Creating your MailChimp list

MailChimp is a great option if you’re looking to create an email newsletter. In fact, they’re our recommended provider because our clients find them easy to use. Last time we talked about creating your MailChimp account. The next step is to make your List.

List Details

When you first go to the Lists section on your MailChimp dashboard, there will be an indicator under Create List, letting you know where to get started.

The first thing it will ask you to do is fill out some basic details and adjust your notification settings.

There will also be some recommended answers and hints when you’re filling out each field to help you along.

Once you’ve created your list, it’s time to add your subscribers. You can either add subscribers manually, or by importing them.

Adding Subscribers

Adding a single subscriber manually is pretty straight-forward.  Simply fill in the subscriber’s information, and check the box that signifies the subscriber gave you permission to add them to your list.

Importing Subscribers

When importing a list, we typically import from a CSV file, which is the first option under Import Subscribers.

After you’ve imported your list of email addresses, you’ll be asked to match the columns in your list to your MailChimp list.

The basic columns are often First Name, Last Name, and Email Address. Some companies keep more information with each of their subscribers; some companies just keep the email addresses.

Regardless of how many columns you have, simply match the column name with the appropriate title so MailChimp knows what is in each column.

If you’re uploading a spreadsheet that has more information than you need added to your MailChimp list, you can also tell MailChimp to skip certain columns.

Depending on how many email addresses you’re importing, you may be quickly redirected to your subscriber list, or it may tell you that the import is in progress. Don’t worry, you can leave the page without interrupting the process, if you need to. You’ll get a notification by your Account Name when the import is complete.

Importing from a TXT File (a text file) is another easy option, and follows the same process. Copy/Paste from Excel is also very straight-forward if you’ve been saving your email addresses in a spreadsheet. Fortunately, it’s just as easy as it sounds.

Other methods MailChimp has that we won’t cover in detail here include importing email addresses from the following:

• Salesforce
• Highrise
• Batchbook
• Zendesk
• Mac Contacts
• SurveyGizmo
• Capsule
• Eventbrite
• Zoho
• FreshBooks
• Google Drive
• Google Contacts

Once you have your list set up, it’s time to set up your first newsletter template. The template is the foundation with which you will build each of your newsletter campaigns. Come back next week to learn about setting up a newsletter template!