Why you need a Watertight Mailchimp Account

Some of you may know that in my former life I was a pretty active Scuba Diver – to the extent that I’d qualified as an instructor and spent my summer weekends trying to convince people that breathing under water wasn’t as scary as they thought (trust me, teaching Mailchimp is much easier than teaching someone to dive who’s scared of the water!).

Unfortunately, it’s highly likely that the images that this conjures of sun kissed beaches, amazing warm water that is “gin’ clear  and barbecues on the beach, are somewhat different to the actual experience.

You see, I was a diving instructor in the UK… and let me tell you, it’s not as glamorous as the image.

For sun-kissed beaches, substitute in muddy inland reservoirs. For warm clear water, we suffered with cold, murky water that on a bad day meant you had trouble seeing your hand in front of your face… and as for the barbecues on the beach… well I should complain too much about a mug of coffee and a bacon sandwich.

It was hard work, but extremely rewarding, and if you learnt to dive in the UK, you could probably dive anywhere in the world without issues.

One of the biggest challenges we had was the water temperature – even in the height of summer you could charitably call it “fresh”… and in the winter months, breaking the ice on the surface was a sign you were in for a “cold one”.

And yet, as long as you had the right equipment, you could handle things… and an effective dry suit to wear whilst in the water was the most important.

Without getting overly technical, a dry suit is a rubber suit filled with air with a hole for your hands and your head (and yes, a hood and gloves were just as important).

Once you clambered in and zipped it up, you could survive frosty temperatures for at least as long as it took to explore a muddy lake (and the “attractions” hidden on the floor – old cars, containers and the occasional sunk boat).

As with anything in life, getting the right equipment is essential to being able to enjoy an experience (or in the case of cold water diving… tolerate it!)… but the thing is that when that equipment failed… it wasn’t fun at all.

Dry Suits are supposed to be dry… and their watertight seals ensured that water didn’t get where you definitely didn’t want it… until something broke or you snagged your suit on something sharp and made a hole.

If your suit was no longer watertight, it was hard to do anything underwater, such was the impact of cold water trickling in where you don’t want cold water trickling…

…and this was something I was reminded of recently in several discussions with people who wanted help with their Mailchimp Account.

In discussing their account, specifically, how they wanted to segment their data, but trust that it was done correctly, I kept referring to the need of having a “watertight” account.

So what do I mean when I talk about a “Watertight” Mailchimp Account and why is it important?

Much like a dry suit that has “leaks”, a Mailchimp account that isn’t “watertight” will cause you multitudes of issues, and until you ensure that all those leaks are plugged (and remain closed off), your email strategy will always be limited.

So what are the possible “leaks” you have in a Mailchimp Account?

Unlike the dry suit, when we talk about having a watertight Mailchimp account what we’re looking at is actually about the way you capture data, and ensuring that every possible way someone can be added to your database is tracked and segmented to your needs.

Having a leak in your Mailchimp account means that someone has been added, but you’ve not got any way of tracking or segmenting them, and as such they can’t be targeted effectively in campaigns.

It’s about having “trust” in your Mailchimp data… knowing that when you create a segment of all customers who live in the USA… that you’re not second guessing your data… and that the segment truly is all “customers” who are based in the “USA”.  You don’t want to be wasting time going in and double checking the segment.

How do you ensure you can 100% trust the data in your system… well that’s what being water tight is all about.

It’s making sure that no matter how someone joins your database, that you collect the information you need to carry out any targeting strategy you have.

Are they a customer of a prospect?

Which region do they live in?

What other segmentation criteria is important in your market… age?.. Gender… Married/Single?

If you want to send an email to anyone who’s purchased from you in the past… you need to ensure that everyone who has purchased can be identified in the database – and since you control who gets added… you can ensure the data is watertight.

In this instance it could be ensuring people are tagged as a customer when they are fed in from whatever shop data you’ve got… or if you’re manually adding them, ensuring that you add the tag when you add them.

If you don’t add this information – your system is leaking… and when it comes to sending an email to all your customers, you won’t be confident that your email truly is going to everyone.

Being watertight means that you track every entry point someone can join your database from.

Let me explain how we do this at Chimp Answers…

• Every front end form that is directly connected to our Mailchimp Account has a unique tag linked to it – someone completes the form, they get added to Mailchimp with the appropriate tag.
• Whenever I manually add someone or import them, they get a tag which lets me know they’ve been imported.
• If someone is added to my database by another system (e.g a CRM), they get a tracking tag added, so I know that’s where they’ve been updated from.

…every possible entry point is tracked.

Which means that if I know that someone has completed a specific form, and I know that form is focused on a specific aspect of our service (e.g. 121 training), I can not only tag them as having completed that form – but also as someone interested in 121 training.

There is no doubt that ensuring every way someone can enter your system is tracked (and tagged), and using that information to effectively segment is essential for long term email success.

…and if you’re a more advanced Mailchimp user, making sure you collect other “essential” information at every point of capture can be just as important.  Asking contacts to give you their email and then asking one more question (e.g. are you based in the UK/Australia/USA/Rest of World) is not going to impact signups but will give you valuable segmentation data down the line.

Having worked with hundreds of Mailchimp set ups over the last 10 years (and more), ensuring your data capture processes are locked down and tracked is a big part of your ability to succeed.

Being water tight when it comes to Mailchimp is something that for many, won’t happen overnight… but making sure you tie down those random entry points that are still adding people without knowing anything about them will put you on the right track.

Much like a dry suit that doesn’t let any water in, a Mailchimp account that is watertight is one that will give you trust in the data… and ensure you can send emails to the right people with 100% confidence.