Email marketing can be a highly successful way for libraries to reach our users – and MailChimp is a great service to use for those just getting started. MailChimp offers free accounts for those with under 2,000 people in their mailing list. With an account, you can:
- create multiple lists (or segmented lists)
- create custom email templates
- schedule mailings in advance
- Receive in-depth statistics on your campaigns
- and much more
Email Marketing is a great solution for libraries as well as their Friends and Foundations. We can offer “Welcome” emails to new users, e-newsletters, programming and event announcements and promote our resources to users. Additionally, there are a lot of creative and unique goals you can reach with email – for example, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library used email to bring back 13,000 users.
Currently, email can offer more bang for the buck than many other social media options; however, it works best if used in tandem with social media and other promotions. This workshop offered through Florida Library Webinars, helped libraries just started with email marketing or planning to move from traditional email blasts to a service.
The description of the workshop is as follows:
Email Marketing is a highly effective way to reach users. During this webinar, we discussed how to use Mailchimp to bring email marketing to your library. We focused on:
- Why Email Marketing works
- How to develop mailing lists within the library and through your online presence
- The Dos and Don’ts of Effective Marketing
- Creating Effective Templates
- Tip and Tricks for effective campaigns
- Scheduling
- Avoiding the Spam Filter
- Statistics via MailChimp and Google Analytics
The archive of the session is available through Florida Library Webinars for all Florida librarians.