When you're building your website, you'll soon come across the dilemma to figure out what the best tool is to use for email marketing.
If you're just starting out in your online business, the free MailChimp plan is a fantastic tool to start building your mailing list.
As long as you stay below 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month, you can use it for free, forever. This is enough to get serious about email marketing before you upgrade to a better plan.
However, as most free tools, the free MailChimp plan has its limitations. It's almost impossible to build a well-designed, conversion focused opt-in form that will get you the right people on your list.
This is what we're helping with in the newest Thrive University lesson.
Read on if you want to get the most out of MailChimp while saving time!
More...
1. Getting Started
Are you completely new to MailChimp? There are a few things you need to set up before you start generating leads.
In the first lesson, you'll learn how to set up the basics, create your first mailing list where you store your subscribers, and customize the automated email templates so that they resonate with your style.
2. Beautiful Opt-In Forms in a Minute!
Once MailChimp is set up, all you need to do to start collecting subscribers is create an opt-in form and connect your mailing list with it!
But how do you build an opt-in form that doesn't take hours or requires your coding skills and looks like a million dollars?
The answer is: Thrive Leads.
In the second lesson, you'll learn how to design any type of opt-in form in just minutes, in a way that it will perfectly fit the overall design of your website. And it's immediately ready to generate leads for you.
3. Where Are the Right People?
Avoid one-size-fits-all. It's generic and boring, unlike you. If you want to please everybody, you won't please anyone. ​
In the third lesson, you'll learn how to create different opt-in forms without having to worry about them popping up over each other, and how to make sure that only the people who are interested will see it.
Don't worry about grouping people into complicated separate lists.
If you set it up the way you'll see in the lesson, MailChimp will take care of organizing your list without giving you a headache. This will allow you to easily send targeted content to each and every subscribers.
4. Attract More of Them
Everything is set up, your opt-in form is getting subscribers, but there is a way to multiply its effect.
In the fourth lesson you'll learn how to make the most powerful lead magnet possible with the combination of the free MailChimp plan and Thrive Leads.
5. And the Winner Is...
If you haven't gotten into the A/B testing habit, now would be the time.
I know I know... who wants to read statistics and analyze them!
The good news is, you don't have to do this at all.
Apply the Thrive Leads A/B testing feature on your opt-in forms to see which one gets you the most subscribers! In the fifth lesson, you'll learn how it's done.
Ready to Max out the Free MailChimp Plan?
Signup for the free Thrive University course: MailChimp Made Easy
Follow this course if you're serious about email marketing. Follow all the steps and you’ll be on the road to success. Soon you'll have so many subscribers that the 2,000 leads limit won't be enough for you...
Do you have any questions about the course, or suggestions for another one? Comment below this post and we will get back​ to you.
Our thanks for the tip, I was looking for a platform to start using free email marketing. I’ll try.
Thanks Frank, I’m glad we could help.
Thank you, Alexandra, for your kind assistance.
Hi Stephen, we’re glad we could help!
Thank you so much, Alex! This is just so in time…I am a Fan using Thrive Leads and I just signed up for Mailchimp yesterday. Have been wondering and testing half of the day to see how to make Mailchimp works better on our Thrive then I finally saw your post here. THANK YOU!
I’m very happy to hear that it was perfect timing for you! Thanks for your comment, Claire.
MailChimp has great delivery rates, but don’t ever put an affiliate link inside an email. Make sure you only include links to your blog posts and promote third-party products that way – on your blog – or MailChimp will suspend your account almost immediately.
Thanks for sharing, indeed MailChimp as has a pretty strict policy about promotion affiliate offers
Thank you so much, Alexandra. I loved that you got straight to the point and covered a lot of territory. In addition to this method, I have been using Mailgun for Asset Delivery. Do you see an advantage to using third-party services for Asset Delivery, while using Mailchimp for emails?
Hi Mauricio, thank you for your comment! We’re happy that you found the course useful.
Absolutely – your Email Marketing Service is not made for these types of email notifications. In this knowledge base article you can read why it’s recommended to use an Email Delivery Service.
Alexandra, thanks for your course. I have a question on ‘Final Welcome eMail’ in MailChimp: I have set up 2 step LightBox Opt-in form, linked it up to a HomePage button with CTA, created Thank You/Download page and linked my pdf file through url – all delivered with single opt-in. No problem. But I also wanted MailChimp to immediately send ‘final welcome email’ as a subscription confirmation, with a link to file download (e.g. for future reference), some text and standard unsubscribe option note. Therefore, in the settings for the list I checked this option (sending final welcome email) and unchecked double opt-in (because I used single opt-in). I tested, but this email is not sent. What could be the reason and is it possible to set up the delivery of this email right after smb sign ups? I would greatly appreciate your tips and insights.
Hey Alexandra, thanks for this tutorial of mailchimps email marketing this helped me a lot because as a newbie i always look to read articles related to online marketing, websites and more.
Thanks once again.
Thank you Steve, I’m glad you found this useful!
As a ‘newbie’ I just started with Mailchimp. This course was just sooooo helpful and practical. Thank you so much. 🙂
Thank you Geoff, I’m happy it helped 🙂
Nice post and course! Many people have encouraged me startig right away with ActiveCampaign because of it’s automation features even though they do not offer a free plan. Do you have any content like this but targeted at integration between Thrive Leads and ActiveCampaign (or other services alike)? I have to decide soon whether to start free with MailChimp or go full with ActiveCampaign… Thanks!
Thanks Marcelo! We don’t have an ActiveCampaign course at the moment but we’re open to creating one if we see that there is a demand 🙂
I’m conflicted: does ThriveThemes recommend Active Campaign or Mail Chimp for email marketing and why?
Hi Lee,
Both solutions have their pros and cons.
We recommend (and use) Active Campaign because of the tagging options and advanced segmentation, but if you do not have a budget for email marketing yet, you can start with the free plan of MailChimp.
The high-level content that your team puts out blows my mind. This type of quality is often sold in courses. Thank you guys!
Thank you very much Nate! We’re really happy to hear you enjoy our content.
Thank you so much, Alexandra. I loved your writing style and tips. Very helpful.
Thank you, Daryl, I’m glad you enjoyed the course and found it useful
Thanks for the informative article.
I’m glad you found it informative!
This really needs to be updated. Mailchimp has completely changed and as far as I can tell they have removed some of the buttons you show in the tutorial. I have spent so much time trying to figure out how to get my website email set up.