Wouldn’t it be cool to interact with website content, answer a survey, RSVP to an event, or schedule an appointment without ever leaving your Gmail inbox? Imagine the opportunities for increased interactions with your audience, if they could convert directly within an email. Well, it’s your lucky day. Google announced Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) will be released for Gmail later this year.

Today, we’ll talk through how email marketers can prepare for Gmail AMP.

Continue reading Gmail Accelerated Mobile Pages Coming Soon →

Happy Birthday, America!

Brands across the nation are getting into the holiday spirit and promoting Independence Day-themed sales and special events.

We’ve received tons of emails geared toward the holiday, and today, we’re sharing a few of our favorites to give you ideas for your own July 4th campaigns!

Click each example to open up our July 4th email design gallery. 

Father’s Day is just a few short weeks away and we have started to receive numerous emails in anticipation of the holiday.

Check out some of our favorite below and get some gift ideas while you read!

Gift Guides

Gift guides make it easy to cut through the clutter on a website and see what stand out items the retailer thinks are perfect for a holiday. We like that Kiehl’s shows both individual and kits that would make great gifts for dad. And we like the top 5 gifts guide from Mark & Graham – especially the S-curve layout of the email!

Segmentation

Is your dad the creative type? Or is he more of a sports guy? Emails that segment gift suggestions to a certain “type” of guy help you to determine where to focus your interest. Is your dude on the cusp or more than one type? Mix and match gifts from different segments for a personalized gift! We like how Bergdorf Goodman and Nordstrom Rack approached this email style.

Promotions and Deals

Who doesn’t love a sale? Cabela’s and Artifact Uprising sent emails highlighting the deals and site-wide sales they have. This is especially great if you need to buy multiple gifts for the men in your life celebrating Father’s Day. Paper Culture sent an email about a specific product they are running a special on that they think would make a great Father’s Day gift.

Gift Cards

Gift cards give you a lot of flexibility in your gift giving. Services like Stitch Fix offer gift cards that can be emailed, printed, or mailed to the recipient to fit your needs. Ahead of the game? Get a physical gift card gift boxed and sent to the recipient or sent to you to give to them in person. Looking for a list minute gift? Email them the gift card with the retrieval code.

Are you an e-commerce company that sells hundreds of products in various iterations and your customers come back to order from you time and time again? Are you pulling your hair out trying to house all the data you have on your customers into one database? Stop. Relational databases and tables will become your new best friend.

We welcome Digital Marketing Manager, Ali Nazam to explain what a relational database is and why as an e-commerce marketer you should use them.

Continue reading Marketing Tip – Relational Tables 101 →

So, What Exactly is MailChimp?

MailChimp is an email service provider (ESP) for small to midsize companies with a range of communication needs. MailChimp offers an easy to use user interface with capabilities that personalize the experience for the sender and recipient.

How to Send an Email in MailChimp

MailChimp provides numerous campaign types and templates to customize for your needs. No HTML or CSS coding is necessary to use MailChimp with easy plug-and-chug systems in place. Follow along to see how to send an email:
Step 1
Locate and navigate to “Campaigns” in the top menu. Click “Create Campaign” to get started. Select the type of campaign you would like to build. In this case, we’ll start small. Let’s choose “Regular Campaign.”

Step 2
Choose your list. This is pretty simple – just select which of your lists you would like to send to from the drop-down menu. You then see the option to choose segments. This is where you would apply a specific set of rules to a targeted audience – or, just send to the whole list. (Hint – segmenting does wonders!)

Step 3
Complete your mailing settings. This includes all of the basics: mailing name, subject line, from name, from email address and tracking. MailChimp provides the option to personalize the “to” field based on data, or check different methods of tracing. The screenshot below shows the generic options – which suffice for a typical send.

Step 4
Now, the fun begins! Don’t get overwhelmed with the mailing template options, go into this step with a general idea of how you would like to layout your email.

You may choose from basic templates, themes, saved templates (from previous sends), set campaigns, or code your own. Once you have your bearings within MailChimp, you can create a saved template with standardized assets such as your logo, header, and footer. For all future sends, you can select that saved template rather than starting from scratch each time.

For now, we will select a simple 1:2 Column Banded template.

Step 5
Design to your heart’s content! This is your chance to play with the drag and drop functionality within the platform. Pull different content blocks from the right side and insert images and copy to make the email your own. The template you start with is just a jumping off point, customize it to your needs.

The right panel also offers you styling options per content block. Anytime a content block (image, text, column, etc.) is selected on the left, it’s settings will appear on the right. That’s where you can style based on color, size, linking and more.

Here’s a simple before and after:
Before

After

Step 6
You’re almost there! Let’s quickly pause and review what we’ve accomplished. You chose the send list, completed the mailing settings, selected and styled the template. Now you can finally press the “send” button to send now, or you can schedule the mailing for a future send time! Always use an email checklist and send with a buddy to ensure your send is successful.

Is MailChimp Only Used for Sending Email?

Nope! MailChimp has many integrations that can be set up to extend its functionality to fit your needs. Let’s break down some of the popular options:

E-commerce Integrations
The more you know about your customer’s shopping behaviors the better you can target and personalize the customer journey. MailChimp has integration capabilities with numerous e-commerce, such as Shopify, Magento, and ShipStation to name a few.

CRM Integrations
Not only is it important to track online behaviors, but it is also necessary to track offline behaviors customers have with sales or customer service reps. Connect this data with MailChimp, through CRM integrations, such as Salesforce or SugarCRM.

Social Integrations
Facebook
Build single image or carousal image Facebook ads, using the same plug-and-chug tools that you use for email. There is no extra fee for this feature within MailChimp, just pay what you would for Facebook sponsored content. Not only can you setup and trigger Facebook Ads within MailChimp, you can set up custom audiences, and access holistic campaign reporting.

Twitter
Easily integrate Twitter information in your campaigns or post to Twitter all within MailChimp.

Is MailChimp Right for Me?

The best ESP for you depends on your needs (and wants) for the tool and your budget. MailChimp is a great resource if you have a smaller in-house team, who are unfamiliar with coding templates from the ground up. We’d love to talk to more about how MailChimp or another ESP would be best to fit your organization.