Mailchimp Automation
You’ve heard the buzz and read the stats: Mailchimp automation is king when it comes to increasing leads by up to 80%.1 In fact, automation is the tool that allows you to make sales in your sleep!
We’re here to tell you it’s all true— Mailchimp automation is the key to a successful email campaign. And we’re going to explain how it can grow your business exponentially.
What Is Mailchimp Automation?
Email automation, sales funnels, marketing funnels, drip campaigns… These are all synonymous with the best-kept secret in email marketing. Simply put, Mailchimp automation is a tool that allows you to create email campaigns that reach the right people at the right time—without personally having to do the work every time. You can eliminate repetitive tasks and focus on other parts of your business. Imagine that!
An automated campaign can be a single message or a series of messages that target current or prospective customers based on behavior, preferences, or previous sales. These automated campaigns can be so powerful that some companies never send monthly email campaigns. (You’ll want to talk to an experienced professional to see if that’s possible for your business.)
When Should You Use Mailchimp Automation?
Before you start creating a bunch of automated email campaigns, you need to strategize the best way to meet your business goals. That includes connecting with new customers, selling more, and creating a two-way trust relationship. You may find that a single automated campaign will lead to success—or you may want to set up multiple touch points, depending on your business.
Here are some examples of when you can use Mailchimp automation
New Customer Onboarding
When a new customer signs up for your email list, create a welcome message or a whole series of emails showcasing your products and services, pricing, and customer service.
Sales Series
You’ve had a great initial discovery meeting, assessment, or consultation. What next? Create a sales series to follow up with prospective customers. Then give them the opportunity to take the next step with calls to action.
Abandoned Cart Messages
If you’re an online retailer, what happens when a shopper puts something in their cart… and then exits? With an automated abandoned cart campaign, you can remind your customer to return and complete the purchase.
Survey or Testimonial Request
Create a message that’s delivered 4-6 weeks after a purchase or service is rendered. Use a survey or testimonial request to get their feedback.
Special Occasions
Send personalized (but automated!) messages to your customers on their birthday, anniversary, or another important occasion. You may even include a special discount code as your gift to them.
Personal Product Recommendations
If a customer buys this, they may be interested in that. And now you can tell them all about it automatically!
These are just a few of MANY ways you can put the power of Mailchimp automation to work for you and build a stronger relationship with your customers.
The Results Are In…
What kind of results can you expect once you implement Mailchimp automation? Automated emails generate 320% more revenue than non-automated emails.2 See what happens when you reach the right customer at the right time? Magic! Additionally, 77% of email ROI comes from segmented, targeted, and triggered (ahem, automated) campaigns. So if you’re just sending monthly or random emails to your customers, you’re missing out… big time.
Mailchimp Automation Success Stories
While general stats are compelling, real-world success stories truly show you what Mailchimp automation can do for your business. Let’s take a closer look at how automation took these businesses from status quo to booming:
This furniture company immediately increased sales and customer engagement using the best-kept secret in email marketing. They implemented 17 value-added automation messages for each customers first year to balance the promotional emails we were getting.
A pet services company adds 14,000 new customers to their email list every month—and sends them into a 5-message automated series of flawless emails. Each email helps the pet owner understand different parts of PetHub’s service.
These leaders in the PLC industry now have more sales and more time to focus on other parts of their business. (It doesn’t hurt that they’re enjoying open rates as high as 87% and click-through rates as high as 20%!)
Needless to say, we could go on and on about Mailchimp automation’s impact on businesses. (And we have. Read more success stories here.)
Mailchimp Automation Best Practices
Before you start building email automation in Mailchimp, you should keep these expert tips in mind:
- Understand your customer’s journey. Customers need different information depending on which phase of the journey they are in. New customers need to be onboarded. Current customers need to be thanked. Old customers need to be reminded you exist. Automate accordingly.
- Identify specific and achievable business goals. What do you hope to achieve through Mailchimp automation? Start by collecting data about your current marketing efforts so you have a benchmark to measure your progress. You may also want to research successful email marketing automation campaigns to get ideas.
- Decide how you want to segment your audience. As we mentioned, sending automated campaigns to the right people at the right time is what creates success. Who are these people? Understanding your customer base is imperative. Once you do that, you’ll know how to group them together into segments.
- Create a flowchart. Automation is a case of if-then scenarios. You’ll need to decide when you want customers to enter your workflow or email series. For example, if your customer has a birthday, then you want to send them a 10% discount. Or, if your prospective customer just signed up for your email list, then you want to send them a welcome email or through an onboarding series. Think through the scenarios before you set up triggers for sending the emails.
- Test everything. A/B or multivariate testing are excellent Mailchimp automation tools that will help you create the right messaging. If one of your emails isn’t performing as well as you think it should, try a different subject line, send time, or image. Keep track of how your campaigns are doing to figure out how to improve.
Need Help?
If this is more than you or your team can take on, our team of Mailchimp experts is here for you. With over 20 years of email marketing and Mailchimp automation experience, we can identify the best uses of email marketing services to meet your business goals.
Set up a free 20-minute consultation today, and let’s get the conversation started.
2 According to Campaign Monitor
