Technical Newsletter Article

Newsletter: How to Set Up a Mailing List with Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor is a powerful web-based email marketing software application, offering tremendous functionality.

Campaign Monitor makes light work of any mailing list, regardless of its size and complexity. This article is divided in two parts; the first part will guide you on setting up a mailing list in Campaign Monitor and the second part explains how to add a  Campaign Monitor subscribe form on your website.

These step by step instructions will now guide you on setting up a mailing list with Campaign Monitor:

a) Go to the Campaign Monitor website (http://www.campaignmonitor.com) and set up a free account. Now log on to your personalised Campaign Monitor webpage, and click on the “Manage Subscribers” tab.

b) Click on the “Create a new list” button. You will now find yourself on a page asking you to name your list (a simple name is recommended) and choose the “List type.” Under “List type”, choose either a single opt-in list or a confirmed opt-in list. In a single opt-in list, new subscribers get included as they complete the subscribe form, while in confirmed opt-in lists, a confirmation email is sent to new subscribers and existing subscribers do not have to confirm anything (as they are already subscribers).

c) Now you will be directed to a webpage where you can click on the “Add the first subscribers to your new list” link. This will lead you to the import webpage, where imports can be selected from an existing file, or new email addresses can be typed out.

The first option on the page allows you to manually input new subscribers with their name and email address, separated by a comma, in one line. You can also simply list email addresses only, and not names. For example, the name Robert Smith with a hypothetical email address of robertsmith@email.com can be added to the mailing list manually in these ways:

Robert Smith, robertsmith@email.com

robertsmith@email.com, Robert Smith

robertsmith@email.com

Click on the “Add subscribers” button once you are finished.

The second option allows you to import contacts from a comma or tab delimited text file, such as CSV or TXT files. CSV files are supported in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express etc. and are very common.

Before you proceed to import your file, Campaign Monitor will confirm from you whether you are legally and ethically importing the list.

d) Supported CSV or TXT files should be of the format where the subscriber’s name, email address and category name (say “Professional”) are separated by commas in one line. The following example with common hypothetical names and categories will make this point clear:

Robert Smith, robertsmith@email.com, Professional

Jane Doull, janedoull@email.com, Student

John Shearer, johnshearer@email.com, Unemployed

Each name must be on a new line, and in case you have a large file exceeding 10 MB, it should be split into smaller files for faster processing. Now, click on “Browse” button, select your CSV file and click on the “Import these Subscribers” button.

e) If your CSV/TXT files are in the correct format, the webpage will ask you to match the columns (such as Professional, Student, Unemployed in the example) with the Subscriber List fields. In case your file contains an error, the software will identify it. Errors can include duplicate email addresses or incorrect email addresses. You can edit the addresses with errors by clicking the “Fix these subscribers” button or choose to ignore them.

Now, your mailing list of email addresses and subscribers is ready to use in Campaign Monitor. You can now select this mailing list for any proposed email campaign in the Campaign Monitor software! As mentioned earlier, it wasn’t so difficult to set up a mailing list with Campaign Monitor, was it?

The second part of the article deals with adding a Campaign Monitor subscribe form to your website. This is a superb tool used to attract new subscribers to your mailing list. Just like setting up a mailing list, it is also fairly simple.

The following steps are required to add a subscribe form to your website:

i) Log on to your personalised Campaign Monitor webpage (assuming you have created a free account on the website), and click on the “Manage Subscribers” tab. Then, in the column to the right (below “Capturing and Processing”), click on “Create a subscribe form.”

ii) You will now get a number of options (called “fields”). It is your choice as to how many fields you want to include in your subscribe form. These fields collect the information filled up by a subscriber when he subscribes to your emails. The fields include name, age, address etc.

Once you have chosen the desired fields, click on “Generate the code.”

iii) Campaign Monitor will generate an HTML code, which you can simply copy and paste to the HTML code of the web page in which you intend having the subscribe form. The code is automatically generated in basic, CSS based and table based HTML formats. Choose the format which suits your requirements and then copy-paste to your webpage’s HTML code.

You now know how to add a subscribe form to your website! It is also worthwhile knowing some easy subscribe form options which increase the functionality and power of your subscribe form.

1) If you have more than one mailing list set up for one project or client, you can put a checkbox in the subscription form. The checkbox automatically enables your subscribers to join your other mailing lists.

2) You can mention a web page to which people completing your subscription form can be redirected. If no page is specified, then a “Thank You” page will appear after a person opts for the email subscription.

3) You have the option of sending all new subscribers a welcome email on confirmation of their subscription. To enable this, tick the checkbox which allows you to customise your email.

So, now you should be able to use Campaign Monitor effectively to set up mailing lists and add a mailing list subscribe form to your website.