What a headache & Having to migrate from Mailchimp. This was the first thing I thought, when in early 2016 I learned about the cancellation of the Safe Harbor agreement between the European Union and the United States.
In those days, I couldn’t imagine that migrating from MailChimp to Mailrelay, far from being bad news, would help me to improve my blog and get more subscribers.
When I started reading the first news about Safe Harbor, I could not understand how the cancellation of the agreement could affect me, I have a small blog, with a small mailing list, and I only send a weekly newsletter.
After the initial confusion, and a lot of reading, I came to a conclusion.
Continue using MailChimp to send my newsletters could bring me several problems, because the servers where the personal data is stored is in the United States. I had to migrate from Mailchimp to another platform.
Many bloggers, including myself, realized that the era of Mailchimp had ended for us. Thus began the process of finding a new email marketing service and I anticipated a transition that would be long and complex (I was mistaken!).
Why migrate from Mailchimp to Mailrelay
Mailchimp was the only email marketing service I had used before to send my weekly newsletter and I had no desire to learn to use a more complex system, and above all, a more expensive system.
But I had no choice but to look for an alternative.
That is when I discovered Mailrelay, although the old system had many qualities, in my case migrating to Mailrelay was the best option.
When searching for information about Mailrelay, I realized that the system offered several features that were ideal to become my new email marketing platform.
3,000 subscribers and 15,000 free emails when you create the account
The free Mailrelay plan includes 3,000 subscribers and 15,000 emails per month. I have no problem paying for a good service, but if I can save money, much better. When you are starting out as a blogger each penny is important.
3,000 free subscribers are more than enough for my needs at the moment, though perhaps you may need more limits, if you have a larger blog. In this case, you can request a free promotion and get up to 15,000 subscribers and 75,000 monthly emails, if you follow Mailrelay on social networks.
But it doesn’t end here. If you have a personal blog (which does not belong to any company) you can benefit from the plan for blogger, which includes 600,000 emails and 120,000 subscribers.
Do the math and you will see how much you would have to pay if you needed to purchase the same package on Mailchimp.
System to import subscribers from Mailchimp
When thinking of importing all my contacts from Mailchimp, I could imagine that this would give me a headache.
Would I lose subscribers? Would I have to lose an afternoon trying to migrate the contacts to Mailrelay?
I didn’t want to have to read several tutorials and waste time looking for help to import my list. To my surprise, I managed to import my contacts to Mailrelay in just 10 minutes.
It’s all explained in this great post on how to pass the contacts to Mailrelay, so I will not dwell further on this. I must say that you don’t have to worry: you will not lose contacts during the migration to Mailrelay.
Free autoresponders
Yes, you read that right: FREE.
The free autoresponders, for me are the most important reason to help me decide to migrate to Mailrelay because they are really useful. If you are using a Free MailChimp account, it is possible that you have never used this option because autoresponders are not included (again, prepare the wallet!).
An autoresponder is an email (or a series of emails) that are sent automatically to subscribers who meet the conditions configured when it was created. You just need to set the autoresponder for the first time, and the system will send messages without you having to schedule each email to the subscribers.
I use autoresponders to send a gift of welcome to the new subscribers, but they can also be used to send courses or for creating sales campaigns.
Servers in the European Union
As this began with the cancellation of the Safe Harbor, it is important to recall that Mailrelay has its servers in Europe and thus users will not be affected by the change in the rules.
Fast support
Only once I had to contact the Mailrelay support department to request support, because I usually can use the platform intuitively or finding answers on the blog.
I still remember how surprised I was to receive a response in less than 20 minutes at 10 o’clock at night, when I opened a ticket on Mailrelay
They offer support in my language, which is much better. For me, writing in English is not a problem, but when I have a problem with a software I prefer to receive support in my own language.
The formula for success: Mailrelay + Sumome + Autoresponder
The advantages of using Mailrelay are clear, but the idea of changing to a new service is always a challenge, for fear that something bad happens. I also had this feeling and, after making the change, I can assure you that migrating to Mailrelay from MailChimp is easy.
This is the process I followed when migrating to Mailrelay:
1- Open a free account Mailrelay
2 -Export contacts from Mailchimp and import to Mailrelay. In my case, I didn’t create subscriber groups, because I just have one, but you can create them if you need
3- Create subscription forms
4 –Create the first newsletter using one of the Mailrelay templates
5- Schedule the campaigns and wait for the visitors
After doing all this, i was sending my newsletters again, but I wanted more than that. With the option of creating autoresponders for free, I have a very powerful tool to attract new subscribers.
After that, the second phase (the most interesting) of my journey in Mailrelay began:
1- I created the SumoMe opt-in forms to get more Subscribers
2- Give an welcome gift to new subscribers using an autoresponder.
SumoMe to gain more subscribers
Sumome is a kind of Swiss army knife for your blog. With a single plugin, you will have access to different tools, many of them free.
Among the most interesting features, you can use an opt-in form to capture subscribers.
To explain in an easy way, the opt-in forms created using SumoMe are different from the classical forms created using a sidebar, which helps to get more emails. I can assure you it works!
SumoMe automatically connects with multiple email marketing providers, and unfortunately Mailrelay is not among them. (How long, sirs of SumoMe?).
Fortunately there is a solution, and it is very well explained in this tutorial to connect Sumone with Mailrelay
Following the instructions, I created a simple form with a single field for email, more than enough for my needs.
Using SumoMe is good, but not the option for when you want to get subscribers. I knew I needed something more and that is when I decided to use autoresponders, because it would help me.
Thank your new subscribers with an autoresponder
The system used by many bloggers to attract subscribers is the creation of an welcome gift, such as a PDF or a small course. To send these messages, you don’t have to check your inbox every day to see if you have new subscribers, Mailrelay sends the messages automatically.
Simply create a newsletter with the gift that you want to send and configure the autoresponder for the subscriber group and all the users who sign up to your list will receive the email.
At the beginning, (and I will tell you that this was a mistake) I had nothing to offer to my subscribers. The first autoresponder I created was a simple welcome message, without any gift. It was not the best option to capture new subscribers, but I tried to reverse the situation and offer something for my visitors, a downloadable file.
I decided to ask new subscribers what difficulties they face in their work as content creators.
The answers I received helped me to better serve my readers, creating articles tailored to their needs and even contact other bloggers or publishers.
This first autoresponder has evolved and now includes an editorial calendar, a gift that was very well received when I first published it in my blog.
To do this in Mailchimp, you would have to buy a paid plan. With Mailrelay, I managed to set up several autoresponders without paying anything.
After migrating from Mailchimp, I’m now using Mailrelay
I will not lie, the old system had good options, but the change was worth it, in my case.
Thanks to the Safe Harbor, I discovered Mailrelay, an email marketing platform more powerful that I can use for free (0,00 euros, to be precise) it helps me to get more subscribers, using autoresponders.
Migrating to Mailrelay from Mailchimp helped me to better serve my readers and provide an incentive for my subscribers.
What are you waiting for? create your account today!