Hi <<First Name>>,
In this issue of the MonkeyWrench, we've got a new MailChimp tool to tell you about, then an awesome trick you can do with it...
RSS-to-Email Tool (beta)
Whenever you create email newsletters, does it take you forever? When you finally have the time, do you find yourself copy-pasting content straight from your blog? Same here. So we decided to make it automatic, by creating an RSS-to-Email tool in MailChimp.
Now, whenever you update your blog (or website, or events calendar, or anything that generates an RSS feed), we'll send it to your subscriber list automagically. And unlike other RSS-to-email tools, you get MailChimp's beautiful, bulletproof HTML email templates, plus you can track opens, clicks, and even your ROI.
Here's a tutorial video of how the RSS tool works:
RSS Trick: Auto-Translations!
As if automatic emails from RSS wasn't cool enough, there's a way you can automatically translate them to just about any language you want, then email them out to your subscribers. Go global!
 Using the crazy-awesome Yahoo! Pipes, you can actually mash together a bunch of different RSS feeds (from totally different blogs and websites if you want), and convert them into one master RSS feed. Then, you can send that new master feed through MailChimp.
But wait, there's more. Yahoo! Pipes actually lets you manipulate those feeds in cool ways. For example, you can:- Filter feeds to only allow certain categories from your blog
- Automatically search for keywords on flickr, and insert photos
- Automatically translate your feeds into a different language.
Wow. Think about that for a second. You can create an automatic email newsletter that gets sent any time you update your blog, and that newsletter can be automatically translated to a different language.
It gets cooler (are you sitting down?). You can combine the power of Yahoo Pipes and Google Translate to point people to translated versions of your landing pages.
How to do all this:
This is not a super quick undertaking. It's at least a "3 coffee cup" project. But it's so cool and totally worth it. And you can do this at work---anybody who walks by your desk and sees all the crazy pipes on your screen will think you're doing something really complicated and important. Here's what you need to do:
- Learn how to create an RSS to email campaign in MailChimp. Just setup a list, subscribe yourself to it, then send yourself an automatic RSS campaign to get a feel for how this works.
- Learn a little bit about how Yahoo! Pipes works. There are some nifty demo videos on their home page. Warning: if you're not a techie, it looks complicated and overwhelming at first, but don't give up.
- Build your own Pipe, and send that campaign to yourself.
- Read this how-to article (and bookmark the language pair chart) on translating a feed and translating the permalink. If you're like me, you might need to re-read it 3 times to understand how useful it is. Try to build the pipe yourself, or just "clone" our pipe and edit source. Note that you'll need to modify the "loops" and the "string."
- Now go build your awesome campaign in MailChimp, and test it on yourself. When you build your MailChimp campaign, use the RSS "cheat sheet" to grab merge tags for your RSSITEM:TITLE, RSSITEM:URL and RSSITEM:CONTENT. Those are the 3 items we setup in our Yahoo Pipe to be translated.
- Have a banana.
Once you get a working prototype of this running, play with Yahoo Pipes some more, because it's so powerful. I've tinkered with filtering by blog category, limiting it to 5 posts, mashing up with other blogs out there, etc. If you're a programmer, I'm sure you can think of a bazillion other possibilities.
If you've got international customers, consider creating separate MailChimp lists, and putting those forms on your website.
Enjoy!
The MailChimp Team
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 Two MailChimpsters, Aarron Walter and Ben Chestnut, will be speaking at this year's Webmaster Jam Session on October 3rd and 4th. Oh yeah, there will also be speakers from little companies like: - Apple
- Amazon
- CNN
- Microsoft
- Starbucks, and
- Yahoo
If you manage a website, this is your mecca. Readers of this newsletter can get $50 off registration when you use the code "BANANAS". Register here.
Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: The average open rate across all MailChimp users' lists.  Average open rate when MailChimp customers use our automatic email optimizer. From: A/B Split Testing - Does it help?
MailChimp API Have you checked out the new MailChimp API? We've added gobs of power and flexibility to it, so you can sync your CMS, CRM, or database with your MailChimp account behind the scenes (no more manual imports! Yay!). There are code examples and wrappers for PHP, .Net, XML, and even LOLCode. mailchimp.com/api/rtfm/
MailChimp PluginsDevelopers are using the API to create all kinds of cool MailChimp Plugins for:  |