Posts Tagged ‘MailChimp’

We like MailChimp a lot at P1wired, Photography Studio Management Software, because they have a great product and are very creative.

A recent blog post titled “Using Facebook To Keep The Conversation Going” had some interesting ideas about using Facebook for marketing.

MailChimp sent out an email to a certain set of their customer base to let them know they were going to receive the same service for a better price.

They were going to attach SWYN icons but didn’t think it would get much traction.  They thought about using Twitter but didn’t think asking their customer base to tweet about the cost savings matched their culture.  They thought the twitter email template was overkill for the task at hand.

They ultimately decided to use Facebook.  They added a simple line of text linked to their Facebook fan (like) page and asked their customer base to leave a note about what they would do with the cost savings.  “It’s basically just an old-fashioned invitation to reply (but on Facebook instead of via email), and continue the conversation with us.”  There were many tangible benefits which Ben outlines in his post.  Take a quick look at his approach and the results.

Simple and Easy.  What an effective way to keep the dialogue going.

P1Wired developers have been busy since WPPI 2010 and will have a new release April 1st of P1Wired Photography Studio Management. We had new features “in the works” before the show and the feedback from WPPI helped prioritize development.

What’s New:

1. P1Wired wants you to own your data. You can export your data to a CSV file with a click of a button.

2. “How-To” videos embedded in P1Wired. You can open a video right in the program to review the feature you are looking to use — there is no need to go somewhere else in the program or on a website to review. This is a big time saver and allows you to quickly review the task at hand.

3. Client Access is now LIVE. This new feature allows a prospect or client to generate a Proposal, e-sign a Contract, make a Payment and auto-generate a confirmation E-Mail.

4. You can now add attachments to e-mails.

5. There are Interest and Activity tabs in the client page. You can now mark a prospect or client to an Interest or Activity which will allow you to refine your marketing with MailChimp.

These new features were developed with “Simple and Easy” as a primary goal. This is important constant as we develop a studio management software for photographers that adds value to your daily work flow. Please keep the comments and feedback coming.

MailChimp has recently integrated with Flickr so that you can upload images from Flickr and use them in your email marketing campaigns. MailChimp did a nice job explaining the integration in their blog so check it out and see if the integration makes sense for your business. At a 30,000 ft. level the process is easy and quick:

1. Go to the gallery icon in the editor’s toolbar to add images
2. Authorize MailChimp to access you Flickr account
3. Click import
4. Add imported images to your email campaign

The Flickr integration with MailChimp and the MailChimp integration with P1Wired allows you to quickly and easily create an email marketing campaign targeting customers and/or prospects and enhance the email with your own images.

In the last blog post we took you through the steps to integrate P1Wired Photography Studio Management with MailChimp. Now that you have the integration set up, you are ready to begin email marketing.

1. Create a list in MailChimp

> Login to MailChimp (you can login directly from P1Wired Marketing using the MailChimp button)
> Click on Create a List
> Fill out the the form
> Be sure to check “people unsubscribe” under “email me at youremail@yourserver.com …”
> Click Save and remain on this page

2. In P1Wired you’ll export customers to the list you created in MailChimp

> Click the Marketing button
> Manually tag the customers or run a query
> Click the Query button
>> Select based on your criterion (i.e., customer, order, or by relationship)
>> Choose the value you are looking for (i.e., customer/prospect, category, order date/amount, relationship birthday, etc.)
> Click Query
> Click “Send to MailChimp”
> From the drop down menu you’ll select the list you created in step 1
> Click send
> Go back to MailChimp and click the button at the top of the page, “Import my List”.

3. In MailChimp, click the Campaign Tab

> Click the Create Campaign tab
> Select Regular ol’ Campaign
> Select the list your sending to and click Next in the upper right corner
> Fill out the campaign info and click Next
> You can use one of their templates or create your own
> Customize and click Next (towards the bottom)
> In the Plain Text box (for recipients who only view plain text emails) fill out
> Send a test of the plain text to yourself just to be sure it’s perfect
> Confirm your settings one last time
> You can send right now, or schedule for a later date, or at a different time.

P1Wired and MailChimp are integrated so that you can create professional, smart-looking and meaningful email marketing campaigns. Photographers can now closely coordinate their studio management software and email marketing campaigns so that you can build and manage your email list, send emails with confidence and track and analyze emails. And not to worry if you don’t know HTML, MailChimp has templates that you can customize or create from scratch.

You can also take advantage of their “Forever Free Plan” which allows you to store up to 500 subscribers and send up to 3,000 emails a month. MailChimp also has Show Me videos and Help on every screen to assist you every step of the way.

Here are some quick and easy steps to set up the integration (one-time only):

1. Sign up for MailChimp

> Go to www.mailchimp.com
> Enter email and account name
> Log your Username and Password for step 2
> Hit “create MailChimp account”
> Go to your email account and find the email from MailChimp (may take up to 24 hours)
> Click Activate

2. Enter information in P1Wired\

> Click the Setup icon (the wrench) in the upper right hand corner
> Select Interfaces
> Enter the Username and Password
> Click Get Key button
> Click the Save icon (the disc) in the upper right hand corner of the interfaces window

In our next blog post we will describe the steps to create an email marketing campaign. We are having fun working with MailChimp and making it work well with P1Wired.

MailChimp