Colorado Web Solutions

How to Import Yahoo Store Customers to Constant Contact

Posted on June 25th, 2010 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

The majority of our clients are using the Constant Contact email service for their stores, and one of the most common questions we receive is “How do I import my Yahoo Store Customers into Constant Contact?” It’s a great question, and one that we would love to answer for you.

First of all, something to consider – I highly suggest that you keep your paying customers and your email list members in individual groups. For example, I would suggest a GLOBAL mailing list for everyone that is on ANY of your mailing lists and then I would suggest adding a new mailing list called “Yahoo Store Customers” or something like that to import your paying customer info into. These customers are extremely important to you and should be kept in their own list as well as in the global list.

We have created an online video training tutorial about how to import your Yahoo Store customers into Constant Contact as well if you would prefer to watch and listen vs read these simple instructions. The written instructions are directly below the video presentation. Here is the training video on how to import your Yahoo Store Customer Data into your Constant Contact Account:

VIDEO: How to Import from Yahoo Store to Constant Contact

Non Flash Link

In order to perform these steps you will need to be able to log into your Yahoo Store and your Constant Contact Account. If you need to sign up for a Constant Contact account, please click here to start your free trial (will open in new window) and then you can come back here to import your customer data.

Step One: Exporting your Yahoo! Store’s Customer Data

• Log Into your Yahoo! Store’s Manager Section and click the ORDERS button
• In the SUMMARIZE section, enter the order number range you would like to export. It is not a problem at all to export customers that have already been imported to Constant Contact so you can export all of your orders, or, if you are keeping track, you can export the next batch of orders you want to export. Larger batches will take a little longer for Constant Contact to process, but it’s not a big deal at all.
• Once you’ve entered the order number range, click SUMMARIZE
• On the next page you will see a summary of the orders. At the very bottom of this page click EXPORT TO EXCEL.
• The next page will give you a list of downloads, please select the DOWNLOAD link next to ORDERS.csv.
• This will prompt you to save the file, I would suggest your desktop or someplace easy for you to find it.
• The export process is now complete.

Step Two: Editing the Data for Import

• This step is optional, but we highly suggest doing it to save time in the end.
• Open the file you just exported in either Excel, Numbers or even Google Docs.
• I’m going to suggest that you delete a bunch of the columns in the file so that you don’t have to tell Constant Contact to ignore all the unused columns. While this is not a required step, we do suggest that you edit your file to same enormous amounts of time while importing.
• Once the file is opened, delete the first few columns (order ID, Date, Numeric Time) so that your file’s first column is Ship Name. Continue to delete columns so that you are left with only Ship Name, Ship State, Ship Country and Email. Be sure to continue to scroll to the right of the spreadsheet, there are a lot of fields.
• Once you only have the few remaining fields, you can save the file (override the original) and close the window.
• The Editing Phase is now complete.

Step Three: Importing Into Constant Contact

• Now that we have the edited file ready to go, log into your Constant Contact Account (link).
• From the home page, click on CONTACTS in the top navigation bar.
• On the Contacts screen, click Add / Import under My Contacts
• The first screen will ask you to select the List(s) you would like to add your contacts to. If you have not yet set up any lists, you will see one list (General Interest) as the only option. As I mentioned before, I would highly suggest keeping a second list with only your Yahoo Store Customers on it, so let’s create a second list.
• If you want to create a new list, click CREATE A NEW LIST
• Enter the new Lists Name (for example: Yahoo Store Customers) and click SAVE
• You now see that your new list is check marked for you. If you would like to add these names to additional steps either check the lists you want to use or create additional lists.
• Once your Lists are selected, click NEXT
• On the “How would you like to add your list” page, select IMPORT CONTACTS FROM A FILE and click NEXT
• On the next screen, click BROWSE and find the file you downloaded and/or edited in excel. It might be called Orders.csv if you didn’t change it.
• Click SUBMIT DATA
• You may see a few warnings and confirmations. Read through those and accept terms, etc.
• The next screen will present you with a selection of your data and ask you to map it to the Constant Contact fields. This is the part that makes you glad you edited the file in excel before importing…
• You will see a drop down menu above each column asking you to either “Select Label” or guessing for you. Select the correct items for Name (we suggest using First Name since Constant Contact does not support Full name), State and Country. Email may already be detected for you, but if not, be sure to specify the email column as well.
• Once you have mapped your fields, click START IMPORT
• The entire process is now complete.

We go into more details and explanations as to “why” on the video if you would like to get some more information. The steps are exactly the same as above. If you have any questions about this process, let us know.

We have a Free Constant Contact Templates Program as well! If you are interested in learning more, please visit:
http://www.coloradowebsolutions.com/contact-email-free-template.html

We offer a number of additional Constant Contact services that are described in detail on our website at:
http://www.coloradowebsolutions.com/yahoo-store-email-marketing.html

Have a great day everyone.

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