The making of Mailchimp Academy

Bottling Mailchimp’s magic

To create the Mailchimp Academy curriculum, there were a couple of things to be done straight away. First, we needed to get inside a future learner’s head, and marry their questions with Mailchimp’s expectations for expertise — from this, we’d analyse potential knowledge gaps and work out how best to fill them. Second, we needed full sight of Mailchimp’s existing content so we could begin work on their bedrock certification, "Mailchimp Foundations".

So, we started by considering a Mailchimp agency user, and created a learner profile for them, drawing on conclusions from ours and others’ research. And we conducted a full audit of Mailchimp’s content, so we fully understood our launch point.

Creating compelling content

Then, working with Mailchimp’s partner, design and marketing teams, we produced that content on a rolling basis. From wireframes to animated GIFs, we mapped out content production and learner interaction. This included testing content on real-world learners to gain feedback and iterate rapidly to meet their needs.

By using agile methodologies and maintaining our product mindset, we worked at pace to keep up with product releases and updates. And we continued to view Mailchimp Academy as a standalone product – applying development principles to set the programme up for scalable success.

Good-looking learning

Mailchimp is a playful brand, and we were careful to keep that sense of play front and centre in our designs for its Academy platform. Use of abstract patterns and fun, hand-drawn illustrations created an approachable visual language that still made sense alongside Mailchimp’s overall brand identity.

Making marketing champs

Our initial work with Mailchimp in spring 2020 generated over five hours of educational material, including:

• Engaging micro-modules.
• Interactive learning activities.
• Bite-sized pop quizzes.
• Challenging assessments.

Since Mailchimp Academy launched, we’ve continued our partnership with Mailchimp, fine-tuning the learning experience to make it even more engaging and useful.Plus, we’re delighted to have won a platinum Hermes award for our work on Mailchimp Academy. We’re even more delighted that within months of the initial launch, over 1,800 users enrolled, and more than 100 achieved Mailchimp-certified status.

Inspiring content has long been a part of Mailchimp’s DNA and we wanted to apply that same ethos to our product education and training. With their learning expertise and collaborative approach, Beyond helped us create a learning product we’re proud of and that will further strengthen our partner program.

Amanda Malko, Former Senior Director of Mailchimp’s Partner Program