Recently I changed the way I was using Mailchimp to send WordPress posts to my email newsletter when I posted to my websites. I think this will work better for the future--here's why.
RSS Feeds and Mailchimp Campaigns
When I first started using Mailchimp as an email service, I chose them for the connector they had between an RSS feed and the ability to send automated emails to an email list. I've used that feature for many, many years, and it has worked marvelously. You tell Mailchimp the desired feed, the audience to send the email to, and a time to send it. Mailchimp takes care of the rest.
What I really liked was that the connection was automated--it streamlined my workflow and let me send emails without taking the extra step of crafting and sending an email. That feature cannot be understated.
The first problem I found was that if WordPress did not publish the post as scheduled, the email did not get sent. This has pretty much been fixed over the years as WordPress was developed, but 10-12 years ago, it was unfortunately kinda common. If the article did not post to the RSS feed, when the time rolled around for Mailchimp to check and send a new article to the audience--nothing would happen.
And when that happened, I would have to force WordPress to publish manually, and then the email might go out a day later. Not a terrible thing, but when you are trying to establish consistency with your communications, it can be a problem.
Another problem I found you really could not customize the email on the fly. You set up a template in Mailchimp, and told it where to put the information from the RSS feed. After that, it was hands off. Again, not a huge problem, more of an inconvenience. Still--something that had to be considered.
Breaking the Links to the RSS Feeds
So what I did was break the link between the feeds and email publishing. I turned off the RSS feed automation in Mailchimp--and that was that. Easy peasy.
Except that now I have to create the email campaign in Mailchimp in order to send out the email. I can schedule the email to be sent at the same time as the post is published on the WordPress site, so it has the same effect as the old RSS automation, but now I have complete control over the email that gets mailed to my audience list.
It does take more time to set the email up and schedule it, which does impact my workflow time. The question, obviously, is if the changes to the email that is sent is worth the additional time it takes to craft that email.
Just like the RSS feed automation, I was able to set up templates for the emails in Mailchimp. These have worked great so far, and I can tweak them each time to make the desired changes I want. This does cut down on the time needed for each email.
What I Have Realized
But what have I learned from this so far? Good question. I think that the ability to customize the emails that gets sent to the audience is worth the extra effort for each article I post.
For example, I can add a bit about upcoming articles beyond the one being sent. I can also change some artwork to match any message I want to communicate. Even more importantly, I could add some links to appropriate cornerstone articles that are appropriate to the email being sent.
Yes, all of this takes more time, but being able to foster more interest and more importantly engagement with the audience is worth it. And that is the name of the game, folks--engaging with your audience, your readers. That creates more reader loyalty, growing readership and potentially more money. That should interest everyone!
Marc
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