How to Increase Profits With Mailchimp Ecommerce Integration

One of the most exciting aspects of using Mailchimp is its integration capabilities. When you sync the email marketing tool with your ecommerce solution, you create a unified platform drawing upon the same datasets and working towards the same goals.

Your email marketing becomes more streamlined, and targeting becomes easier. And you should boost your revenue through ecommerce sales too.

But how does this Mailchimp ecommerce integration work, and how can you drive increased profits by joining the solutions? Discover more in our article.

Setting up Mailchimp ecommerce integration

To leverage the benefits of Mailchimp ecommerce integration, you first need to connect your ecommerce solution with Mailchimp. If you haven’t done so already, set up your Mailchimp account. You can integrate your ecommerce store with both the free and premium versions of the platform.

With the account now set up, you can integrate the two solutions. 

Mailchimp supports integration with all popular ecommerce software and solutions.

Each solution integrates with Mailchimp in its way via the Mailchimp API key. Log in to your ecommerce platform and use the menu to add the integration. Follow the steps to complete the process.

Creating and segmenting your email list

You won’t just send the same emails to your entire customer base. Instead, you must tailor and personalize communications according to your audience segments.

• Think about behaviors and demographics – How will you segment your email subscribers? Consider the behaviors and demographics of each set of subscribers. One segment may fit a specific age range and income level. Another segment may be made up of irregular purchasers, while a third segment may be made up of long-term subscribers.

• Start with a simple structure – Keep it simple at first. Start with a few core segments; you can always build on this basic structure in the future.

• Add tags and labels for new subscribers – Whenever you bring in new subscribers, add tags and labels, so you know which segment they belong to. This will make organization easier.

• Decide on email types and content themes – Each segment requires its tailored email content. Think about the needs of each segment and what you want the customer to do next.

With a well-thought-out segmentation system, you will develop sets of broadly similar leads and customers. Over time, you’ll be able to hone these sets, using data to achieve increasingly effective email marketing.

Designing and sending effective email campaigns

Launching an email campaign is easy, but making sure this campaign is effective may be trickier. 

Take a look at these best practices:

• Stay on brand – Your marketing email design and messaging must be true to your brand. Your recipients need to know it’s you.

• Lead with a strong subject – The subject line of your email is key to making sure the email gets opened, so spend time on getting this right.

• Get personal – Use your recipients’ names, and use your name too. Turn the communication into a personal conversation.

• Mix things with visuals – Add charts and images to make emails more engaging.

• Get to the point – Your audience is busy, so ensure your emails are concise and impactful.

• Design for different devices – Many emails will be opened on mobile and tablet devices, so use a responsive design that always looks its best.

• Show the recipient what to do next – Your emails exist within a step-by-step funnel, so what should your contacts do after they’ve read it? Let them know with a clear call to action.

As you develop your campaign, you’ll notice that lots of your leads don’t even open your emails, and only a few will convert. The aim is to improve your strategy in the long term, optimizing those numbers in your favor.

Automating email campaigns to drive conversions

The ability to automate aspects of your strategy is a big part of what makes Mailchimp integration so important.

Make sure to check the following conditions:

• Set specific email triggers – Automation allows you to send emails at precisely the right time. To leverage this, set specific trigger events for emails. For instance, you may want to automatically send a welcome email when someone signs up for your mailing list or a reminder when someone abandons their shopping cart.

• Create sophisticated automation flows – You may want to send several automated emails. The first email might be a welcome message, followed by helpful advice on setting up their new account. Build on this initial flow as you nurture users with automation.

• Draft preset emails for different purposes – Many other occasions warrant an automated email. A thank you for purchasing a product or signing up for a subscription, for example, or emails to win back customers who have churned. You can draft emails ahead of time for various triggers and then send them automatically.

Remember, automation is your friend. By automating the right parts of your email marketing, you’ll save significant amounts of time, effort, and money.

Analyzing performance and adjusting your strategy

Use analytics to stay on top of how your strategy is performing. This insight will also give you an idea of how to adjust and improve your approach and achieve stronger connections with your Mailchimp audience.

Track the following metrics:

• How many people are opening your email?
• How many of your audience members are opening your emails?
• How many sales, signups, and other actions are resulting from emails?
• How many emails are bouncing back?
• How many people are unsubscribing from your mailing list?
• How are these figures changing over time?

A/B testing is another good idea. This will allow you to compare and contrast how different elements of your strategy are performing. Try this with your subject line – launch the same email with two different subject lines and discover which works best for you.

Creating abandoned cart email campaigns to recover lost sales

An abandoned cart can be frustrating. Your lead was close to converting, yet something got in the way. A timely email can help steer them back in the right direction.

• Act quickly – Use automation to deliver quick responses when someone abandons their cart, preferably within a few minutes of the event.

• Be personal – Mention your subscriber by name in the email subject and the body content. Introduce yourself, even if you are using an automated response, and list the items they left in their cart.

• Offer an easy route back – Include a button that brings subscribers back to their cart in a single click. Make life as easy as possible for your lead.

• Think about what went wrong – Consider why the cart was abandoned in the first place. Was the page too confusing, were the items not properly described, or was there another issue? Put any problems right to avoid this issue in the future.

You don’t need to fret about abandoned carts. Simply using the above measures can help you win back some of those customers who drifted away before they converted.

Upselling and cross-selling products through email marketing

Upselling and cross-selling are similar practices, but there are differences. Upselling involves encouraging the customer to choose a more expensive product, while cross-selling refers to selling complementary products along with the main purchase.

Both of these can be achieved through email marketing:

• Focus on relevant value – Make sure you are offering products your customers want and need. Your audience might not take kindly to being told to spend more money for no reason, so think about products that provide genuine value.

• Don’t overwhelm – Don’t go overboard with upselling and cross-selling emails. Provide your customers with offers to keep products top of mind, but don’t send these emails every day.

• Test and analyze – Experiment with different email frequencies, selling opportunities, and other aspects of your campaign. Use the A/B method discussed above to understand what is working best. Upselling and cross-selling can be a delicate science, so it’s worth taking the time to perfect it.

Enhancing the value of each purchase, even by a little bit, can result in significant revenue increases. Remember to maintain a balanced approach, and don’t drive your customers away with too many emails.

Personalizing email campaigns to improve engagement

We’ve already touched on personalization as a critical aspect of your digital marketing strategy. But how do you get the best out of this more personal approach?

• Use names where possible – Use your lead’s name in the introduction to your body content and in the subject, too, when possible. Use your name as well and establish more personal communication.

• Demonstrate knowledge – Show your knowledge of the customer. “Because you bought ‘Product A’ last week, we thought you might like to know…” This interaction is far better than a generic “Hello, Customer, check out our special offers.”

• Hone your segments – The more detail you can feed into your segments, the stronger they become. As these segments grow more detailed and targeted, you can add more levels of personalization with confidence.

• Provide opportunities for connection – Offer contact details so users can contact your human personnel if needed. Don’t send out ‘no response’ emails to your mailing lists.

A personal touch is generally best, but you must get this right. These best practices should help you develop stronger relationships with leads and customers.

Integrating with other marketing channels to maximize impact

You can integrate Mailchimp with various supported platforms using the solution’s API keys. This means you can benefit from multi-channel marketing, achieving a more comprehensive connection with your users.

Understanding cross-channel marketing

Cross-channel marketing is simply any two marketing channels combined. When you send an email with a link to your website landing page, this is an example of cross-channel marketing.

More sophisticated forms might include several channels – perhaps email, social media, and landing pages, along with QR codes deployed in posters, flyers, and other physical media.

Getting the best out of Mailchimp and cross-channel marketing

Integrate Mailchimp with your content management system, gathering email addresses from pop-up forms to add to your campaigns. Include social media share buttons, landing page links, and other cross-channel connections in the body of your emails.

Remember to keep the desired call to action nice and clear for your user. This way, they’ll know exactly what they need to do next. 

Leveraging data insights to improve email marketing strategy

Data helps you gain a more complete view of your email marketing strategy. By drawing upon quantitative data from specific lists and qualitative data from your Mailchimp subscribers, you can learn more about your database of leads and how to market to them.

For example, let’s say you have a Mailchimp list of subscribers who joined through a double opt-in solution. Immediately, you know this list contains highly engaged leads, as they opted into your subscribers list twice. Examining the data further can give you insight into why they are highly involved, and it can even help you discover what they want to access from your business.

A constant program of gathering and assessing data is vital to the success of your Mailchimp integrations, as this data gives your strategy a strong foundation of insight.

Using Mailchimp’s ecommerce analytics to track and optimize performance

Mailchimp integrations are great, but, in fact, the solution already has some great features built-in. For instance, you can use analytics to track your campaigns directly from the Mailchimp solution.

Here are a few of the things you can track within Mailchimp itself.

• Open rates: the proportion of emails that gain clicks and get opened.

• Click-through rates: of those opened emails, how many are driving clicks through to your landing pages?

• Conversion rate: the promotion of users who convert to customers.

• Direct revenue generation: the revenue that comes directly from your email marketing campaigns.

All of this gives you more insight into the success of your email marketing program, helping you understand the return on investment that emails provide.

Get the best from Mailchimp ecommerce integration 

When you create a connection between Mailchimp and your ecommerce solution, you unify both platforms. Including Mailchimp links that go directly from marketing emails to your landing pages and getting notifications from email opens and clicks can help you oversee the effectiveness of your email marketing.

But actual integration goes far beyond this. Integrating Mailchimp with your ecommerce platform gives you a data-driven route to increased revenue and better profits in the long term.