Using MailChimp Automation to Build Customer Sales

When you’re looking to make a first sale on automation, there are a few key items to consider. Taking a lead or email address and moving them to sale may seem logical, but does it yield more results than driving leads to content with embedded sales options?

We’ve found that it’s typical to obtain sales with a low price, thus reducing the price barrier, but only following a successful lead magnet campaign.

If the potential customer has no idea what they signed up for in the first place, why would they buy it?

This tripwire or splinter project, as it is called, works effortlessly with MailChimp’s automation services to help seal the deal on the sale. Boom!

There are really only three ways to grow a business:

  • Increase the number of customers
  • Increase the average transaction value per customer
  • Increase the number of transactions per customer

Legendary marketer Jay Abraham touts that Customer Value Optimization (CVO) is the way to grow a business – regardless of size or status. The first thing to cross off the company checklist on the way to CVO is to define the following: What are the sales goals and actions that make our business healthier? Being on the same page with the same expectations limits the potential for error and miscommunication.

What is splintering anyway?

Product Splintering is the process of breaking off bits and pieces of your core product and selling them a la carte. By splintering a core offer, companies are able to promote to the same list of leads without making the same old offer.

Examples of product splintering include:

  • A web designer that sells logos
  • A dentist that sells teeth whitening at dead cost
  • A roofer that offers gutter cleaning
  • A website hosting service that sells website templates
  • A lawn care service that offers to fertilise off-season at dead cost

By changing up the “front-end” product, businesses can keep their marketing fresh and go back to the same list selling the exact same “back-end” product month after month without burning out their entire list. Splintering existing products, services, or promotional opportunities allows your business the potential to make more sales from the leads and prospects you already have.

Develop a workflow – or several

Did you know that B2B marketers who implement marketing automation increase their sales pipeline contribution by an average of 10% according to a report by Forrester? Email automation can not only help you convert leads into customers, but it can also help you delight your existing customers and encourage activity like greater product adoption, upsells, evangelism, and additional purchases.

What you need first is a workflow – or several. Setting up an email workflow via MailChimp is easy peasy. The program allows you to set up email workflows based on any information you have about the contacts in your marketing database, such a page views, email or social media clicks, content downloads, contact properties, or any combination of these and more.

Examples of email marketing automation include topic workflows, blog subscriber welcome workflows, new customer welcome/training workflows, engaged contact/evangelical workflows, lead nurturing workflows, internal sales rep workflows, re-engagement workflows, event workflows, abandoned shopping cart workflows, upsell workflows, customer satisfaction workflows, upcoming purchase reminder workflows, or customer success workflows. Details on all of these 13 workflow examples are located here.

What should be automated?

There are 12 sales processes that every sales team should automate. Why spend time on the small tasks when you have bigger fish to fry? Here are our top picks for automation (not necessarily in this order):

  1. Drafting Email Templates
  2. Dialing Leads for follow up
  3. Leaving Voicemail
  4. Taking Notes
  5. Call Logging
  6. Matching Leads with Reps
  7. Dialing from Local Numbers
  8. Creating Follow-Up Tasks for leads and customers
  9. Selecting Relevant Content for customers and leads
  10. Delivering Call Scripts/Talking Points
  11. Creating Tailored Slide Presentations
  12. Providing Reps with Contextual Prospect Data

Using MailChimp Automation

MailChimp offers its own collection of preset Automation workflows to make it easy to find the right workflow for your business in just a few clicks. Once selected, use MailChimp’s intuitive drag and drop editor to design elegant, effective emails that are consistent with your other marketing communications.

MailChimp integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, and many of the other apps and web services companies use every day. Connect your store to track visitors to your website and capture order information, then send workflows based on purchase history and behaviour. Or, use Goal to automatically email subscribers who navigate to your website or online store from your email.

Make a powerful first impression. Set up a single automated email or an onboarding series to show customers, students, or volunteers everything you have to offer. Or, simply extend a warm welcome to new subscribers.

Automation workflows in MailChimp also allow businesses to send customers special instructions or product recommendations tailored to their purchases from your store. Nurture lasting relationships and reward your top spenders by sending coupons and discounts triggered automatically by their shopping behaviour. If a cart is abandoned, MailChimp’s automation workflow will gently remind them to finish shopping and checkout.

MailChimp offers goal integration to email customers who navigate from your campaign to a specific page on your website. It also allows your business to convert interested subscribers into customers by sending relevant information based on what they viewed on your site.

MailChimp’s extensive, built-in reporting features track customer engagement and conversions so you can monitor your performance. Quickly analyse aggregate statistics like open and click rates for your entire automated series with our workflow reports. View individual reports for each email in the series for insight into your customers’ e-commerce conversions, geolocation, and more.

There are three price points for MailChimp automation. They are: Starting Up (free), Growing Business ($25/month), and Pro Marketer (up to $35/month). Features vary, but implementation is quick and easy. Find out more about MailChimp automation by clicking here.

Takeaway

 

Mike Killen

Mike is the world's #1 sales coach for marketing funnel builders. He helps funnel builders sell marketing funnels to their customers. He is the author of From Single To Scale; How single-person, small and micro-businesses can scale their business to profit. You can find him on Twitter @mike_killen.