The Law School provides access to Mailchimp accounts for departmental use. Mailchimp provides users the ability to create and manage email lists; create, edit, and send templated emails; and view email analytics. Below you will find instructions from the offices of Communications, Marketing, and Public Affairs and Information Technology regarding access to and use of Mailchimp, as well as links to guides and other resources.
Mailchimp accounts are best suited for departments that will periodically reach out to a related community of 20 or more users.
First, we encourage teams to think about the following questions:
- How often will you be sending emails?
- How big is the group you will be emailing?
- Who on your team will be responsible for drafting, testing, and sending emails?
- If you have an email list, who is responsible for managing and curating it?
Then contact IT to help determine if Mailchimp is the right fit for your department’s needs
Once IT has granted access to your departmental Mailchimp account, please schedule a meeting with Elijah Davis, web project manager in the Communications Office. The meeting will cover the basics of using a Mailchimp account to get you started. After training, your department will have responsibility for managing all parts of your Mailchimp account.
Columbia Law School will provide two basic templates for use within your Mailchimp account: a Basic Letter Template and a Featured Image Template.
The Office of Communications, Marketing, and Public Affairs offers a suite of visual style tools, which you can use as you create templates and graphics for your Mailchimp emails. Our team can provide an approved banner logo image for use with your templates. To obtain an approved logo, please email [email protected].
Graphics and Photography
- Photos: For information about obtaining photos, please refer to the photo section of the Office of Communications, Marketing, and Public Affairs website.
- Videos: Videos from YouTube and Vimeo can be linked in your Mailchimp email.
- Gifs: You can use animated gifs 10MB or smaller in your Mailchimp email.
For more information regarding template creation in Mailchimp, visit Mailchimp’s documentation.
Before you start sending emails to your lists, it’s best to familiarize yourself with Mailchimp’s guide to email marketing for content and optimization. Also, please visit our editorial guide for guidance with proper Columbia writing style.
Templates that you create in Mailchimp can be used with current university mailman listservs. The Google Chrome extension “CloudHQ: Gmail Email Templates” allows users to integrate Mailchimp templates into Gmail. If you are interested in using this functionality, please contact Elijah Davis to schedule a tutorial.