Please Note: The Mailchimp integration is only available for PPS systems on version 4.1.11 and higher.
PPS' integration with MailChimp allows you to easily export a list of clients to your MailChimp account in order to send bulk emails of your own design.
Section One - Activating your MailChimp Integration
To begin, you will need to connect your MailChimp account to PPS and activate the integration.
a. When logged in to PPS navigate to Tools > Options > General System Options > Add-ins.
b. From here click Settings in the MailChimp section.
c. A new window will open in which you will need to enter your MailChimp API key.
You can copy the API key from your MailChimp account and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V to paste it into PPS. Find details on retrieving your MailChimp API Key here.
d. Once you've entered your API key close the settings screen. You'll be returned to the Add-ins tab where you can then tick the Active box in the MailChimp section to activate your integration. It is now ready for use.
Section Two - Using MailChimp in PPS
Information: If you use the integration to send your clients an email via MailChimp then this will not be recorded in the PPS client logs. You will however be able to view the emails you have sent from within your MailChimp account.
a. In order to compile a list of clients to export to MailChimp you'll need to run a Report. Through this process you can identify a particular criteria of client you're hoping to contact or export all clients on your system. For the purpose of this guide we'll be looking to export all active clients but if you wish to send to a specific group then the reporting guide should assist in getting to this stage. Once you've run your report continue from point c of this section.
b. To run a Report for all Clients marked as Active navigate to Reports > Reports & Mail Merge > Clients. Double click the Client List. Leaving the other tabs blank, head to the Criteria section and choose Client Status > Active as shown below.
Click Finish. Your results will now compile, this may take some time.
c. Once you have run your report you will come to the Report Output screen. From here choose Mail Merge. In the next screen click MailChimp.
This will open a new window.
d. In this new window you will have the option to add the results/clients in your report to an existing list, replace an existing list or create a brand-new list.
This can be useful where you can't compile all the relevant clients using just one report and need to use multiple. In this event you would run the first report, use the 'Create a New List' option to give it a name, choose Continue and then Exit the Mail Merge process without sending. Repeat the process for the second report and when you reach this point use 'Select an Existing Mailshot'. You can then choose to merge the two lists or replace the older one with your most recent results.
Please Note - The free MailChimp account only allows you to create one ‘audience’ list which means that you can only export one group of clients from PPS to then contact through MailChimp. This audience can be updated in MailChimp through PPS as much as required by running various reports but this will need to be done each time you want to create a new campaign. There are various paid MailChimp accounts that will allow you to have as many audiences as needed though.
e. Once your list has been created/added to/replaced you will then be able to find the audience in your MailChimp account where you can create you campaign.