Q1: How to move forward and measuree your results?

A1: As with everything else in marketing, it’s important to regularly evaluate how your workflow automations are doing. Are your drip campaigns getting results? If not, what steps aren’t performing?

If everything’s working great, how can you keep it working for you going forward?

The best way to answer these questions is by identifying key performance indicators (KPIs), such as:

Open and click-through rates
Conversion rates
Average order value
Customer lifetime value
Campaign ROI
The campaign you design will depend on the specific process you’ve automated. Choose a separate one for each process, then keep a close eye on what the numbers do. You’ll be amazed at how much more you can do with the same resources and time.

Q2: What are Workflow in Mailchimp?

A2: Automated workflows are essentially flowcharts, so they’re best created in a visual format. Many automation programs, including Mailchimp’s marketing automation feature, let you build out your workflow using a drag-and-drop tool. It’s easy and hands-on, and you can edit it as you go.

Just set up the trigger and the triggered action. Then, think about what the contact could potentially do in response. What are your triggers going to be, and what will they launch within your system? Play around with it until it looks right. Remember, you can always change it later based on results.

Q3: What are Drip Campaigns?

A3: Drip campaigns
One of the most useful automation methods in marketing is the drip campaign. A drip campaign lets you set up specific messages to go out in a set sequence, based on an event or an audience member’s interaction.

Here’s how it works. A contact interacts with your brand in some way, such as:

Signing up for your mailing list
Placing an online order
Contacting your customer care department
Not buying for a while
This action triggers the first email in the drip campaign to go out automatically. Ideally, the email will include personalization with the contact’s name and a reference to the action they took. Their response (or nonresponse) to that initial email triggers the next step in the process.

Say the campaign is a promotional one for a class of products that the person browsed, and the first email offers savings on that product. If they view the email but don’t buy, they might get a similar promotional offer in a month. If they don’t open the email, they might get a “we miss you” email in 8 weeks. If they buy, they go into another drip campaign altogether.

The beauty of this process is that it’s all automated. No one has to spend time deciding whether to follow up with a contact or which message to send. No one even has to schedule an email send—it all happens based on a trigger.