Migrate from Honcho CRM to Mailchimp

Honcho Contact records export via the built-in Report Builder as CSV rows. We parse each row, normalize email addresses (lowercase, validate MX record), standardize phone numbers to E.164 format, and load into Mailchimp's Members API endpoint using email address as the upsert key. Standard fields (first name, last name, email, phone, address components) map to Mailchimp's corresponding merge field or native Member property. Required fields for Mailchimp Member creation are email_address and status. We map Honcho contact status (Active, Inactive) to Mailchimp status (subscribed, unsubscribed) based on a status mapping defined during scoping.

Honcho Lead records with email addresses map to Mailchimp Members using the same upsert logic as Contacts. Leads without email addresses are flagged in the reconciliation report since Mailchimp requires an email_address for Member creation. We preserve Honcho lead source and lead status as merge fields (LEAD_SOURCE, LEAD_STATUS) rather than dropping them.

Honcho Company records store organization data (company name, domain, address) that may not attach directly to a Mailchimp Member since a Member represents a person, not an organization. We resolve the Company-Contact relationship by matching the Company domain to the email domain on Contact records, then attach the company name as a merge field COMPANY_NAME and the company domain as COMPANY_DOMAIN on the Member. If a Contact has no associated Company, those fields remain empty.

Honcho Deal records have no Mailchimp equivalent. Mailchimp does not have an Opportunity, Deal, or Pipeline object. We extract deal value (if numeric), deal owner email, deal close date, and deal stage name from the Deal export and attach these as custom merge fields on the related Member (DEAL_VALUE, DEAL_CLOSE_DATE). Pipeline stage name migrates as a Tag. The full Deal record—including associated line items, products, and monetary fields beyond deal value—does not migrate. This is a significant data loss point that we document explicitly in the scope.

Honcho pipeline stage names (e.g., 'Qualified Lead', 'Demo Scheduled', 'Proposal Sent', 'Closed Won') export from the pipeline configuration. We create Mailchimp Tags using a Pipeline:StageName naming convention (e.g., Pipeline:Closed Won) so that multiple Honcho pipelines do not create tag namespace collisions in Mailchimp. Tags enable audience segmentation in Mailchimp but do not replicate the visual drag-and-drop pipeline view. If Honcho has multiple pipelines, we create a second tag level (PipelineName:StageName) for disambiguation.

Honcho custom fields on contacts and leads export as additional columns in the CSV. We map each custom field to a Mailchimp Merge Field using a naming convention (UDF_OriginalFieldName) that preserves the original field name. Field type handling: text fields map to Mailchimp text merge fields (255-character limit enforced during import); date fields map to Mailchimp date merge fields; number fields map to number merge fields; checkbox or multi-select fields map to Mailchimp radio or dropdown merge fields. Any custom field value exceeding 255 characters is truncated and flagged in the reconciliation report.

Honcho User records (sales reps) associated with Deals and Contacts export with an email address. We attach the owner or assigned user's email as a merge field OWNER_EMAIL on the related Member. This preserves the owner attribution from Honcho but does not create a User object in Mailchimp since Mailchimp has no user management equivalent to Honcho's seat-based access control.

Honcho Deal Timeline entries (call logs, email summaries, meeting notes, task completions) export as activity rows with a deal ID, timestamp, action description, and outcome. Since Mailchimp has no timeline or activity object, we flatten each timeline entry into a formatted text block and attach it as a Note on the related Member via the Mailchimp Notes API. Timeline entries are sorted chronologically and prefixed with the timestamp so the sequence is preserved. Activity entries without a resolvable contact email are flagged in the reconciliation report.