If you’ve been running your bookie website for a while and feel comfortable with the positive results you’ve witnessed, then you 
probably now have a good number of emails from current clients and future ones.
If you want to create long-term relationships with your bookmaking customers, it is essential that you always stay in touch, and using email newsletters is really your best choice because it is a proven fact that most people check their email on a daily basis, especially now that everybody has smartphones and can go online anytime they want.
Although there are a few companies that offer a decent email newsletter service, we recommend you to give MailChimp a try because it is free and of high quality.
Bookie Website: What is MailChimp
MailChimp is a website that allows pay per head bookies to send email newsletters to their clients without paying a cent until they have reached two thousand subscribers. Before that, the user has the chance of sending an amazing 12,000 emails for free per month.
How it Works
Let’s see how MailChimp works step by step:
- Creating a list: Once you have signed for your Mailchimp account and have provided all the requested information, you can start getting subscribers, and for this you need to set up a list first.
Just visit the Dashboard and click where it says ‘Create a List.’ You will then be asked to fill out some info such as the name of your newsletter, the name of the sender, the reply email and a reminder for people to know why they are getting an email from your bookie website.
- Create a Sign-Up Form: Now it’s time to head back to the MailChimp Dashboard and click where it says ‘Lists’ and then on the option that says ‘Design SignUp Forms.’ After that you’re ready for the ‘Built It’ stage, where you can pick which components you want to include in the form such as name, email ad, phone and address.
Lastly, on the ‘Design It’ stage, the user can pick the colors of the form. (A good thing is that when you register to MailChimp and add your URL, the site will provide you with a selection of colors that go hand to hand with the colors of your own website).
- Share Your Form with the World: Once you’re done creating your form, then you can visit the ‘Share It’ tab, where you’ll have the option of sharing the URL for your new signup form in social media, making it easier for those who know you and do business with you to subscribe to your newsletter. On this very same tab you will also find another option to embed a smaller subscriber box to the sidebar of your website. We certainly recommend you to make use of both of these features.
Sending Out Your Very First Email
There are six easy steps that you need to follow when it comes to sending emails:
- Creating a Campaign: On the Dashboard, click on ‘Campaigns’, then on ‘Create campaign’ and finally on ‘Regular Ol Campaign.’
- Next, you will be asked to which list you want to send your newsletter to. Remember that if you have separated online marketing efforts for sports players and horse bettors, then you can always create separate lists for newsletters directed to only a sector of your clients.
- Adding the Campaign Info: the next step is to give your campaign a name and choosing an email subject. The first one your clients can’t see, but the latter, the subject, they can. For this reason you must be able to pick an enticing title for your newsletter in order to encourage people to open the email.
- Pick a Template: After all the above is ready; you can then proceed to pick a template for your newsletter. There are different options such as basic, predesigned, Drag & Drop and one called ‘My Templates’ that contains the ones that you previously designed and saved.
- Write your newsletter: We recommend you to write your newsletter in a separate document and then upload it to the MailChimp editor, which is very simple to use.
- Send it! Once you have given your newsletter all the personal touches you want, it’s time to hit the send button. You can actually decide whether you wish to send your newsletter right away or if you want to schedule it for later.
