How to make monkeys do your marketing... by Cally Phillips

There’s currently some talk within AE as to whether this is a good idea to do and so feedback here (or elsewhere) from members and blog readers would be welcomed.  I’m not sure that it’s application is really good for AE but I’ve used it for The Galloway Raiders and its working well for that.  And I won a free vinyl monkey toy for signing up.  Yes, I know, why would anyone want one? I refer to him now as my ‘marketing department’ but apart from that, I’m really not so sure that the world’s resources are being well utilised when such a thing even exists. Still, I’ve never won a free anything before so I shan’t look the gift monkey in the mouth.

marketing department, hanging around 

Without more ado…

How to get a monkey to do your marketing.

MailChimp to the rescue.  Go to www.mailchimp.com

Sign up for a free account.

You get to the dashboard screen.

Account settings. You can stay on the free service as long as you have less than 2000 on your list and don’t send out more than twice a month.

Like everything techie, you just have to learn the lingo. So don’t do this while multi-tasking. Sit down with a coffee, allot yourself half an hour to an hour to set things up, play around, explore the options and remind yourself that eventually the monkeys will be doing all the work!

Okay, assuming you want to send out a regular email newsletter this is how the monkeys will do it for peanuts.

As we all know. Working from home means you can monkey
 around to your hearts content.

PART ONE.  CREATE YOUR MAILING LIST/FIND YOUR SUBSCRIBERS

First you have to CREATE LIST. You have to invite people to subscribe to your list.  You can do this by importing emails but basically people have to ASK to join thus avoiding becoming a spammer!

So CREATE LIST  Just fill in the boxes on the dropdown menu.  You can also integrate this with Facebook and Twitter if you want.  Bit fiddly, but follow the instructions to the letter and whammo…

Now, to let people know they can subscribe:

On the LISTS page go to SIGN UP FORMS  ( CLICK ON THE DROPDOWN STATS tab ) then

SIGN UP FORMS  You can integrate it with your Facebook page and/or copy paste HTML to put the signup form on your website (or integrate directly via Wordpress)

(you will find lots of boxes asking you questions you may not understand. It’s my policy to ignore all these where possible and just focus on the things I HAVE TO or DO want to do to get it up and running. Frills come later, just get the basics down first)

So. We’ve got our list linked to FB/Twitter and web…  and invited people via email invites.

Allow yourself a good half an hour for this part – an hour if you are an ‘inquisitive’ person who likes to try out all the options and get confused by the things you don’t even need on offer!

monkey is at home in front of the computer

PART TWO:  DEVELOP YOUR KILLER CONTENT

Now you can start thinking about the content you want to send people.

This is called a Campaign Basically this is just your newsletter. 

You have to CREATE a campaign

Select Regular ol’ Campaign  

You’re asked which list to send to – click the relevant one (All) then go to the bottom of the screen to start the process.

SET UP

Fill in the information.   Ignore Tracking option till you get used to it (we’re looking at the easy options here)

SOCIAL NETWORKING Fill in this section if you want to link to FB and Twitter as well

Ignore MORE OPTIONS

Then go to TEMPLATE

I suggest Basic, where you can look around to find a style that suits you. Then you cut and paste edit it (you can do this directly on screen or from word) and once you’ve done it once you can use ‘recently sent’ to get the same template up again.

The whole Design thing is basically drag and drop and you can test and preview in advance of sending out.  A monkey could do it – just follow the instructions.

When you’ve finished with your design you save and exit/confirm. 

When you finally press NEXT (bottom right of screen) Mailchimp tells you you’re all set to send and you review the information and schedule/send.

and click CONFIRM

and also on the keyboard

As ever, remember that it’s the CONTENT this is really all about. The monkey can put it all together for you and send it out to folk but YOU have to create the content.  The rest is hidden from the world.  So my advice is have your content ready to drag/drop before you start the build the first time. Then play around with it (making sure everything you’ve written is backed up of course for when you delete it all by mistake!)

As long as you speak chimpanzee it’s a breeze. Just learn the monkey language, follow the instructions and it’s easier than typing Hamlet!

There’s lots more to explore but get the basics right first eh?

Reports  - this is excitement for later!  You can find out who opens the mails, how many times they engage and all sorts of interesting spying activity!!!

Autoresponders (not free so don’t worry about this) Useful of course, but FREE is more use to me at any rate. 

Well, that's a whistlestop tour through the joys of MailChimp.  If all else fails you can use the little critter for some subliminal marketing

I can't promise you a free monkey to do all your work for you, but you could become a member of The Galloway Raiders for free HERE and once you've subscribed, as well as all the other goodies on offer you'll get a monthly newsletter FREE direct to your email inbox.  Who could live without that eh? Just remember, I'm working with monkeys!