6 Tips to get the most of Mailchimp

Are you already a Mailchimp user? Or just curious about its services? At Gretel, we are actually using it, and we have been discovering various features with interesting tips that could be useful for small businesses to get the most out of what Mailchimp offers. So, let’s get into it! 🧐

First, let’s introduce Mailchimp to the ones that haven’t used it yet: Mailchimp is an email and marketing automation platform. Mailchimp simplifies email marketing by allowing marketers to control mailing lists, design unique email templates, nurture leads, and automate entire marketing campaigns.

To help you get the best out of Mailchimp, we've compiled our best advice based on our own experience. We hope you enjoy it and that you can start using some of these tips to your benefit!

1st TIP: Using A/B testing, identify your best practices.

We all understand the value of testing in marketing, so using A/B testing when developing campaigns is essential. In order to make our content relevant to our target audience, tests enable us to pinpoint best practices and to choose the most effective choice.

You can perform A/B testing with Mailchimp on the campaign's subject lines, content, images, CTAs, names, and sending times. You can decide the percentage of the target that will be included in the test, as well as how long the test will last. Afterward, based on the parameters you set before starting the test, the remaining members of the target will receive the successful version.

Keep in mind that each test should only test one thing in order to obtain accurate results. You can compare the results of these tests to learn what appeals to and what repels your audience.

Additionally, it's recommended to have a target audience of at least 5,000 contacts in order to conduct a test and obtain meaningful results, but as a small company, we tend to work with up to 1,000 contacts, and we have been able to detect some best practices.

This is a function only available for premium subscribers, but you can manually do two lists and test on two emails.

2nd TIP: Use the send time optimization feature. ⏳

Oh, we love that one! Mailchimp has a tool that analyzes your subscribers' click history to see when they’re typically the most engaged in your campaigns. From this information, the Send Time Optimization feature is able to calculate the time when subscribers are most likely to interact with your campaigns. With this, you can interact with your database more successfully and capture contacts' interest during peak email attention periods.

You will be able to send the email at the right time of the day! But, remember that in order to configure it, you need to program the email the previous day.

Also, if you want to find the day of the week that works best, you can try to send emails manually on different days of the week, or you can rely on general studies and send emails on Tuesday: here is one interesting study.

3rd TIP: Implement email templates.

Unless you are comfortable with editing code and CSS, which generally marketers are not, or paying hundreds of dollars to get a custom template designed, Mailchimp gives you a drag-and-drop editor to build your email template and create cool templates to use.

By using a template, you can focus your efforts on the content rather than the layout. Other benefits can be:

• Align your email image with the corporate brand. 🧡
• Personalize the message easily.
• Reduce the errors.
• Strengthen your message.
• Focus on creating the best content!

4th TIP: Always preview your email on the phone. 📱

Did you know that most of your subscribers will use a mobile device to open your emails? It's critical to check whether your email is mobile-friendly or not by using Mailchimp's Preview feature. In fact, we collected some really interesting mobile email statistics:

• 85% of users use smartphones to access email (Adobe). And, for those aged 25-34, that rate is even higher, at 90%.
• 47% of consumers use a mobile application for checking their email. (Campaign Monitor).
• Mobile accounted for 42% of all email opens in 2019. (Litmus).
• Mobile email statistics reveal that there are about 6.64 billion smartphone users worldwide or around 83.72% of the global population.

Whether you work for a B2B (business to business) or a B2C (business to consumer) company, you need to be focused on designing your content for both computers and mobile devices, as the statistics show.

5th TIP: Automate your campaigns.

This is what all marketers love 🙌🏼: spending less time on monotonous tasks by automating actions, such as campaigns.

If you need to send an email every time someone fills out a form or watches a video, the best thing you can do is automate this action.

Let’s go deeper into the steps to effectively automate your campaigns:

1. Identifying your primary triggers—the behaviors that your audience performs and repeats—should be your first step. This can involve downloading files, filling out forms, viewing videos, going to specific websites or landing pages, etc.
2. Finding out if we will have enough targets to automate the campaign. Automating involves monitoring results, making adjustments, and being aware that your campaign has been successful. As a result, you must create automations that you can manage on a regular basis and that affect a sufficient number of individuals.
3. Specify the automation's objective. To make it simpler to specify the pieces that must be sent after an action, the primary purpose must be established before specifying the content of the email. Goals may include reading additional material, watching a video, or making a purchase.
4. Make tests and brainstorm content elements. Although A/B testing is generally not supported by platforms on automation, it is a fantastic area to test in order to gain insights to enhance your emails. You can create paths to force a manual test on a certain target.
5. Check your outcomes and make improvements. As was previously stated, always keep an eye on your performance, and don't be afraid to turn off any automation that isn't working correctly.

6th TIP: Run a reactivation email campaign.

The health of your database includes identifying the contacts that haven’t been interacting with your emails or your website for a long time.

There are various types of prospects in every business, including dormant or inactive clients, non-converting prospects, and current clients. We need to reactivate, re-engage, or retain each of these groups.

In general, acquisition campaigns are more expensive than reactivation campaigns, but in order to engage someone who has already heard about us and shown no interest, we must execute them exceptionally well.

This is where marketing innovation really shines. Have a fun brainstorming session and think outside the box to discover the best ways to create content that your database adores! Additionally, if they are not your target audience, they may never be a good fit for you. Be sure to treat them as a different audience so you do not waste time trying to make poor contact.

We hope you find these different Mailchimp tips useful, so you can maximize the efforts you are putting into email marketing campaigns!

If you have any questions or thoughts to add to enhance these tips, feel free to reach out to us directly.

Check our article with Tips to become a Notion Pro.