The Official Mad Mimi Blog

Maybe words aren't coming to you like they normally do and it's Friday and you just want to finish that weekly email already! The first mistake you can make is beating yourself up over lack of creativity–you'll only make the block worse. In times when I'm stuck, can't get beyond the intro in my emails, I like to use a trick. 

I pause and change the way I'm thinking about my text. Just approach it visually. Like you're painting a landscape. So, yeah I'm suggesting you think of your words like colors :) Pick two you really like and make that the foreground of your painting. Then build around it. Fill in the sky and some rolling hills and you're on your way. You might be surprised how quickly the email writes itself.

You can try this in reverse too. If you're visually stuck, treat your colors like a verbal language. We've all broken the tie over a new shade of paint for it's name, right? I'm a sucker for tints like "Svelte Sage" and "Lemon Twist" :)

Then go enjoy the weekend!

Sally H

Mimi 2 has many new social tools for your sharing pleasure! Even the social icons are updated :)

Every promotion in your main promotions area now offers the option to share on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. You'll find the links after you click on Share (it's to the right of your send button).

With each send, you also have the option to allow your readers to share and even comment!

The best part? The web version of your promotion keeps all social share options up top. Shares are trackable in your stats, too. Beautiful!

I figured there were a few updates here worth mentioning :) The first–location. You can now access your suppressed list from the options at the top of your audience page.

The main suppressed list looks the same with contacts listed in order of suppression date with the suppression reason and few edit options to the right

Here's the fun part! You can now sort by suppression type. Just click the Suppressed button for the dropdown menu to filter. This makes exporting specific bounce types a breeze. 

Another great update is the bulk suppress option. It works just like the regular import tool, but imports to the suppressed list directly. Use all of the regular file types, there's even a quick paste option. 

Here's to simple list management!

The life so short, the crafts so long to learn.

My friend Mr. Chaucer puts it pretty well. There's always lots to learn about anything and email is no exception. It takes a lot of diligence to learn about the best email design tactics, the right ways to grow your list, delivery, HTML, statistics, image editing, sign up forms and well, you get the point.

Well, I'm here to say, forget about it!

Chaucer also said

First he wrought, and afterward he taught.

Instead of fussing about minutae, get started on the basics. If you don't know how to customize a sign up form, don't worry. Get that simple form up there first and worry about customizing later (or ask me for some help).

If you're delaying your sends because you need to first learn photoshop or HTML or anything else, stop. Just send - your readers want to hear from you. Like my ol' pal Geoffrey says, "life is short." Good thing Mad Mimi is so easy!

Cheers
Dean

The new webform section is entirely revamped with many options for customization. You can create custom backgrounds, colors and images all hosted at your Mad Mimi webform page!

You'll find webforms in the same area–the links in the upper right section of your account page, or in the Add Things menu.

The main Webform page lists any existing webforms in the center (much like your promotions) with the option to create a new webform on the right.

Details

Now the process of creating the form, is similar to the old style. The details section is where you'll create the nuts and bolts of your form. Here you add the fields you want like name and address, select your lists and choose a form title. Mimi will show your changes in the preview area on the left after you save :)

Theme

My favorite tab! Click on that themes tab and you'll find choices to customize all of the main components of the form. You can add a logo for the title and change the colors to your liking.

Advanced

The options to create your custom landing pages and confirmation message are all conviently located in your last tab. Easy to find, right?

Share

Ah, the important part. You can share the link to your form anywhere really. Facebook, Twitter, or take the code and host on your site.

So, if you haven't checked it out yet, create a new sign-up form in Mimi 2 :) Yes, it's fun and no coding skills required. Hooray!

The days of scrolling through your promotion pages are over! Let's take a closer look at that new sidebar :)

You'll notice promotions are still listed in order of creation date in your main promotion list (the new stats preview is great, right?). The sidebar lists those promotions in the same order.

Now for the fun part! Creating a new group. To create a new group, simply find two promotions that you'd like to combine and drag one thumbnail on top of the other in your sidebar list.

Super simple, right? You can always add more promotions to the folder later, too. Just drag the thumbnail over the main group name or group area below. Oh and Mimi always tells you how many promotions are in a group. So, you won't lose track :)

If you need to re-organize? Easy! Drag the promotion thumbnail out of the folder and Mimi will place it back in the main promotion list :)

Search

Now, maybe you're a daily sender and even with all of your grouping there are still pages and pages of thumbnails. Time to use that search bar! 

Search for any word in the promotion title and a list of matches will appear below. If a match is within a group, Mimi lists the number of matches in that group for you.

Then select your match to see it in the main promotion area on the left.

Keep your eye out for more Mimi 2 features tomorrow :) If you need help learning the ropes, just email!

We thought you might like to know about a few of the key elements of Mimi's makeover that go beyond just a beauty treatment. Here's some of the awesome that's coming your way:

New Social Tools

New Twitter and Facebook tools help you and your readers spread the word faster on your social networks. Like buttons are here!

Webform Themes

If you want a stylized webform but aren't an HTML or CSS guru, Mimi 2 has you covered. With webform themes you can customize colors, backgrounds, even add images.

Expanded statistics

Have you ever been curious about how today's promotion results match up with yesterdays? Welcome to stat comparisons! Visually match up any set of promotion stats in your Mad Mimi account with the new comparison tool.

Promotion Organization

Yes, folders :) You can now use folders to organize promotion groups. No more hunting through dozens of promotion thumbnails. Oh, there's a search tool too!

Justify! 

We've added an option to justify text in your themes area :) What's more beautiful than a well balanced email? 

There's a lot more too :) Have fun exploring and let us know what you think! We're always at support@madmimi.com

Love,

Sally L and Sally H

Hey all,

I just wanted to mention that on Saturday, the 14th of January, starting at 6am EST (that's 11am GMT), we'll be taking Mad Mimi down for about 6 hours.

The good news is that when we bring Mimi back up, we'll be launching Mad Mimi 2.0!

Read about it here: http://mim.io/0ca132

Yesterday, on twitter, a Mad Mimi user tweeted:

@madmimi I've been told email marketing is dead... thoughts?

When I enquired further, the user ellaborated:

The assertion: in the age of social media email marketing is dead.

Obviously I disagree with this assertion but it's not simply a case of being a cheerleader for email marketing. No one debates that email is going the way of the dodo and it stands to reason that email marketing ain't going anywhere either. The trend I am seeing is a movement away from "advertising" email and a slide toward newsletters, connecting and news via email.

So, back into social media vs email marketing - today I found this interesting article:

Is Facebook really doomed to die?

And it got me thinking. Our lives online have fluctuated so much in the last decade (and more) but what has been the one constant?

Email!

From chat rooms to Friendster to Myspace to Facebook and Twitter and all the surrounding niche networks, the one thing that remains unchanged is email. We still communicate and connect and listen and learn via email. We download and confirm and fight and buy via email. In my opinion, when everyone was yelling about text messeaging replacing email, they missed the fact that our phones were making email even more accessible.

So I'm going mention a quote form the article:

"But for Facebook to last decades, it would have to become as prevalent as email, and Rushkoff doesn't believe that'll happen."

Email (and email marketing) doesn't need to keep up with social media. In fact, I don't see email marketing as being in competition with social networking - I see email marketing as complimenting social media and social media complimenting email marketing.

It's an online circle of life. Each one connects to the other. Twitter connects to my website which captures email addresses for my newsletter which alerts people to activity on my Facebook account in a constant stream of connection. And in this jungle, the part of the lion is email!

Cheers

Dean

I'm sure many of you already read Seth Godin's blog. In case you don't, here's a gem of a post to start with: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/01/the-first-thing-you-do-when-you-sit-down-at-the-computer.html