Open source email marketing platform listmonk tutorial

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When making products, you must do email marketing, especially products for overseas markets. Email marketing has become an important tool for companies to communicate with customers, build brand loyalty, and drive sales. It can directly contact the target audience, provide personalized content, and Get a solid return on investment at a relatively low cost. You see, MEAP is here to remind me to buy e-books again!

The first thing you need to consider when doing email marketing is which email service provider to choose, which is ESP (email service provider) . They provide a software platform that helps you manage your email list, design emails, send emails, and track results. Common overseas ESPs include Mailchimp, Braze and HubSpot, etc. The more well-known one in China is SendCloud.

These ESPs are very good, and many companies have chosen to use them. However, ESPs also have many problems:

cost issue . Most ESPs charge based on the number of emails sent, and the fees increase as your subscription list grows. For a small to medium-sized business or non-profit organization, this is a significant financial burden.
Many ESPs offer limited customization options . You may struggle to personalize your email campaigns based on specific brand requirements or business needs.

So besides ESP, are there any other options?

Of course, there are many open source email marketing platforms on GitHub, which can provide greater flexibility and customizability. You can also modify the source code or perform secondary development to add specific functions. You can deploy it as you like. Anywhere.

Introduction to listmonk

Currently, the most popular email marketing software on GitHub is listmonk . It is written in Go language and has powerful performance. It can provide you with a simple, reliable, and high-performance newsletter and mailing list management solution, which is suitable for both small businesses and Meet the needs of large organizations. listmonk has many features covering all aspects of email marketing:

Subscriber Management : listmonk allows you to create multiple mailing lists and manage subscribers for each list. You can easily export subscriber data to CSV or JSON format, and reversely import subscriber data in CSV or JSON format into listmonk. listmonk also supports double opt-in, ensuring only users who explicitly consent will receive your emails .
Create and send campaigns : listmonk provides a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor that you can use to create responsive HTML emails. If you prefer to use your own design, you can also upload a custom HTML template. listmonk supports personalization, allowing you to insert the subscriber's name or other specific information into the email content. You can choose to send the event immediately or schedule it to be sent at a specific time in the future.
Tracking and analysis results : listmonk has built-in detailed tracking and reporting functions. You can view key indicators such as open rate and click-through rate of each activity in real time. This data can help you understand which content resonates best with your subscribers, allowing you to optimize your email marketing strategy. listmonk also offers link click tracking so you can see how your subscribers are engaging with your content.
API integration : listmonk provides a very comprehensive RESTful API that you can seamlessly integrate with other systems and tools. Whether it’s importing subscribers from your website or triggering automated email campaigns, APIs make it easy.
Security : listmonk provides multiple layers of security measures such as CSRF protection and input validation to protect your data from unauthorized access.

listmonk one-click deployment

listmonk provides a Docker image, which we can deploy directly through the Docker image, but it also relies on the PostgreSQL database, which is a little troublesome to deploy. Students who are capable can try to use Docker deployment by themselves.

If you are a marketer and don't know anything about Docker, it doesn't matter. The Sealos app store provides one-click deployment application templates, and you can complete the deployment with one click of the mouse, which is very smooth.

Open the listmonk application template directly , and then click "Go to Sealos Deployment" in the upper right corner.

If this is your first time using Sealos , you need to register and log in to a Sealos public cloud account. After logging in, you will immediately jump to the template deployment page.

After jumping in, you will see two variables, which are the WebUI administrator username and password. If you do not set it, anyone can directly access your listmonk WebUI through the domain name. It is recommended to set it.

After setting the username and password, click "Deploy Application" in the upper right corner to start deployment. After the deployment is completed, wait for a while because the database needs to be deployed first. You can click on the "Details" of the database to check whether the database is ready.

If the database is ready, then return to the original app store interface and directly click the "Details" of the app to enter the app's details page.

The application will restart about four times. This is normal because it has been checking whether the database is ready. If the database is not ready, it will restart.

After waiting for the application status to change to running, directly click on the external network address to open the listmonk visual interface. Click "Login":

Enter your administrator username and password to log in. After entering, enter "Settings" and set the language to Chinese:

Then click "Save" in the upper right corner to save, and the interface will become Chinese.

Next, you need to set the site root URL to your public domain name:

Others such as site name, logo URL, URL icon URL, etc. can be set according to your own needs.

Another important thing is the SMTP server. Set it up yourself, so I won’t go into details.

listmonk key function demonstration

After you have successfully deployed listmonk and set up key configurations, you can start creating email marketing campaigns. listmonk provides an intuitive user interface that even people without a technical background can easily get started with. In this section we will introduce in detail how to use the key functions of listmonk.

Manage subscribers

First, you need to create one or more mailing lists to store subscriber information. On the listmonk monitoring panel, click the "Lists" -> "All Lists" tab, and then click "New". Give your list a descriptive name, such as "FastGPT Subscribers" or "FastGPT Target Group."

Next, you can add subscribers to the list. listmonk supports multiple ways to import subscribers:

Manual entry : You can enter your subscribers' email addresses and other relevant information one by one.
File upload : If you have a CSV file containing subscriber data, you can upload it directly to listmonk. Make sure the format of the CSV file matches listmonk's requirements.
API integration : If you have your own website or application, you can use listmonk's API to automatically synchronize subscriber data.

listmonk also allows you to manage the status of your subscribers, you can see which subscribers are active and which have been unsubscribed or marked as spam.

Create email campaign

Once you have your subscriber list, you can create an email campaign. Click the "Ads" tab, then click "Create new." listmonk supports rich text, HTML, Markdown and other text editing formats. You can choose the format you are good at to edit the body content of the email.

Under normal circumstances, we can preset a template first. You can upload or create a new template in listmonk:

The template editor supports various content blocks such as text, images, buttons, etc. You can customize its content according to your needs. listmonk also supports personalized tags such as {{ .Campaign.Subject }}. These tags are automatically replaced with the subscriber's specific information when sent, creating a personalized experience.

When designing emails, remember to preview and test your content. listmonk provides a preview option to ensure your emails display properly. You can also send a test email to your own email address to check that the content and personalization tags are working properly before actually sending it.

Track and optimize

After sending the email, listmonk's work is not over yet, it also has powerful analysis and optimization functions.

Under the Statistics tab, you can see detailed reports for each activity. The report includes many key indicators, such as number of messages sent, click-through rate, etc. You can see which links are clicked the most and how well your subscribers are engaging with your content.

API integration

listmonk's API follows the standard HTTP protocol and RESTful principles. You can use any programming language that supports HTTP requests to call listmonk's API.

For example: If you have a blog or product website, you can use the API to automatically add new blog subscribers or product sign-ups to a specific list on listmonk. You can also trigger personalized emails based on user actions within your app (such as completing a purchase, reaching a milestone, etc.).

Summarize

While commercial ESPs are powerful, their high costs, data ownership issues, and limited customization options may not be suitable for all organizations, especially small and medium-sized businesses and nonprofits.

listmonk, an open source email marketing automation platform, offers an attractive alternative. It has all the key features of a commercial ESP, such as managing subscribers, creating and sending campaigns, tracking results, etc., while also providing many advantages of open source software, and listmonk's developer community has also developed an ambitious roadmap to plan Introduce more advanced features such as marketing automation, AI-driven personalization, etc.

If you want to escape the shackles of commercial ESP, now is a good time to try listmonk.