Mass Contact is excellent for simply styled email communication. However, should you be looking for feature-rich email templates, we might recommend MailChimp or Constant Contact. So that you can take advantage of their services, we've created easy to use integration to keep your contact lists in sync.
Review the FAQs at the bottom for common questions
Link Setup
- Login to MailChimp.
- If you don't already have an audience created, create one now.
- At the top right, click on your MailChimp Profile, then go to Account & Billing (Mailchimp Documentation).
- If you don't yet have an API key, create one, then copy it. (It is typically an alpha-numeric string of around 30-40 characters).
- In your ChMS portal, go to Settings → Services.
- Click the Enabled radio button in the Mailchimp Section.
- Paste in your API Key.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click SAVE.
Considerations
At this point, the API and Mailchimp link setup is complete. There is the option to setup a singular Audience. However, we would highly encourage the use of setting up Workflows to accomplish the sync tasks. The process is easy, more flexible, and we have laid out the details below.
Contacts Sync Options
Singular OR Multiple Audiences through Workflows
If you have one or multiple audiences to keep in touch with, then a Workflow(s) can be leveraged to sync your contacts. For each audience you want to sync, you will want to setup a Workflow for each one.
To setup a Workflow
- Find the left navigation menu and select Workflows.
- Use the Add tab to start with a new Workflow. Enter a meaningful name and description so anyone viewing the workflow will know what it is for quickly.
- Now, we will add our trigger to sync the adding of contacts to Mailchimp when someone is added to the Group.
- Click + ADD TRIGGER and select Group - Add/Remove.
- Leave the first option as "Added To" and then choose your Group from the dropdown or type to search and then select.
- Move to the Action area and select the Mailchimp button.
- Leave the "Add the person to" as it is and select your Audience. Then click DONE.
- Since we have a process for adding people TO the audience, we will want another action to REMOVE them from the audience. The process is nearly identical but with two small changes
- Click + ADD TRIGGER and select Group - Add/Remove.
- Change the first option to "Removed From" through the dropdown and then choose your Group from the next dropdown or type to search and then select.
- Move to the Action area and select the Mailchimp button.
- Change the option to "Remove the person from" from the dropdown and select your Audience. Then click DONE.
- To commit these changes to the Workflow, click the SAVE button.
Only A Singular Audience
- Configure your Group(s) to sync with one of your Mailchimp Audiences. You can use the search feature to find your groups and choose them. They will then appear below under Sync Groups. When you add the people in these groups, the changes will be reflected in Mailchimp.
- Now, under Sync with the following list, choose the MailChimp audience you want to sync with.
- Click SAVE at the bottom of the Settings area.
- If you wish to sync everyone right now who is currently in the groups you chose, with the list you chose, click the Sync Individuals with MailChimp button.
FAQs
• How often does it sync?
The sync is constant. As soon as a contact is added to a sync group, the name and email address are pushed to Mailchimp over the API.
• What happens if someone is removed from the Group?
If you are using the workflow method, the person will automatically be removed from your audience. If using the settings area to perform the sync, you will need to access your Mail Chimp account and remove the person from your audience.
• What happens if someone is removed from the Mailchimp list?
You will need to access your database and manage the Group(s) that are handling the sync and remove the person from that Group(s).
• What happens if someone changes a contact email address in the ChMS or Mailchimp?
If you change the primary email address in the ChMS, the contact update will sync over (the change is almost instant). If you change the email in Mailchimp, that will not update the ChMS and you will need to change it there also.
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