IN THIS ARTICLE:
Learn how to set up a MailChimp account and integrate it with iClassPro to sync email lists with the basic family contact information, including email address, first name, last name, gym location, phone, and address.

• Step 1: Sign Up For A Free* MailChimp Account
• Step 2: Integrate Your New MailChimp Account With iClassPro
• Step 3: Create An Emailing List or Audience
• Step 4: Sync Contacts from iClassPro
• Step 5: Create a Campaign in MailChimp

Benefits of using this feature include:

• Design email templates with your own branding
• Integration with social networking increases the impact of your marketing
• Get live stats about your email campaign
• See more benefits here: https://mailchimp.com/marketing-platform/

* A free account with MailChimp has some limitations. You can subscribe to a plan for more features!
See http://mailchimp.com/pricing/ for more information.

Step 1: Sign Up For A Free* MailChimp Account

1. Go to www.MailChimp.com and click the "Sign Up Free" button, and complete the required fields to signup.
     
2. You will receive an email to activate the account. Follow the link in the email.
   
3. After you activate the account, follow the steps on MailChimp to complete setting up your account.
    
4. Once your account is setup, you are ready to integrate that account with iClassPro.

Step 2: Integrate Your New MailChimp Account With iClassPro

Integrating your MailChimp account is easy! Just generate an API Key from MailChimp, and copy & paste that into your iClassPro settings.

1. While logged in MailChimp, go to Account Settings (top right).
   
   
2. Then expand the Extras menu on the account page, and click "API Keys".
3. On the API Keys and Info page, click the "Create a Key" button under the section titled "Your API Keys". A key will be generated and displayed on that page.
4. Copy the entire key, as you will need to paste this into iClassPro.
5. While logged into iClassPro as an admin user, click on Settings (top right).
6. Go to Setup > General Settings > Configure MailChimp. 
7. In the MailChimp window, simply paste in your API Key.
8. We also recommend that you disable the "Send an Opt-In Confirmation Email to Each Recipient" option.  This prevents MailChimp from sending an Opt In email to confirm with your  customers that it is okay to be added to each MailChimp list controlled through this integration. If the email is sent and a parent does opt-in after receiving the email, a followup email is sent from MailChimp with all of the family's contact information included for verification. Since the customer has already provided you with this contact information and an unsubscribe option is available in both iClassPro and MailChimp to stop unwanted emails, the opt in email is not a necessary step and may be confusing to some customers.
9. Click Save. That's it! Your account is integrated!

Step 3: Create An Emailing List or Audience

First, create an Audience/List in MailChimp for iClassPro to sync with. You may have done this during your account signup/setup process. For paid accounts where multiple audience lists can be managed, creating a mailing list is easy!

1. Go to the Audience menu at the top of your MailChimp account.
2. Click the "Create Audience" button and follow the steps. 

From MailChimp:

• Create a MailChimp Audience

Step 4: Sync Contacts from iClassPro

In iClassPro, you can select a group of families to sync information into your MailChimp Audience List. This can be done from the family page, student page, or staff page.

NOTE: The MailChimp export will include all email addresses linked to a family record. However, email addresses that are not linked to a specific guardian will not include values for name, address, or phone number.

1. While logged in iClassPro, go to the family, student, or staff page.
2. Use the filters on the left side of any of those list pages to select the group you want to sync.
3. After filtering, click the Select All box to select all the records (or select the families/students/staff individually).
4. New icons appear at the bottom of the page in iClassPro. Click the MailChimp icon.
    
5. Select the audience list you created from the drop down menu. Click the EXPORT TO MAILCHIMP button to start the sync.
    

6. This will start a Background Task that queries the database for the selected families/students/staff and builds “batches” of 1000 that get sent to MailChimp.  If some of the chosen families/staff do not have email addresses or they are marked as “unsubscribed”, then the Background Task report will show them as “Errors”.  Any email addresses actually sent to MailChimp are shown as “Sent.”  (These tables are hidden by default, but can shown by clicking the appropriate button.)
   

   Clicking on a "Get Status" links will allow you to view the status of the batch. This will opena new tab with the batch status report.  Once MailChimp has finished processing the batch, the details of any errors will be listed.
   
   The “Operation ID” can be used to find problem families/staff members by searching the “Sent” list in the final Background Task report.  (Shown below.)
   

NOTE: If you have not disabled the "Opt In" option in MailChimp, the recipients being added will have to confirm their subscription before receiving any emails. After opting in, they will receive a confirmation and appear in your MailChimp List.

From MailChimp:

• Getting Started with Your Audience

Step 5: Create a Campaign in MailChimp

Once you have an email list, you can create a campaign to send to that list! 

1. Click the campaigns menu.
2. Click the "Create Campaign" button and follow the step-by-step directions.
3. After you create a campaign and send it, you can sit back and watch your stats!

From MailChimp: 

• Getting Started with Campaigns
• About Email Campaign Reports