4 weeks of wasted hours-my email list building hell.
I decided it was time to start building an email list, after nine month at WA.
It was fun to start!
Join mailchimp with a free account. Set up a pop up form & email sign up form on my website.
And away you go ....easy.
Wrong
To get your emails right it takes hours and hours of hard work. I am at 4 weeks and counting.
Mailchimp provides no assistance with a person to chat to unless you upgrade your account to a paid account.
The tutorials they provide a long and complicated.
Mabey it’s just me but I should not be getting more grey hairs over this. 😀
I have a list of nearly 200 sign ups waiting for my newsletters and I feel like a failure as I can’t deliver them what they want.
I don’t want to quit this. Remember never give up if you want success.
My options are?
1:Pack this in & find another email prodiver that is more simple to use. ie start again.2:Leave emails altogether and start a YouTube Chanel3:upgrade my account to a premium membership (although money is tight for me at the moment)
4: carry on tearing my hair out with this until I find a way.
What do I do?
I don’t want to let those that have signed up down. Have you experienced something similar to this with mailchimp or list building?Any thoughts form the community most welcome. Take care 👍“We must accept failure to succeed”
Recent Comments
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I started with mail chimp...not happy with them, at the moment I am doing email newsletters myself, my partner here Alan converts my newsletters to a PDF and I send them out myself. I know in the long term that this won't be practical as my email list grows but it is saving me the stress of trying to sort it out at the moment.
I will go back to the drawing board at a later date when I have learnt more about it all.
It’s good to hear I’m not the only one with theses issues. I am sorry for the troubles you are having too. I think I might take autoresponders off my website. Learn more and start again. It’s a tough call after all the effort I have put in. 🤔 take care
There are free plug ins that you can use to create a contact form for your website. I would suggest putting the contact form on the side bar of your website near the front top of landing page . The plug in needs to interface with whichever email service you are using. Personally, I don’t use pop up forms because I find them annoying. I use aweber and chimp mail. I have Aweber for capture pages and chimp mail for my website. I email a newsletter weekly using both services. Aweber is more complicated to use than chimp mail. I have tried Get Response but cancelled because I just did not like it. If you are starting out, you cannot beat the free account at chimp mail. You can go up to 2000 on the list count before having to pay. What exactly is causing you the most problems with using Chimp Mail?
No one to ask a question to when you are stuck is giving me the most problems on mail chimp. I have build all my emails, 4 of them to send out to my campaign list. When I try start sending the list to my audience it says confirm. A message appears please sort out the issues below befor you can go ahead. All the boxes are ticked and in blue with means they are correct. I can’t find any issues to sort out but it won’t let me confirm or go ahead with sending my list. Any thoughts?
I've been using the free version of MailPoet and it's been pretty simple to set up.
It's for a client of mine's eCommerce store though. We use it to automatically compile and send a newsletter style email to all her subscribers once a week with all her latest listings. It can do a whole bunch of things, but that is how we use it.
If I recall it guides a person through a mini tutorial upon first use which was enough for me to figure things out and to get it set up just right.
Worth a shot maybe :)
I believe starting a YouTube channel in combination with a blog/website is a pretty good idea. At least, that's the general gist I've been getting from those who have gone that route.
Wow,
Motly I envy you with a 200 listing after 4 weeks. I am here about the same time yet hardly any warmth in my current list. I did ask Kyle how to create a contact form 7 to include in my blog so I can get to build my list as I go along. I guess if people make comments you can build that list from there? How many would?
Then when people are interested they will click your WA link..so you also add these to your list. But on a wider scope I hope to connect with those inquisitive and curious people who want to know more, a contact page with an autoresponder will help to further engage such leads.
Don't give up...built your turf your list will grow...
I noticed on the website back office there is no menu to construct a contact form. If anyone knew of a way, can pls share here?.
Hi. My list has been Built from an autoresponder pop up on my website. To get it right is proving to be a huge challenge for me. We never know how things will pan out until we try something new for the first time.
Please be careful with adding people to your mailing list if they haven't actually signed up for it.
In many countries it's against the law to add people to a mailing list, just because they've shown interest in other parts of your business. They have to give permission first for you to send them emails.
The have given me permission though the sign up forms. I am not into spamming people through emails.
Thank you, BvVugt.
Those that response to enquire would be legit enough to communicate further, I hope. Not those from a purchased list.
I'm afraid not, Nihaoteo. Of course, it's always fine to answer them about that particular issue. That's obvious. And you can offer them some extra's along the way. That's all good. But it has nothing to do with your email list and the emails you send out on a regular basis.
Just because somebody shows interest or asked a question (even when they do it per email) does not mean you have permission to put them on your email list. Those are separate matters.
If you want those people on your email list, you have to ask them if they want to keep receiving messages from you. And make sure they can opt out again any time they want to. You could put a button for it at the bottom of a service email. For example: "If you would like to keep hearing from me, receive news about Product X and get special offers, click here."
Oh man, I'm sorry to hear this. I thought, I was stressed out last night writing an entire course. It took 8 hours but, still stressful for me..
Anyhow, I have never used Mail chimp so, I'm not sure what is going on.
I do know that Mail chimp doesn't like affiliate marketing, it's in their policy and terms so, I don't know if this is the problem or what. I do know people within WA said their entire account was shut down by using Mail chimp.
Regardless, if you have to move your list, you should still be able to unless, Mail chimp has to some kind of clause, with the free account. I don't know, I'm not a pro with email marketing...or you could download the CSV (I think that's what it's called) if you can get access to it.
By all means, try not to leave your list. 200 people is a lot of people to leave behind...Great job by the way...
I just hope everything works out...
I do know Get Response has a beginner email course, and to me it was really helpful...Aweber has somewhat of a course on how to write the emails but, to me it wasn't beginner friendly.
Convertkit is a bit pricey...and I heard people within WA mention Mailer Lite they are also Free...Could you move your list there?
Send Pulse is free too but, Send Pulse doesn't integrate with too many people. You would need the Zapier plugin to use them...
I thought I'd help with some suggestions...I'm sorry I couldn't be of no further help...
And you're right every failure is a GREAT sign...after failure then success...Have an awesome weekend...Keep up the awesome work...onward and upward...
Thank you for some very useful tips and help. I will look into it. A change of strategy might be need from me. Very kind of you to respond like you did. Thank you have a lovely weekend too:)
Hi, I'm planning on starting up an email list soon so I can't give any help on this but I hope you get the answers you are looking for without having to start over!
Good luck!
Jane
Ha ha, have felt like that once or twice myself! Have a good break and come back refreshed!
Thank you Motly, this is a most useful post and thanks for sharing, because I was looking at Mailchimp as well. You have just saved me the trouble :)
Glad I could help:) someone else more intelligent than me might be able to figure it out. I’m not sure what I am going to do yet. Good luck with your own list building
Matthew
Man, you have me worried. I have just started building an email list with MailChimp. I too haven't the slightest idea what it entails.
Basically, I am commenting and hoping I can learn from the answers you get.
Best of luck
Cheers!
Nate
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It has been years since I used MailChimp. Does the free account still not include an autoresponder service?
I think developing content to send to a subscriber list is the most difficult, time-consuming part. Creating and setting up opt-in subscriber forms may be the most frustrating part.
I published and broadcasted a weekly newsletter for almost four years. I used the same format for every issue so that it always looked the same. It took lots of effort because I included one article I wrote and one guest post. I also included several short subscriber-paid ads. It was a production, to say the least.
I much rather set up an autoresponder series of emails to send to subscribers. Once they are set up, they don't need to be changed very often. Just updated now and then. I send broadcasts as needed.
That’s what I am trying to do set up a series of autoresponder emails to my list. It is proving to be a source of deep frustration for me. What do you use to send out your newsletters?
I understand that MailChimp does not allow autoresponders with free membership. So free members are limited to broadcast only.
I use ConvertKit for my email system. I have used Aweber and GetReponse before that.
I used a desktop email software application to send my newsletter out. I published it years ago (2000 - 2004). So I don't remember the email server company. This was pre Google mail.