Introduction to Mailing Lists
Learn how to work with lists -- the "building blocks" of Mailloop!

1. What is a CSV list?
2. Create a new contact list *Video!
3. Export contact lists from other e-mail software *Video!
4. Adding new contacts to your lists
5. Storing and managing your lists

Contact lists, mailing lists, CSV lists... whatever you call them, they're all the same thing in Mailloop 7.0. When we're getting technical, we'll call them CSV lists; the rest of the time, they're contact lists. And you'll often hear them called mailing lists, or even just lists.

Whatever you call them, contact lists are the essential element that lets Mailloop work its magic.

At its most basic, a contact list is simply a collection of e-mail addresses. Armed with a contact list and an e-mail message, you have everything you need to accomplish the basic task of e-mail marketing: sending a mailing.

Before you start sending mail, though, it's a very good idea to know what lists are, how they're created, and how to manage them. Without this knowledge, you'll probably feel like you're scratching the surface without really getting anywhere... and you'll probably create a lot of unnecessary hassles for yourself by losing or mismanaging your lists. This simply isn't necessary -- list management is easy to learn!

So sit back, take the tutorial, and learn enough about lists to start managing your lists like a pro!

1. What is a CSV list? 

Mailloop 7.0 stores all your contacts in a form of list known as a CSV file, which stands for "Comma Separated Values". (If you haven't heard the term before, don't let it make you nervous -- as long as you're working in Mailloop 7.0, "contact list" and "CSV list" mean exactly the same thing.)

A CSV file can be created using simple software that comes with any computer, which makes it an incredibly useful tool for storing and sorting information like e-mail addresses. Mailloop creates a lot of CSV files automatically -- for example, when you create a new newsletter, it creates a CSV list where it will store your subscribers.

But even though Mailloop can manage these tasks "behind the scenes" without your help, it's still a very good idea to know how to create and manage CSV files outside of Mailloop. If you can do this (and anyone can!) you'll open up a whole new world of possible uses for Mailloop. Plus, you'll understand exactly what's going on behind Mailloop's easy-to-use interface, which is always a good thing.

A CSV list has two elements called values and fields. The first line is called a header line, and its job is to define values. It looks something like this:

first name,fast name,Email,City

This header line defines four values that will carry throughout the rest of the file: first name, last name, e-mail address, and city. Let's see what it looks like when we add two lines of fields below this header line:

first name,last name,Email,City
Joe,Smith,joe@example.com,Chicago
Lucy,Lee,lucy@example.com,New York

The header line defines the values, and each following line stores information for a new contact in the same order as it appears in the header line: first name, last name, e-mail address, and city. Mailloop can access this information instantly and use it to personalize mailings, add subscribers to new lists, and much, much more.

2. Create a new contact list:

To give you some idea of how easy contact lists are to create, let's set one up right away. This video will show you how:

Slow Internet connection? Click here to download this video!
Need the latest Flash player? Click here to get it!

Whenever you need a new list, just follow this quick process, filling in a header line with all the values you need, and then save and close the file. You can then use Mailloop's list processing and custom mail rules features to to add contacts directly to this list

When you're creating new lists or importing them from other software, always take a moment to name each file so YOU can identify it when you need to. It's also a good idea to create separate folders where you can store groups of similar lists, such as customer lists, subscriber lists, and so on.

(By the way, you know your own needs better than anyone else, so don't worry that you're not naming or saving these files the "right" way -- if you can find them when you need them, you're doing it right!)

3. Export contact lists from other e-mail software:

Building your opt-in list of contacts is one of the first challenges you'll face when getting started with e-mail marketing -- so if you've already collected a list of contacts in your other e-mail software, you'll definitely want to export that list into Mailloop!

WARNING: Only import contacts into Mailloop if those contacts have consented to receive commercial e-mail from you. Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail, or spam, puts you at risk of having your web site shut down, your ISP access revoked, and much more... you could even be fined!

Check out Tutorial 5 for a checklist that will let you know for sure that the messages you're sending are 100% legal.

Most e-mail management software, such as Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, lets you easily export contacts to a CSV list that you can then use with Mailloop. If you have a contact list in Outlook, watch this video to see how it's done:

Slow Internet connection? Click here to download this video!
Need the latest Flash player? Click here to get it!

Most e-mail service providers also make it easy to export your contact lists to CSV files. If you pay for web hosting for your web site, you probably have access to a web-based e-mail account at your domain name -- check your web host's control panel for instructions on exporting contact lists from this account.

Free e-mail service providers such as Yahoo, Gmail, and many others also offer easy export options. Here's how to export contacts from Yahoo to a CSV list:

Slow Internet connection? Click here to download this video!
Need the latest Flash player? Click here to get it!

Once you have exported these lists and saved them on your computer, you don't need to worry about working with them any more -- you can do everything you need in Mailloop's easy-to-use wizards. These will allow you to select any of your lists and add it to a mailing, newsletter, autoresponder series, list process, or mail rule, all with the click of a button. You'll learn about all these exciting features in the tutorials that follow!

4. Adding new contacts to your lists:

Now that you have exported your existing contact lists, you're probably wondering how you can start adding NEW contacts and lists to keep your base of potential customers growing.

One great way to do this is by setting up a new autoresponder series. Watch Tutorial 8 to see us create an opt-in offer, set up an autoresponder series, and start delivering it automatically to subscribers. When you set up a new series, Mailloop instantly creates a new list for your subscribers, then adds new ones 24 hours a day, 7 days a week... all hands-free! And to subscribe, all people have to do is send you a blank e-mail!

Another proven strategy for collecting new contacts is by publishing your own e-newsletter. Watch Tutorial 7 to see us set up a newsletter series, add the first issue, and send it out to a list of subscribers. Again, Mailloop makes it a snap by letting you handle "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests automatically -- and you can even schedule future issues to be mailed while you're away on vacation!

If you're ready to tackle a slightly more "advanced" strategy, there's no better way to collect new contacts than by adding an opt-in form to your web site. This is hands-down the most effective method we've found for building your opt-in contact lists FAST, and with a little work, you can use Mailloop's custom mail rules to grab the information people submit and add it automatically to your contact lists! Watch Tutorial 9 to see us create a web form and add it to a web site.

5. Storing and managing your lists:

When we developed Mailloop 7.0, we changed the way contacts and lists are managed by the software. We did this for a number of reasons, but two of the biggest were (a) to ensure maximum deliverability for every piece of e-mail you send, and (2) to give you more control over your lists.

The new system might take you a few tries to figure out, but once you "get it", you'll see why we've done this. Basically, your lists are divided into two separate groups as follows:

1. External lists that you create yourself or import into Mailloop, and
2. Internal lists that Mailloop creates itself.

External lists are the lists you export from other software or from previous versions of Mailloop. You store these anywhere on your computer, and it's up to you to name and organize them as you wish. Once you've saved these, you can access them from inside Mailloop and use them with any of its features. For example, you can set them as mailing lists or subscriber lists; you can use list processes to "clean" them; and so on.

Internal lists are generated by Mailloop, and are stored inside its data folder. You don't need to store, rename, or organize these lists -- Mailloop will do it for you. For example, when you create a new newsletter or autoresponder series, your subscriber list is generated automatically and stored in your data folder.

After you send any type of message, you can view the Statistics page to view or export a wide variety of "results" lists, including a list of people who received your message, people whose accounts "bounced" the message back to you, etc. And when you use Mailloop's List Processing feature to clean or manage a list, Mailloop automatically creates one or more new "results" lists that you can use in your next mailing.

If all this feels a little confusing at first, don't worry! Once you use Mailloop's wizards to send your first few pieces of e-mail, you'll see just how easy it is to manage and process your lists in version 7.0!

You've switched your messages and contacts into Mailloop 7.0, and set up new mailings, newsletters, and autoresponders. There's only one thing left before you're ready to go: you'll need to duplicate your existing mail rules.

Unfortunately, there's no quick way to do this. You'll simply need to go through the rules you've created in your previous version one at a time, re-creating them in Mailloop 7.0. Once you get started on this, it should go pretty quickly. You can use the Custom Mail Rules wizard to quickly create new rules.

In the next tutorial, you'll learn how to use list processing to clean your lists and make sure they're "tuned up" for maximum deliverability.