Update: Now there's a new, better way to email students and providers, right from your admin website. Check out the Mailouts feature here.
Every now and then, you might like to email the people who have registered on your site to give them news, or ask them to engage in some way—by filling out a survey for example.
You could do this by exporting providers and students into a spreadsheet, extracting all the email addresses and BCC'ing them in a normal email. If you've tried that before, you might have noticed a few problems, like
- You get a lot of “bounce-back” emails from email addresses that don't work
- You might get spam complaints from some people
- You can't really tell who received the email
- The email looks a bit boring
This is where using a mail-sending service like MailChimp can really help. It'll help you send nicely formatted emails to all, or some, of the people who have registered on your site. You'll be able to track who received your email, as well as who opened it. And they deal with all the messy email stuff, making sure the emails get sent quickly and reliably.
Here's how to use MailChimp with StudyStays. And if you want to get more familiar with MailChimp, they have a bunch of resources for you to peruse.
Step 1: Set up a MailChimp account
Go to MailChimp and sign up for an account. The “Forever Free” account lets you send up to 12,000 emails a month, and store a list of 2,000 people. This should be more than enough for most people, but if you do eventually outgrow the free plan, it's only about 3 cents per email you send.
Step 2: Create a new MailChimp list
Next you need to create a new list of email recipients. It'll be an empty list to begin with—later on StudyStays will add all your students and providers into the list for you.
To create a new list:
- Make sure you're logged into MailChimp, then click Lists, and then click the big create list button. It might ask you if you want to create a group instead: tell it that yes, you're really, really sure you want to create a list!
- Fill out the form to create your list.
Step 3: Enable MailChimp integration in StudyStays
Note: you must be a Super Admin to perform this step.
Before StudyStays can synchronise students and providers with your MailChimp account, you need to tell it your MailChimp “API key”. An API key is a sort of password a website can use to access to your MailChimp account. So make sure you don't tell anyone your API key unless you want them to have access to your account.
Before StudyStays can synchronise students and providers with your MailChimp account, you need to tell it your MailChimp “API key”. An API key is a sort of password a website can use to access to your MailChimp account. So make sure you don't tell anyone your API key unless you want them to have access to your account.
To enable MailChimp integration
- Make sure you're logged in to your MailChimp account. Go to the Account menu drop-down (top right) and choose API Keys & Authorized Apps.
- Click add a key
. When the page reloads, you'll see a long string of gibberish under the API Key heading—that's your API key. Copy it to your clipboard with Ctrl-C (Command-C on Mac).
- Log in to your Studystays site, and go to Admin > Settings > MailChimp integration (under Advanced settings).
- Tick the box to Enable MailChimp integration, then enter you API key. You won't be able to select a list yet, so click save.
- When the page reloads, select the list you created in step 2 above. Click save again.
Your MailChimp list will be synchronised automatically now, and again every hour. If you're impatient or bored, you can also click the Re-sync now button on the right-hand side of the Admin > Settings > MailChimp integration page.
Step 4: Send an email
Back on the MailChimp site, click Campaigns (top-right), then create campaign, and choose regular ol' campaign.
Back on the MailChimp site, click Campaigns (top-right), then create campaign, and choose regular ol' campaign.
You'll want to send to the list you created in step 2 above. You can send to the entire list (all students and providers), or just parts of the list: choosing a “segment” will let you send to just students, just real estate agents, providers who registered in the last month, and all sorts of other combinations.
Follow through the 5-step process to create your email campaign. When it comes to choosing a template, you can use the design genius button to get really creative, or another good option is to start from scratch and choose a simple layout.
Once you've created your campaign, you can send a test to yourself, send it immediately, or just save it to send later. You can see all the campaigns you've created by clicking Campaigns at top-right.