I’m trying out a service called Skribit.  It’s this thing where readers can tell me what they want me to write about, and then other readers can vote those suggestions up or down (Digg-style).

They call it a “cure for writer’s block” but that doesn’t do it justice imho. My problem is the opposite of writer’s block. I can write stuff all day long, but I have no idea if it’s the stuff our customers actually want to hear about. Some customers contact me directly with questions. Our customer svc team gives me topics too.

But Skribit is finally a way for me to see how many other readers are interested in that topic. Suggest a topic for me to write about

In every one of your MailChimp campaign reports, there’s a section called Email Domain Performance:

It can answer important questions like, “Are any ISPs blocking me?” and “Which ISPs do my subscribers use most?”

It can also answer expensive questions, like, “Should I invest in email certification services like SenderScore (which gives you some benefits with Hotmail, Roadrunner, and Cox), or Goodmail (which gives you some benefits with AOL, Comcast, and Yahoo), or SuretyMail (which works with AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Earthlink among others)?

Email certification can get email past spam filters and into inboxes with images on by default, and in some cases, video will work.

But are they too expensive? Why not test? Here’s how:

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When you setup a MailChimp account, you can customize your signup process (subscribe form, thank you pages, welcome emails, etc.), just about any way you want.

Did you know you can ALSO translate your signup process to over 25 different languages?

Simply select it from the pulldown:

Here’s a list of supported languages (it’s constantly growing):

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A lot of people who are checking out MailChimp will call or email us and ask, “Can I use a purchased email list with MailChimp?”

So we created this: http://caniuseapurchasedemaillist.com/

If you run an abuse desk somewhere, and you’re tired of answering that stupid question over and over, feel free to link people to it. If you’re not sure why importing a purchased email list into a 3rd party ESP is a bad thing, then promptly turn off your computer and unplug it from the wall. Thanks.

In the year-end MailChimp survey that we sent out, lots of people said they “wished for some kind of giant report that they could download, and then manipulate themselves.”  We’ve already got this feature in place, and call it a “BARF” Report, aka Big Ass Report File.

click image to enlarge

When you’re on the MailChimp dashboard, just click over to the “Reports” tab.  Then just click on the big orange “compare campaigns” button on the left side of the screen.

Click the button to download a spreadsheet containing stats for ALL your campaigns, ever.  It’s chock full of all kinds of data, will let you run your own reports in Excel and then you can build just about any pretty graph you or your boss could ever want.

For example, you can even calculate the best day to send emails based on your previous campaign open rates.

Tell us what other kinds of innovative things you’re doing with your reports as well.  We love to hear from you!