Using MailChimp together with KickoffLabs!

You already know that KickoffLabs makes stunning signup pages for you. MailChimp does easy email newsletters. It's the ultimate one two punch for getting signups and keeping them informed with great newsletters. This article explains how to best connect these two services

What you need.

A paid account with KickoffLabs that contains at least one landing page. :)
A MailChimp account.
A MailChimp API KEY. Learn how to find your API KEY here!

Basic Setup

We will walk you through the process after you click "MailChimp Sync" from your dashboard. On step two you'll be asked the following questions:

Adding Existing Subscribers?

We recommend this because it will sync your existing signup list with your MailChimp Account. If you uncheck this option then only new signups will be signed with MailChimp.

Sending double opt in notifications to all subscribers?

Leaving this checked will send a new opt in notification from MailChimp to your signups to confirm they want to receive updates from you. Uncheck this if:

You've had a large list for a long time.
You feel that you've already done your due diligence confirming that your subscribers want to hear from you.
You've already been sending them newsletters.

What now?

Now that you've enabled MailChimp syncing with your KickoffLabs account...

1. All existing (if chosen) and new signups will be signed with MailChimp.

This means no more exporting and importing. We also push over each users social ID so you can enable their custom sharing links in MailChimp.

2. We've automatically disabled our own auto response system.

You'll want to configure one in MailChimp as described below. Or you could turn ours back on if you'd like. We're just trying to make sure you aren't sending two responses to everyone that signs up.

3. You'll want to ignore our own newsletter functionality.

You could still use it... but why would you if you have your own monkey butler to delivery mail?

Recommended: Hide the KickoffLabs Social ID in MailChimp forms.

So that you can create unique links for your KickoffLabs customers we send MailChimp the social ID. You don't want people to edit this information so you can hide it.

Here are instructions for hiding a field with MailChimp.

Recommended: Use the MailChimp Auto-Resonder

They have a great set of documentation around creating the best auto-responder thank you mails. You can read it here. You can read it here.

Recommended: Use the KickoffLabs Social ID to create viral links in emails!

You want MailChimp to include each customers viral links in the mails you send right? To do that you'll want to use the *|SOCIAL_ID|* mail merge tag to construct links. This is the MailChimp guide for merge tags.

Don't forget to include the URL and the query string that we can read. For example: http://www.yourlandingpage.com/?kid=*|SOCIAL_ID|*

Here is what it might look like when editing your mails.