. You can access your campaigns, check stats and even subscribe people on the fly.
I recently spoke with Tony Riffel, owner and founder of Atlanta’s Octane Coffee Bar & Lounge and MailChimp fanatic. Located in Atlanta’s west midtown near the Georgia Tech campus, Octane serves arguably the best espresso, coffee and tea around. They also have great food, beer and wine, rounding out the “lounge” detail of the coffee bar & lounge tag line. Tony and his wife were living in Portland when they came up with the idea to open a place like Octane.
“We were interested in coffee, so we decided to learn more and try to build the type of coffee place that we weren’t able to find in Atlanta.”
Octane has a reputation for employing some of the most knowledgeable baristas around, and Tony feels fortunate to have attracted so many great people who are willing to learn and teach others. In February of 2008, Octane barista Ben Helfen won the Millrock Latte Art Competition in Washington DC, scoring $5000 for his perfect pour. Then in May 2008, Octane baristas Ben and Danielle competed at the United States Barista Championship in Minnesota.
To read more about Octane and how they use MailChimp, check out the interview here.
