Switching to Vision6 From Another Provider

Last updated
20220531

Article type
Step-by-step

Applies to
Starter, Business, Pro-Marketer

Special contents
n/a

Details

We’re glad you’ve decided to use Vision6 for your email & SMS marketing. Switching to our platform isn't tricky - and we've created this handy guide to assist you along the way.

If you get stuck, please email our support team via support@vision6.com.au or contact our Onboarding Specialist. We also have a guide for new users, as well as a number of training resources.

Migrating from Mailchimp? We have a guide specifically for this. Get started via Migrating From Mailchimp to Vision6 (Part 1).

How-to Guide

Part 1: Gather Information From Your Current Provider

The first part of the process is grabbing the relevant information from your current email marketing provider. This can include the following;

Download a list of current contacts / subscribers
Download a list of your unsubscribes / suppression list (so that you don't email them again from the new platform, if they've opted out previously!)
Download any assets you'd like to keep. This may include images that you've used in your email designs, or any documents you've uploaded into the old email platform that you might be linking-to from inside your emails.
Note down any email automations (if any) you have running in the old platform, so that you know how to set them up again manually in our platform.
Although you won't be able to 'import' them into our system, you may still wish to download any reports, or billing invoices, from your old platform - for historical or record-keeping purposes and keep them somewhere secure on your computer.

How you go about doing this depends on the other provider - but hopefully they'll have helpful how-to guides like we do, to assist you in downloading this information from their platform.

Part 2: Upload Contact Information Into Vision6

First up, we'll upload your list of previously unsubscribed contacts (also known as a surpression list) into Vision6.

This should always be your first step, as you do not want to email these people again if they've already unsubscribed from you previously!

Open your list or spreadsheet of existing unsubscribers (the one your downloaded from your old platform).
Copy all of the email addresses.
Log into your Vision6 account.
Select Contacts from the sidebar.
Click the Unsubscribers tab.
Click Add.
Paste all of the email addresses from your suppression list into the field provided.
When done, click Add.

Secondly, you can now upload your regular contact list(s) into Vision6. We have a specific guide and video for this process, which you can find linked below.

Import & Upload Contacts.

Part 3: Create Your Email Templates / Designs

Now that you've uploaded your contact lists & surpression data, it's time to rebuild your emails - and we have a few options available here.

If you have access to the raw HTML code from your previous emails, you can import raw HTML into Vision6 and make use of the simplified HTML email editor to make changes. Note that your HTML will need to contain code to make your email mobile-responsive (ie. compatible with small-screen devices, such as mobile phones).

However, we recommend creating your emails with our powerful drag-and-drop editor. This editor is easy to use and allows you to quickly build great-looking emails that are mobile-responsive out of the box. There's also heaps of templates to choose from!

Create an Email.

As every platform is different, if your original email designs used any mail merge fields, you'll need to re-add these into your email using our own mail merge fields (which we call 'wildcards').

Personalise an Email With Wildcards (Mail Merge Fields).

Part 4: Recreate Your Automations

If you had any automations setup in your old platform, you'll need to recreate these in our platform. We have a number of guides available for automations, linked below.

Overview of our Automations
Browse our series of Automation Examples

Part 5: Setup Your Domain

This is vital, to ensure your test emails make their way into your inbox, as well as ensuring your real email sends make their way into your contact's inboxes. Doing so ensures we have permission to send on your behalf. Learn about setting up your domain.

Part 6: Add Your Team

Adding colleagues into the account is easy - and you can set different access levels if required. For more details, see: Add Additional Users.

Part 7: Check & Setup Forms

If you had any subscription or survey forms setup in your old platform, you'll need to recreate these in our platform and use the new embed-code to add them to your website. We have a number of guides available for forms, linked below.

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