How I Switched from Mailchimp to Constant Contact and How You Can Too
As we all know Mailchimp a famous email marketing software used all over the world. Currently, it has over 20 million users and all of them use it because it is easy to use, reliable comprises so many functionalities, and more importantly, getting started with it is free. But even after being so efficient, it also has its competitors and Constant Contact is one of them. It is an equally powerful and highly-customizable email marketing platform. In fact, it is really great in terms of contact management, customer support, and email success rate.
That’s why most of the Mailchimp users are thinking to switch themselves to Constant Contact. But, how to import Mailchimp to Constant Contact? If you’re one of those users who are searching the answer for the same query then, relax. In the next section, we will show you how to move Mailchimp Contacts to Constant Contact. It is advised to follow every step carefully to avoid data loss issues.
How to Import Mailchimp Contacts to Constant Contact?
Move Mailchimp to Constant Contact just in two simple steps:
Step 1. Export All Audiences from Mailchimp
In order to move your Mailchimp to Constant Contact, first export subscribed and unsubscribed contacts from Mailchimp. Only after that, you can import the exported contacts into your Constant Contact account. To do this, follow the steps below:
- Open Mailchimp and click the Audience tab
- In case if you have more than one audience, hit the Current Audience drop-down button and choose the audience you want to export
- Click on View Contacts
- Hit the Export Audience button
- Click Export as CSV
- Repeat the same steps to export each Mailchimp audience and the exported files will be zipped. Unzip the files to access Mailchimp contacts and check if it is formatted correctly.
Step 2. Upload Mailchimp Contacts List to Constant Contact
Before moving Mailchimp to Constant Contact, you must know that Constant Contact allows importing XLS, XLSX, CSV, VCF, TXT file types. And you have a CSV file but, if you will import this CSV directly to Constant Contact, then after importing you will find all the contact information gets mismatched or missing information issues. Moreover, you might face a permanent data loss problem.
Therefore, first, you have to make Mailchimp CSV file Constant Contact importable and this could be done via converting it into a universal or standard file format used to save contacts i.e., vCard (VCF). Below is how this can be done:
- Make sure email addresses are within each exported contact
Organize CSV content properly, remove multiple tabs, extra space or special characters (if there) - The first line of the CSV must label column headings (like Name, Email Address, Mobile, etc.)
If you’re a Windows OS X user:
- Download and run Excel to vCard files Converter Offline for Windows
- Click Browse and add the Excel CSV you have exported in Step 1
- Preview CSV contact information and make sure all your Mailchimp contact fields and their information is correct and click Next
- Now, pick a contact column from the Excel Field section and map it with the corresponding vCard Field. Repeat the same step to map all the contact fields and once the mapping is done, click Next
- Select vCard v3.0 or 4.0 and check Import empty email addresses option. Browse a destination location and hit the Convert button
If you’re a Mac OS X user:
- Download and run CSV to VCF File Format Converter on your Mac machine
- Click Add File(s) button and add the Mailchimp CSV you have exported previously
- Select vCard or TXT option as Constant Contact allows importing both file types
- Hit the Auto-map button or manually map all the Mailchimp contacts with vCard or TXT Fields
- Select a destination location for the resultant file and click Convert
- All the CSV contacts will get converted into vCard / TXT after this and you’re ready to import Mailchimp to Constant Contact
- In order to move Mailchimp contacts to Constant Contact, click on the Contacts tab in your Constant Contact account
- Hit the Add Contacts drop-down button and choose Upload from the file
- Select your vCard or TXT from your system, drag it and drop it in the Constant Contact panel
- Preview all the contact columns and check if the first line is correct (also the information within it). If there is any mismatching here, click on the drop-down button and select the matching heading column name and choose the match it with the correct heading name. Click Continue
- Hit the Got it button to accept that anti-spam policy
Pro Tip: In case if you have applied Advanced Email Permissions for your Constant Contact account, then select permission type to email your contacts. This will help users affected by GDPR and CASL.
- Select the lists you need to add to contacts or directly create a new list
Hit the Upload button eventually to finish Mailchimp to Constant Contact process
That’s it!
If you are importing a file with so many contacts, then go to the Contacts Activity page and check the import status. Or else, a message will be displayed at the top of your screen when the import process will get completed successfully.
So, this is how you can import Mailchimp to Constant Contact simply.