I’m technologically inclined in many ways, but doing anything with code is not my bag. This is where things like WordPress and Mail Designer save my butt. I purchased Mail Designer when it first came out as the thought of being able to do slick email newsletters that were highly customizable with just dragging and dropping was exciting. Today it gets even better — the ability to send your customized templates right to MailChimp has been integrated into Mail Designer. If you’re not familiar with MailChimp, they are an extremely affordable email marketing service with a personality. Depending on your needs, you may find that all you need is the free account. Mail Designer on its own was fantastic, but harnessing the power of MailChimp’s lists and people management is huge. Equinux made the MailChimp integration process so easy that it’s practically fool proof.
- Once you have a template you want to export, click on the “Share” drop down menu and select “MailChimp Template”
- You will get a pop up to add your MailChimp API key. If you don’t know it, click on the helpful little “Where to find your API Key?” link which takes you directly to it (If you don’t already have an account there’s a handy link for that too).
- Copy your API Key and then paste it into the API Key field in Mail Designer.
- Now you’re free to upload.
If you’re not familiar with Mail Designer by Equinux and a non-coder like me, I’ll give you some background. It comes packed with pre-made templates that can be modified with your own pictures and text. You also have the option to start completely from scratch. The windows and setup are similar enough to tools you are already familiar with in Pages and Keynote. I found that I really didn’t need any tutorials to create a new template from scratch. My first test, while not incredibly beautiful, showed me that the it is extremely functional and packed with social media goodness.
I needed a simple email template so our office could send out daily status emails to clients while their Macs are in for service. I just needed something that at a glance people knew exactly what this email was about. Every one of the social media icons are clickable and take you to their various pages. Our mac-fusion logo takes you to our website. I even have a link in there that takes you to my MailChimp opt-in page for our newsletter. I think the hardest part for me was not having complete freedom to move some of my little template modules around 100% to my liking. Some of the modules seem to have fixed limits, but you can tweak them with just a tiny bit of work to get something that works for you. Mail Designer is $69.95 or you can bundle it with the Equinux Stationery Pack Business Edition for $99.95 like I did. As someone who works for a small business and has taken on the marketing/social media job, I’m constantly on the look out for gems like this that make my life easier.
Image Credit: Equinux website
Have you used Mail Designer? Does MailChimp excite you as much as it does me? Leave me your comments below.
