How To Use MailChimp Email Marketing with Squarespace Websites

Email Marketing For Home Design & Construction Companies

It may sound complex but email marketing workflows are easy with MailChimp and a Squarespace website. It no longer takes a computer science degree to structure an automated series of email contacts with segmentation and logic. Marketing automation eliminates the need to write and design custom email newsletters every month saving you time and money.

What Are Email Workflows?

Email Workflows are a seemingly contradictory but effective blend of automation and personalization. They allow you to define a set of variables, based on existing customer information, which trigger automatic electronic communication based on actions (or inaction) from your leads. Email workflows aren’t a lead generation tool, but they’re an exceptional way to guide leads through the middle of your sales funnel, whether it’s sending them an email with more product information after they spend time or your site or simply thanking them for a recent purchase. If your sales staff is currently overwhelmed with the number of leads in your system (this is a great problem to have, by the way), email workflows may be the perfect solution.

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Using MailChimps Email Marketing Automation Features

MailChimp is one of the most popular email workflow services with a broad range of customization options available. You can send out welcome emails to new customers, create an ongoing campaign of personalized emails, or even provide detailed product recommendations based on browsing or purchasing history. Enjoy full control over the workflow, specifying whether one website visit warrants an automated email follow-up, or if you should wait for two or three visits before checking in with a customer. MailChimp features extend to options like relative or absolute date schedules: Send an email seven days after sign-up (a relative schedule), or use an exact date, like a birthday or anniversary, around which to schedule emails in the weeks or days leading up to the event.

Learn More About Our Squarespace and MailChimp Services

Squarespace has integrated MailChimp services into its website builder platform (learn more). We’re going to show you how to maximize the value of this pairing and the steps you can take with your Squarespace management tools to develop a consistent email workflow strategy that makes use of data on both sides.

Connecting Your MailChimp and Squarespace Accounts

In Squarespace, you can integrate MailChimp through the Form Block, Newsletter Block and RSS to Email Campaign. This takes advantage of actions taken on your Squarespace page and relays that information directly to your MailChimp account, where associated triggers can help you automatically stay in touch with everyone from new leads to your best clients.

Squarespace Form Blocks

Connecting your Squarespace Form Block to MailChimp will add form submission information to the mailing list to your MailChimp account. To set up this feature, first go to the Storage tab in your Form Block settings. Then, choose the MailChimp button to connect the form to your MailChimp account. Before it can connect, you will need to log in with a MailChimp username and password. You’ll also need to choose which list in MailChimp you want to use to connect with the form in Squarespace.

There are a couple of important notes related to this procedure. For one, you will need to create the targeted list in MailChimp before connecting your account. Also, while required fields can be set up in the Squarespace Form Block, MailChimp does not support required fields. Although this is unlikely to be an issue for most forms, MailChimp cannot handle forms with more than 31 items.

Squarespace Newsletter Blocks

Squarespace Newsletter Blocks allow you to get visitors to sign-up for a newsletter, email list, or other digital publication. To connect your Newsletter Block to your MailChimp account, you’ll follow a similar procedure as the one for connecting your Form Block. You can add both a description (what they’ll receive) and disclaimer (how you’ll protect their information) for your Newsletter Block. MailChimp uses a double opt-in process that will require any visitor to confirm a subscription to your electronic publication. This is a best-practice technique for adding subscribers and winnows your email list to those most interested in staying in touch with your company. It helps maintain the balance between lead quantity and lead quality.

You can also set up your newsletter to go to customers who choose to join the mailing list during a purchase from your site. This may not be applicable for most design and construction firms but for interior designers, adding a shopping cart for home decor items can increase the pages on your website and help your site get found in search engines. To do this, choose the Commerce icon in your Site Manager. This will lead you to the Commerce Manager. There, select Store Settings and, under the Newsletter Field, connect to your MailChimp account. As before, you’ll need to log in with your username and password and choose the MailChimp list to which to add your customers. The result will be a simple check box that will appear within the checkout form for your visitors.

MailChimp RSS to Email Campaigns

The RSS to Email Campaign feature will send automated emails to your Web visitors on lists in your MailChimp account. You can set some variables, including when to send emails after new content appears on your RSS feed, from the frequency (each day or week) to the time of day (even the time zone). You can also exclude specific days of the week if you want to avoid, for instance, filling up an inbox over the weekend. Although existing blog posts are not sent out upon campaign creation, new blog posts are added automatically to your campaign.

For first-time users, MailChimp offers a full supply of predetermined email workflows that will help get your campaign off the ground. From there, you’ll enjoy near infinite personalization that helps you to refine your email workflow over time. And while email workflows can’t solve every marketing problem, they can vastly improve the quality of information your leads receive, which in turn will yield more interest and if executed correctly, more sales.

With integration between your Squarespace site and MailChimp, you’ll remove one more step, one more barrier between various aspects of your digital presence. Once customer information is transferred and workflows established, you’ll be able to focus more on developing great content and products.

Additional Articles on MailChimp and Blogging On Squarespace

• MailChimp Tags Enable You To Manage Your Email Marketing Contacts

• The Pros and Cons of The Squarespace Email Campaigns System

• How To Write A Blog: 8 Components That Improve Blogging Results

• Advertising On Facebook and Instagram Using MailChimp

• Email Marketing: 20 Deliverability Terms and Definitions

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About Michael Conway and Means-of-Production

If you need a Squarespace website with a MailChimp email marketing system, look no further. We provide marketing solutions for architects, interior designers, design-build contractors and landscape design firms. Our marketing systems attract clients with exceptional website design and copywriting that gets your firm found online. Contact me for a free-of-charge website and marketing review. we will send you a 15 minute video and a list of actionable improvements that will to overcome common marketing issues. Click here for more information and to sign up for this free review.