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In this post, I’m going to walk you though my approach to setting up a new newsletter for someone in MailChimp.

You will need before we get started

  • A MailChimp account
  • A list with people on it.

Collect ideas and do some planning

I collect ideas for how I’d like my newsletter to look and what sort of content I’d like to include.

Creating a secret Pinterest board is a great way to collect your ideas in one place.

What colour scheme will I be using?
Will I be including images?
What content to I want to make/share?
How often do I want to send my newsletter?
What day/time preferences do I have?

Make a template

The first thing I in MailChimp is design my template. A template gives your newsletter consistent form. You can adjust the fonts and colours. Add in a header, and even a bio section. Once you’ve done this once, you can just keep using the template – no need to waste time in each newsletter fiddling with these things.

Draft my content

I draft my content in Google Drive. So, I’ll include anything I want to say, links I want to use images etc here. This might seem silly, but I create all my content for my blogs, newsletters, webinars all in Google Drive so it’s all in the one place and I can find it easily and repurpose it or use it for inspiration later. I wrote a post about why I have a content library in Google Drive.

Subject line brainstorm

I come up with between four and ten subject lines so I can pick the best one. I usually do this at the top of my content draft in Drive, but you might find you think better using pen and paper.

A good subject line is generally:

  • Short
  • Evokes curiosity/interest about opening the email
  • Does not deceive people into opening the email

If you are trying to trick people into opening your email, that’s not cool and your subscribers might report you for spam. And you don’t want that.

Campaign

In MailChimp, newsletters are called “campaigns”. So, to create one, we go to Campaign mode. It will walk you though the set up where you can put in your subject line and select the template you’ve created. I transfer the content from my Drive document over to MailChimp using copy and pasting WITHOUT formatting. Either you’ll have this option if you right click or you may need to select the little MS-Word icon in the campaign text editor.

That’s it. Those are my steps! Got any questions? Ask below!