Learning how to market a small business can be hard, especially when you wear many hats. Our customers tell us this all the time, so we look for ways to make it easier for small businesses to do great marketing. In our research and conversations with customers, a theme emerged: It’s hard to identify which marketing tools and techniques match your needs at any specific time.
Some campaigns, like abandoned cart emails, can be set up as soon as you’ve got an online store. But others aren’t worth the effort until later on, like re-engagement automations that send to people who haven’t bought from you in a while. So how do you know what’s worth spending your (very limited) time on?
We realized that small businesses needed a map—something to help them connect with people when it matters, where it matters, and with relevant messaging, so they can turn shoppers into loyal customers.
People rarely discover a company or product and make a purchase immediately. Instead, they follow a less linear path that might include reading the website, deciding whether to buy, sleeping on it, and eventually going back to buy. This meandering route is called the customer journey, and it’s different for every person.
When you reach people with the right information at the right time, you can help them make quicker purchasing decisions. This is where Mailchimp’s Customer Journey Builder comes in. When you click Create Campaign and choose the Explore option, you’ll see all of our most powerful campaigns organized by marketing goals. Pick a campaign in the section that matches your goal, and you’ll be off to a great start.
Let’s walk through the key sections in the customer journey and how automated tools like Mailchimp’s Customer Journey Builder can help.
Connect with new contacts
Once you’ve got people’s attention, show them something interesting to give them a reason to stick around. You can share your writing or behind-the-scenes stories as you add new content to your blog—or send a special message for their birthday. The important thing is to start building a relationship with people as soon as they engage with you.
Sell more stuff
The web is a big place where people can easily get distracted before making a purchase. But there are lots of ways to helpfully remind people. You can send a retargeting email if they leave your site to jog people’s memory of the items they saw, or send an abandoned cart email to remind them of what they intended to buy. When they do purchase, send an order notification with personalized product recommendations to suggest other items they might like. And after they buy, send a product follow-up automation to say thanks, ask for a product review, or recommend other products.
Boost loyalty
It costs a lot less to keep your current customers coming back than it does to find new ones. Use these campaigns to develop relationships with your customers, starting from the first time they buy. Most of these campaigns are automated, making it easy to balance retention with your other marketing efforts. The best customer automation workflow, for example, targets people that meet certain criteria for loyalty or spending. All you have to do is add content and turn it on.
Bring people back
Just because someone hasn’t purchased in a while doesn’t mean they’re not still a valuable customer. Bring customers back to your store with automated emails that entice your customers to re-engage and see what’s new.With marketing automation, there’s nothing to lose when you try.
Automate your marketing. Deliver better emails.
Generate up to 4x more orders with automations from Mailchimp’s Customer Journey Builder (Only available on paid plans. Features and functionality vary by plan).
- Convert more customers at scale
Nurture customers with an always-on presence. Scale and maintain more relevant interactions with messages that are specific to their needs and behaviors. - Discover new ways to automate
Get recommendations on new ways to engage with your audience and quickly implement proven automation strategies specific to your business with pre-built journeys. - Create a connected experience
Integrate data from your favorite apps and web services to capitalize with customers at key moments - no matter how they interact with your business.
*Up to 4X more orders through users' connected stores versus when they used bulk emails. CJB only available on paid plans. Features and functionality vary by plan.
