By 
Despite the growing popularity of social media marketing, email marketing continues to hold its pole position in the advertisement and promotion domain. According to the statistics, the return on investment (ROI) that an organization can have through email marketing is 122% which is more than the combined output of all other digital marketing techniques used by the company. Moreover, email marketing is the preferred way of approaching the millennials with 70% giving their preference for this medium of contact. No wonder, the popularity of email marketing is rising by the day.
What is Mailchimp?
Mailchimp can be considered as a one-stop solution for all your needs related to email marketing programs. It is a fully automated platform that helps the organization to have seamless communication to its partners, affiliates, and customers through automated email marketing programs.
One of the primary distinctions that Mailchimp is its web-based nature. Unlike other platforms which require you to download heavy software, Mailchimp can be used on any web browser – it’s as simple as opening a new website.
Mailchimp can accomplish a number of tasks including management of your mailing lists, building customized templates, segmentation of target groups, and achieving different levels of automation. Also, the analytical feature of the platform can be used to evaluate how good/bad your email marketing platform is faring.
What are cleaned contacts?
Among other useful features, the characteristic of cleaned contacts offered by Mailchimp is very effective in saving time and improving the effectiveness of the marketing campaign. There are many instances when the email addresses of the recipients are turned out to be invalid. These invalid addresses are automatically detected and put under the category of cleaned contacts.
It is important to note that clean contacts can be deleted from the list but they cannot be archived in the present scheme of things offered by Mailchimp. It is also recommended that one should keep the contacts in the list of the audience so that both hard bounce and soft bounce can be avoided in the future.
How cleaned contacts feature work?
Any mail sent to an invalid id is likely to produce a hard bounce, a condition that indicates a permanent error in the email address. Unlike the soft bounce which implies a temporary problem, the hard bounce signifies a condition of a permanent rejection. There are many reasons behind the permanent injunction of delivering the email some of the significant ones include typographical errors in the email address, outdated address, or issues with the server.
Mailchimp comes equipped with a mechanism that will automatically detect and remove invalid addresses from the list of your campaign. Once these addresses are cleaned, they will no longer remain part of future email campaigns. Mailchimp offers the feature of deleting the cleaned addresses and even exporting them but there is no facility to edit these contacts.
View/Download Cleaned Contacts
In order to view the cleaned contacts, you are required to create a separate segment for them in the current list of audiences. Following are the steps required to view or export the cleaned contacts:
1) Click on the Current List of Audience and then click on the tab of All Contacts.
2) In case you are running an email marketing campaign targeting more than one group then you have to choose the Current Audience from the dropdown menu and select the group you want to work on.
3) The next step in the process is to click on the New Segment and then select the option of “Email Marketing Status is Cleaned” from the drop-down menu.
4) Take the cursor to the Preview Segment, name the segment, and then click on the Save Option.
5) You can also click on the option of Export Segment if you wish to download the file with details of cleaned contacts.
6) Once the download is complete, Mailchimp will send the file to the owner of the account.
Fixing Typographical Errors and adding Subscriber
Typographical errors are primarily responsible for the hard bouncing of most email messages. Mailchimp automatically removes these contacts from the list and put them under the category of ‘cleaned contacts’. As editing of cleaned contacts is not possible, you have to add the corrected address to the audience list afresh.
There is no extra fee charged by Mailchimp for the cleaned contact feature which means you can freely go for adding contacts to the existing list of audience. Here’re the steps you need to follow:
1) Click on the option of Audience and in the available sub-options, click on the Audience Dashboard.
2) In case you have more than one group of Audiences then you have to select the Current Audience from the dropdown menu and then choose the group in which you want to add a new contact.
3) Go to the Manage Audience option from the dropdown and then select the Add a Subscriber.
4) Type the corrected information of the Contact and then check the box: This person gave me permission to email them.
5) In the final step, click the Subscribe to complete the process.
Conclusion
Email marketing is not only about sending bulk emails to prospective respondents – it’s much more than that. In fact, it has become a process of enormous importance for businesses across industries owing to its capability of turning the fortunes of an organization.
Mailchimp, with its focused approach, can help your company to achieve exceptional results – be it profitability, new customer acquisition, or establishing channels of seamless communication. The platform offers hassle-free email marketing campaigns and its expert team boasting veterans from the industry can help you to reach a wider group of audiences like never before. Mailchimp also offers business-specific templates, email automation, and customized journey builder to make sure your organization never miss a target with its email marketing campaign.
Also, check if Mailchimp is truly free.
