3 Creative Ways to Use MailChimp

MailChimp is a hugely popular email marketing platform that can be used to send email communications to contacts in your subscribers’ list. Newsletters, sales advertisements, and blog posts can all be sent via email, and therefore if you want to provide your subscribers with regular and useful content, then MailChimp is an essential tool.

That being said, not all companies are aware that MailChimp can be used in other, more exciting ways. So, let us discover 3 creative ways that you can use MailChimp as part of your marketing efforts.

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Deliver an Online Course

Did you know that MailChimp can be used to deliver online courses? If you have expertise in a certain field or have a deep understanding of a particular topic, then you might want to consider offering a course that can be provided over email. Put simply, people can sign up to take your course by joining your MailChimp mailing list. From there, they can receive an email that starts the course. Each subsequent email contains a useful lesson and educational materials. Email courses are highly convenient and can be completed without having to click through to your website.

To create an online course, start by breaking up your ideas or lessons into short segments of about half a page. Aim to provide one take away message for your reader per email. Assignments and concrete tasks can be added through printable resources and lists. From here, provided that you have access to ‘Automation’ on your MailChimp account, you can list your course using the ‘Create Automation Workflow’ button. Your lessons can then be sent to subscribers that have enrolled in your online course using mailchimp google contacts integration. Finally, your course can be self-paced, allowing your reader to control when they get their next email, or you can schedule each lesson for a specific date.

Create a Digital Magazine

Although newsletters are a great way to stay in touch with your subscribers using short and fast-paced points of interest, you might also want to consider offering more content to your readers in the form of a digital magazine. Magazines are designed to be read at leisure and can, therefore, contain more detailed information about your company, your products and services, and any other information that might be relevant to your readers. Although your magazine should still only be relatively short, it can be used to provide more quality content to your subscribers that were not included in your newsletter. You can even expand on some of the points from your newsletter so that people can find out more about anything that might have caught their eye or interested them.

MailChimp has many layout ideas and templates that are perfect for designing a digital magazine. Correspondingly, although there is a lot more freedom when writing long-form content, do try to keep your magazine as focused as possible. Ideally, your digital magazine should be small, light on images, and geared towards quality over quantity. When writing, keep your specific niche and audience in mind at all times so that your target audience is much more likely to be fascinated by your content and will take the time to read through your articles. Sometimes, one or two longer stories that did not make your newsletter is all it takes to spark interest from your readers. Again, include the body of your magazine within the email itself as your subscribers will appreciate not having to leave their inbox to read through your articles.

Tips and Trivia

People love to read tips about how to get more out of their favorite products and services. You might, therefore, want to consider using MailChimp to send out daily or weekly emails containing a few tips that are relevant to your subscriber base. Pretty much any topic can be broken down into several key points, and therefore sharing tricks and ideas with your readers can be a useful strategy to get people engaging with your content. Quick and easy tips can be ordered in a list, whereas a more detailed tip can be explained in one or two short paragraphs. Keep your tips light-hearted and meaningful and you should begin to earn the respect of your subscribers as an authority in your field.

Sharing facts with your subscribers can also capture their attention and increase engagement. Trivia can be used to share important facts about your company, and there is no real limit to the amount of information that can be discovered about your products and services. If you incorporate a puzzle or conundrum into your emails, your subscribers will be eager to hear the solution in future correspondence and will look forward to your next message. For inspiration look to stories from the news that are relevant to your specific niche. For instance, why not link to articles about the latest trends within your industry, or commentary and opinions from some of the big names in your field.

Ultimately, while MailChimp is always going to be useful for sending out newsletters, advertisements, and news articles, it can also be used creatively to draw the attention of your subscribers in new and exciting ways. Above all, by using your imagination, you can breathe new life into your marketing campaigns and raise awareness of your products and services in a less typical fashion.

If you are looking for solutions that can save your business time and money, then you might be interested to learn that using MailChimp can automate a significant amount of your email marketing processes. To learn more, take a look at these 4 ways that automation software can benefit your marketing.