Move your newsletter list from Mailchimp to Covey

1. Export your audience from Mailchimp

You need to be an Owner or Admin of the Mailchimp account.

1. Click Audience. If you have more than one audience, pick it from the Audience drop-down.
2. Click "Export audience".
3. In the "Export all contacts?" window, click "Export CSV".
4. Mailchimp emails you when the export is ready. Then: Audience, the "More options" drop-down, "Export history", and Download.

The download is a ZIP file. Save it; do not unzip it.

If you have several audiences, export each one. You can upload all the ZIP files together.

Mailchimp keeps an export for 30 days.

Written from: Mailchimp Help: View or export contacts.

2. Check the unsubscribes and bounces came with it

They are already in the ZIP. This step is a check, not another export.

1. The ZIP holds one file per kind of contact, with the kind in the file name: subscribed, unsubscribed, cleaned, and sometimes non-subscribed.
2. "Cleaned" is Mailchimp's word for addresses that bounced.
3. Covey turns the unsubscribed and cleaned files into its do-not-email list. Non-subscribed contacts never opted in to marketing, so Covey leaves them out.

Archived contacts are not in this export. If you archived people you still want, export them from Audience, "More options", "Archived contacts", and upload that file too.

Mailchimp's help page does not say whether contacts who never confirmed are exported. Covey does not import anyone the file marks as unconfirmed.

Written from: Mailchimp Help: View or export contacts; Mailchimp Help: Archive or unarchive contacts.

3. Upload the files to Covey

Nothing is imported at this step. Covey reads the files and shows you what it would do.

1. In Covey: People, Subscribers, "Import a list".
2. Choose Mailchimp.
3. Drop in the ZIP file exactly as Mailchimp gave it to you.
4. Choose what Mailchimp's tags become in Covey: tags, groups, or nothing.

Mailchimp groups (interest groups) are not read from the export. Recreate the ones you still use as Covey groups or tags.

4. Review the dry run

Check the numbers against what your old tool showed before you import.

1. New subscribers: people Covey does not have yet.
2. Matched: people already in Covey, such as your members. They gain the tags and a consent record. Nobody is duplicated.
3. Do-not-email: addresses that unsubscribed or bounced in your old tool. They are never added as subscribers, and Covey will not email them even if they are added some other way later.
4. Invalid and duplicates: rows with no usable address, and repeats.
5. Tick the statement that these people asked to receive your email, then choose Import.

The "new" number should be close to your old tool's subscribed count. If do-not-email is zero and you have ever sent a newsletter, go back: the unsubscribed and bounced files are missing.

Importing the same files twice is safe. The second run changes nothing.

5. Replace your signup form

New signups should land in Covey from now on, not in the old tool.

1. On a Covey website: Website, open the page, and add the "Newsletter Signup" block from the Actions group. Publish.
2. On another website: Settings, Website, "Embed on your site", choose "Newsletter signup", and paste the code where the old form was.

6. Send from your own domain

Mail from your own domain is what keeps newsletters out of spam folders.

1. In Covey: Settings, "Sending email".
2. Add the DNS records Covey shows you at the company where your domain is registered.
3. Wait for Covey to show the domain as verified before your first newsletter.

Leave the old tool's DNS records in place until you have cancelled it. They do not conflict with Covey's.

7. Send your first newsletter

Send one real newsletter from Covey before you cancel anything.

1. In Covey: Messages, Newsletters, "New newsletter".
2. Under "Who gets it", choose "Subscribers who are not members", and your members if they should get it too.
3. Send yourself a test, then send or schedule it.

Every newsletter carries an unsubscribe link and your mailing address. People who unsubscribe are never emailed again.

8. Take down the Mailchimp signup forms

A form left on your site keeps adding people to a list you no longer send from.

1. In Mailchimp, click Forms, then "Forms settings" to see the hosted signup form.
2. For forms on your website: Forms, "Recent forms", "View all".
3. On your own website, remove the embedded form code or pop-up and put the Covey form from step 5 in its place.

Also check for a Mailchimp plugin or integration on your site (WordPress, Squarespace) and disconnect it.

Written from: Mailchimp Help: About signup form options; Mailchimp Help: Add a signup form to your website.

9. Pause or close your Mailchimp plan

Do this last, after your first Covey newsletter has gone out and you have kept the export file.

1. To pause: click your profile icon, "Account & billing", the Settings drop-down, "Manage my plan", then "Pause my plan" under "Temporarily pause my Marketing plan".
2. To close the account: the same "Manage my plan" page, "Delete my account", "Continue to delete", then enter your password and type DELETE.
3. To drop to a cheaper plan instead: profile icon, Account, the Billing drop-down, "Monthly plans or credits", "Change Plan".

Deleting a Mailchimp account cannot be undone, and any balance owed must be paid first.

A downgrade takes effect at the next billing cycle.

Written from: Mailchimp Help: Close an account; Mailchimp Help: Change or pause your pricing plan.