The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 26 – Leaving MailChimp? Try this email marketing provider instead!

MailChimp's recent pivot from an email marketing provider to a full-service marketing platform left many authors in the dust. Including us!

We jumped ship and we have some key tips to help you move on... and preferably move up to something that will make organizing your email list and newsletter life in ways you never dreamed were possible.

Check out David Gaughran's article on MailChimp's changes here.

You can check out Convertkit HERE and the migration form HERE.

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Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Autumn (1s):
What the heck is going on with MailChimp. I've used it for years and it was slowly becoming more lost each time I logged in and it wasn't because I've crossed some invisible age threshold where software no longer made sense. I've never seen a company make a platform more difficult to navigate and use of every update so horribly. I treaded logging in this situation was unsustainable, not if I actually wanted to do you know, do business with a man and mailing list, but yes for and I had a plan.

Autumn (38s):
If you're a fantasy author, then you've come to the right place. My name is Autumn and together with Jesper we've published more than 20 novels. Our aim is to use our experience to help you writing marketing and selling books to fans all over the world. It started with little things like when I clicked on a campaign in MailChimp, the default action directed it to the stats instead of edits like it used to. I can't tell you how many times I groaned as I needed to back up, hit the dropdown menu to say I wanted to edit an automation sequence.

Autumn (1m 12s):
Instead of seeing, you know, the stats, years of doing things one way or so difficult to unlearn. Then my list disappeared and changed to audiences. It took two or three steps to burrow into the menu to find my formerly easily located lists and subscribers and the from there to go to items like subscription forms and emails. I was sorta like, what the fuck. But then I took a deep breath. I really don't rattle easily. I'm waking Lee adaptable. But then it got even worse.

Autumn (1m 43s):
My campaign menu's changed. Instead of seeing all the automations or recently sent email blasts, I could only see the ones that related to the audience I was currently viewing. So if I was working with a list for books in one Shondra, uh, wanted to see if I had email, I'd sent to a list that came in through like a giveaway. The search turned up, nothing, not a notice. There was a campaign like that attached to a different list. But thing. It was full panic mode a couple of times as surge just came up empty, like my entire history of emails had been erased.

Old McGrumpy (2m 21s):
Only worthless. Humans can mess up the beauty of code.

Autumn (2m 26s):
Oh hi or would make grubby. I should have guessed that our AI Cohoes you would take that view. Do I need to remind you that worthless humans invented computer code and some of it is all that beautiful,

Old McGrumpy (2m 39s):
but computers will perfect what you've begun

Autumn (2m 43s):
perhaps, but the last time I checked, there's still a lot of work to do now. Why don't you go chase down some redundant, outdated code of your own before you call humans too complicated.

Old McGrumpy (2m 54s):
I don't have time for this.

Autumn (2m 57s):
Where were we? Oh, right. MailChimp is the mailing list platform I've used since I first created an account as a new author. I recommended it to the writing courses I teach. At least I did until I didn't. I already didn't use about half of the platform because it was more than I needed to send newsletters out and organize a book launch or launch teams as MailChimp pivoted towards a new business model of a full service marketing platform and it left me in the dust. I don't use over half the platform normally, but when they transitioned to something entirely new where I wouldn't use over 80% of it but needed to pay for, well 100% I can only be happy that we jumped ship when we did, which was a full month before the new changes in pricing tiers.

Autumn (3m 44s):
I won't go into what MailChimp has been doing, but we'll billing to a very detailed article by David Koch ran in the show notes. That article is a great discussion in itself, which we've been doing in the amwritingfantasy closed Facebook group. We'd love to have you join us there and add your thoughts. The link is in the show notes. Yes. For night jumped out of MailChimp before getting out needed to happen ASAP and our account costs would have at least doubled if not tripled or more.

Autumn (4m 15s):
Part of the reason why we loved was I was tired of being frustrated with figuring out the platform when I just wanted to create a newsletter or just simply check the wording of it. Automation, a two minute task became 15 minutes Odyssey of frustration. Honestly, about a year ago I moved my reader lists out of MailChimp's to Miller Lite. Then Yesper and I decided this winter to move our author list to convert kit where he hosts his reader account. Don't get me wrong, I like Miller Lite.

Autumn (4m 46s):
It works fine for the reader newsletters, but convert kit is awesome. It is a whole level of organization and simplicity. I hadn't even known existed with mailing lists. If you have some pretty sophisticated automations, ConvertKit will not let you down. In fact, it will make your newsletter life upright so smooth that you'll be able to take the time to figure out any kinks in the flow and to get it all working better. One of my favorite things is we didn't have to do all the heavy lifting. If you have more than 5,000 subscribers, ConvertKit will migrate you to their platform for free.

Autumn (5m 20s):
You get a personal team who will work with you to translate what you used to do and to how it works in covid kit and give you the tour. Before handing over the keys. Our team was fantastic and asked lots of clarifying questions, which always boosts my confidence that they care and are taking their task seriously. Part of the process is completing a month migration form, which at first I felt so daunting. They wanted me to organize the chaos. I'd created a MailChimp.

Autumn (5m 51s):
Oh my gosh. I'll link to the migration forum too, but there are some key was of information you'll need. You'll of course near the main website you use the signup forms on, but if you are like us and have a few different sites, that isn't a problem. There is a spot for those too. You need your subscriber count, but approximate is fine, which is good because if you have duplicate emails you might not have as many subscribers as you think you do. You also need a list of all your subscriber forms in a very specific way.

Autumn (6m 21s):
That is one the URL, the optin to any thank you attached. Page three any lead magnet or freebie attached and for which list groups opt. It needs to view attitude. For me, that could look a little bit like this one, a photo link at this plebiscite to know thank you. Page three, PDF download, pound up this website and four goes to a free booklet. Not that bad except you need to do it for all of your opt-ins. I think it was at this point I realized I needed to do this exercise at a document and then copy and paste to the migration forum.

Autumn (6m 55s):
ConvertKit also leaves an entire section for you to type in anything odd or unique about your list or list management. For me, I listed the my website themes because I have one that wants stripped code in order to create a special pop-up signup form. They handle that. No problem. Next you need to know the name of your list tags and or groups that need to be moved. That makes sense. Especially for us, since I had some author lists and some Reno lettuce and well not everything was going to be in the same spot when it was all said and done.

Autumn (7m 27s):
The next really big piece of info you need is your automations and know how they are connected with lists sort of the whole way the puzzle fits together. They get written down like this. The arc reader onboard automation connects to the ArcSight of form and the arc reader list. There's also a place to list any integrations you use Zapier or a membership plugin as well as your timeline and any extra info you need to share after that you need to actually give a ConvertKit access to everything from MailChimp to your website, plugins and such because they actually go in and do all the switching for you.

Autumn (8m 3s):
I can't even begin to tell you how fantastic that was because I gave them some crazy long answers to all the above questions and they did it all and checked in to be sure they were moving it right and they do it in a very thoughtful way. The migration form has some fun examples and phrasing to take the, Oh my gosh, you need to meet to actually be organized and explain this to you. Pain out of the ordeal. Oh, and they give you a free tee shirt, which is kind of awesome too.

Autumn (8m 33s):
What about that MailChimp account you'll be leaving behind? You may still have subscribers coming through the old legs. Do you want to have them find a blank page? I didn't. So I figured out a few alternatives. One thing you can do is scrub all your list once you have them safely downloaded and then request MailChimp revert your account to free as long as you haven't done that before and now have less than 2000 subscribers if you have all is not lost. Another option is to pause your account. This is an option that's under your settings.

Autumn (9m 4s):
Hey, wait, wait, wait. Down at the bottom. Once your account is pause, you would not be billed and you cannot send whoever people could still sign up and so if they come in through an old link and then you can download that new site up and upload it to your new platform plow, you can view all of your account information like lists, campaigns and automations. It is actually a really great feature. Nothing's lost. You can still refer to it. I'd recommend that if you do pause the account though to change all of your subscription forms to say right there that the subscriber landed on an old link and a signup will not result in getting whatever it is they think they're signing up for, but not to worry and to follow the link provided to the correct sign-up spot.

Autumn (9m 47s):
Yeah, might use it through a few people through the jumble of link clicking, but you will have a better success rate than if a potential subscriber hits a dead link. If your questions are to ConvertKit migration and what is going on at MailChimp or some steps you can take, let us know in the show notes in the comments below. And if you're running an author newsletter, check out this video on using your email list to sell books for some tips. Stay safe out there and see your next Monday.