How to Create Course Announcement Emails Using Mailchimp

In Mailchimp, click "Create" in the left sidebar and choose "Regular email." Give it an internal name you'll recognize later — something like "Spring 2026 Course Launch Announcement" — and select the audience you want to send to. If you have segments (past students, webinar attendees, waitlist subscribers), this is where you choose them.

Under the "Design Email" step, browse Mailchimp's template library and search for "announcement" or "product launch." You want a layout with a strong header image area, a single column of text, and one prominent button. Avoid templates with multiple content blocks, sidebars, or product grids — those are built for e-commerce, not course launches. Your announcement email has one job: get people to click through to your sales page.

Swap out the placeholder content with your course details. At the top, use a header image or a clean text headline with your course name. Below that, write a brief paragraph (three to four sentences) that explains what the course is, who it's for, and when it starts. Then add a single call-to-action button that links to your enrollment page.

Keep the design simple. A clean, readable email with one clear action outperforms a heavily designed one with competing visual elements. Place your most important information — what the course is and how to enroll — in the first two to three lines.

The body of a launch email isn't a sales page. You need to answer three questions: What is this course? Why does it matter to the reader right now? How do they enroll? That's three short paragraphs at most.

Lead with the transformation, not the logistics. "Learn to lead group coaching sessions that keep participants engaged and coming back" is stronger than "This 6-module course covers facilitation techniques, pricing, and marketing." If you have a specific result a past student achieved — "Maria filled her first cohort of 12 within a week" — include it. One concrete outcome is worth more than any amount of feature description.

Click "Add A/B Test" in the campaign setup. Select "Subject line" as the variable. Write two versions: one specific and direct ("Enrollment is open: [Course Name] starts March 25") and one leading with curiosity or a benefit ("The coaching framework I wish I'd learned ten years ago"). Set the test to send each version to 25% of your list, wait four hours, then send the winner to the remaining 50%.

A/B testing subject lines is the single highest-leverage thing you can do for a launch email. Open rates can vary by 30–50% between a good subject line and a mediocre one. The test takes two minutes to set up and Mailchimp handles the rest.

Rather than clicking "Send now," use Mailchimp's scheduling feature. For most course creators, Tuesday through Thursday between 9 and 11 AM in your audience's primary time zone produces the best open rates. Avoid Mondays (inbox overload) and Fridays (people are checked out).

If your launch has a specific enrollment deadline, work backward: send the announcement when enrollment opens, a reminder at the midpoint, and a final reminder 24 hours before close. Scheduling all three in advance lets you focus on engaging with prospects.

Before scheduling, send a test email to yourself and open it on your phone — more than half of all email opens happen on mobile. Check that your call-to-action button is easy to tap, that images load properly, and that the text is readable without zooming. Click every link. Then confirm the schedule and let Mailchimp handle delivery.

Most people write the subject line first and then try to make the email match it. Flip that order. Write the body, figure out the strongest single line — often the transformation or the specific result — and use that as your subject line. The subject line's only job is to get the email opened.

If you've been collecting subscribers for a while, your list includes people at very different stages of awareness. Use Mailchimp's tags or segments to send your launch announcement to the warmest subscribers first — waitlist signups, recent webinar attendees, past students. You can always send a broader announcement later.

Long launch emails don't get read. If someone has to scroll more than once on their phone to find the enrollment button, you've lost most of them. Aim for 150 to 200 words, one image, and one button. Everything else belongs on your sales page.

Mailchimp is built for campaigns — one-time sends to a list. It's not the strongest tool for multi-email automation sequences. If you want to build a drip sequence with conditional logic (send email B only if they didn't open email A), Mailchimp can do it but the automation builder is clunky compared to Kit or ActiveCampaign. For a single launch announcement, Mailchimp is perfectly capable.

Mailchimp's free plan covers up to 500 subscribers and 1,000 sends per month. If your list is larger, you'll need the Essentials plan ($13/month for 500 contacts, scaling up). The free plan also limits you to one audience.