Knowledgebase: Marketing

How can I import my Mailing List to iContact?

 

You can easily use your store's existing export function to create a CSV file of your customers records and upload it to your iContact account.

Note
If you do not have an iContact account, please first sign up with their service before proceeding with the following.


Generating your Customer Record CSV File.

From your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager:

  1. Go to Customers >Customer List
  2. Once there, look to the top right of the page and click on the "Export/Import" button.
  3. On the left hand side of the Export/Import page, click on the +Icon for "Customers"
  4. Followed by the "Export Data" link.

Note
You can also use the export interface to download your customer records by specific groups or alphabetical sections.
(A-H, I-Q, R-Z)

  1. Save the file to your desktop

Editing the CSV File

The customer record CSV contains a large amount of customer information that iContact will not utilize. Therefore, your next step will be to edit the CSV file to remove these unneccessary columns.

Special Note
The Customer Record export contains a very important column titled "mailist" which denotes whether the customer has subscribed to your mailing list or not. This column will contain either a 1 or a 0 for the individual customer records.

  • If the column contains a 1, it means the customer has subscribed.
  • However if the column contains a 0 the customer has either not requested a subscription or has unsubscribed.

Before proceeding with any of the following edits, please be sure to remove all unsubscribed customers before uploading your CSV file to iContact. Again, these will be the ones listed with a 0.

  1. Open the CSV file in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel
  2. Edit the file to remove all of the columns except for the following:
  • billing_firstname
    iContact will use this as their "fname"field.
  • billing_lastname
    iContact will use this as their "lname"field.
  • billing_address
    iContact will use this as their "address1"field.
  • billing_address2
    iContact will use this as their "address2"field.
  • billing_city
    iContact will use this as their "city"field.
  • billing_state
    iContact will use this as their "state"field.
  • billing_zip
    iContact will use this as their "zip"field.
  • billing_company
    iContact will use this as their "business"field.
  • billing_phone
    iContact will use this as their "phone"field.
  • email
    iContact will use this as their "email"field.
  • additional_field(1 through 4)
    iContact can use this as their "fax"field if you have a customized registration form that requests this information.
  1. Save your CSV file after making your changes

Your advanced CSV file is now ready to import to iContact. During the import process on your iContact account, you will match these fields with their respective equivalents on iContact.


Uploading the CSV file to iContact

You will now upload your CSV file to iContact. During the upload process, you will be prompted to match your CSV columns with their iContact field names.

  1. Log into your iContact account
  2. Click on "Add Contacts"
  3. Next, click on the "Upload from File" button.
  4. Browse to your saved CSV file and select it.
  5. Click "Upload Contacts"
  6. You will now match the remaining columns from your Shift4Shop CSV file to their iContact counterparts.

The following list should help you match the fields to each other.

Shift4Shop Column Name

  • billing_firstname
  • billing_lastname
  • billing_address
  • billing_address2
  • billing_city
  • billing_state
  • billing_zip zip
  • billing_company
  • billing_phone
  • email
  • additional_fieldx

iContact Field Name

  • fname
  • lname
  • address1
  • address2
  • city
  • state
  • zip
  • business
  • phone
  • email
  • (if applicable) fax
  1. Click "Next" when you've completed matching the fields.
  2. Complete iContact's Spam-Free certification process and mark the checkbox labeled "Subscribe these Contacts."

Your mailing list is now imported into iContact


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