You have a fresh new list, gathered from all the places you’ve been collecting email addresses. Now it’s time to process the data and prepare for the next stage of your business. So you check the Aweber documentation and, voila, a tab labeled “Import/Export” catches your eye. Huh?
This is where your workflow gets interesting. You can either choose to use the data in its current state or you can export it to a different format. This is a common question among those who are just getting started with Aweber but have a solid understanding of how email marketing works. If you’re wondering how to export your list, keep reading.
The Difference In Quality
Before you begin your journey, there is one thing you should know about the Export functionality from Aweber. The data you’re about to move is raw, ungroomed data. The good thing is that if you’re using a reputable email marketing tool, the data isn’t likely to contain many errors. However, it’s also important to point out that as much as you can get away with using the Export functionality, there will always be some degree of data quality loss. For example, if you’re using a free email service like Gmail or Hotmail, there’s always a chance that some of your subscribers won’t be able to receive your emails. The same goes for people who unsubscribe during the process. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an invaluable resource to be able to see how many people you’ve reached with your email marketing efforts. But, you have to understand what you’re getting into.
Use The Right Ctools
When you first arrive at the Import/Export page, it’ll ask you whether you’d like to import or export the data. Choose “Export” and then take a few minutes to read the instructions. You’ll notice that there are a few tools you can use to format your data before you hit “export.” There are buttons for choosing the CSV or Excel file type, as well as a button to choose the delimiter or field separator. For our purposes, we’ll be using the comma (,) as a field separator. So, if your rows have spaces or other formats like ; or :, change them to commas before you hit “export.””
The Benefits Of Using Excel
In the grand scheme of things, it’s not hard to see why you’d want to use Excel to clean up and format your email list data. Not only does it have a built-in function for removing duplicates but it has dozens of custom functions you can use to perform virtually any task you can think of. With Excel, you get multiple worksheets you can use to organize and view your data. So, if you’ve been storing your subscriber information in a single Google Sheet, this is a perfect place for you to process and organize your data before you move on to the next step.
How To Export Your AWeber List To Excel Step-By-Step
Here’s the thing about the Import/Export feature from Aweber. It’s not intuitive. So, let’s walk through a step-by-step process to make sure you know exactly what you’re doing.
First, click on the “Export” tab at the top of your email marketing platform. This will bring you to a page that looks similar to this.
As you can see, it asks you whether you’d like to export the data into a.csv file or an excel file. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll realize that we need to choose “Excel” from the File Type menu. This is because we’re going to be using the Data Cleanup tool in Excel. Now, let’s click on the “Save As…” button next to the CSV option.
This will bring up a dialogue box that looks like this.
Here, you’ll see all your previously gathered email addresses plus the option to add more email addresses to the list. In the example above, I’ve included the @gmail.com and @hotmail.com email addresses of several individuals who’ve signed up for my free weekly newsletter. There’s also a drop-down menu with the option to create a mailing list from the data or to send an email to these users directly. In our case, we’ll use the “Mailing List” option and then click the “Create List” button.
From the moment you hit “Create List,” you’ll be transported to a new screen that looks like this.
Here, you can see the list of email addresses you’ve gathered so far. At this point, we can either choose to edit the list or click on the “Email” button to send an email to the contacts. In our case, we’ll click on the “Email” button and then follow the on-screen instructions to enter the email addresses we’d like to send the welcome email to. When you’re finished, you can click on the “Submit” button to continue to the next step.
Once you’ve submitted the email addresses, you’ll be brought back to the email marketing platform where you can either choose to download a.csv file or an.xls file. As you can see, the file has been downloaded to your computer. Now, let’s have a look at how the data was populated in the first place.
The Data Is Now Prepared
Before you begin using the data, it’s a good idea to take a few minutes to look at the.csv file you’ve just downloaded. This is where you can see an example of how your data was formed. Look over the top of the file and you’ll see a list of email addresses with the corresponding person’s first name, last name, and company. For example, the first entry in my data file looks like this:
“Alice Smith”
As you can see, this is a simple example but there are numerous columns you can choose from when cleaning up your data. You can find a more detailed walkthrough of how to use the Data Cleanup tool in Excel here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee365487(v=office.16).aspx.
Use Column Headers To Identify The Fields
Now that you’ve got your data downloaded and ready to use, it’s time to start cleaning it up. Since we’re using the comma (,) as a field separator, let’s use the first row and column to identify our fields.
Click on the first cell and type F1 in the cell below it. Then, click on the next cell and type F2 in the cell below it. Continue this down the entire first column. This will give you a quick reference point for every field you create in the spreadsheet. As you start entering data, you can use this same technique to create a label for each field.
Importing And Formatting Data From Excel
Now that you’ve got your fields identified, it’s time to import the data into a spreadsheet. To do this, simply click on the “Import” tab at the top of your email marketing platform.
This will bring you to the Import dialog box where you can choose which file type you’d like to import. For our purposes, we’ll use the Excel 97-2003 format. Then, click on the “Next” button.
This will bring you to the Choose files to import box where you can browse to the.csv file you just downloaded. When you find it, click on the “Open” button.
This will open your file in Excel. Now, let’s take a few minutes to go over some basics. First, you’ll want to set the sheet name as you’ll reference it later. In our case, we’ll call this the “Contact List” since this is where all our subscriber information is stored. Now, you can format your columns however you want but, for now, let’s leave them all in their general state.
A Few Tips On Styling Your Worksheet
When you’ve imported your data into Excel, it’s time to start styling it. To do this, click on the “Format” tab at the top of your spreadsheet.
From here, you can change the look of your spreadsheet. For example, you can choose to change the colors of the cells or turn off their formatting altogether. Since we’re keeping things basic for now, let’s format our columns and rows the same and then choose a different font for our headings.