How To Use Squarespace and MailChimp For Automated Email Marketing

Squarespace has taken the lead on providing easy integration with MailChimp.

Selling home design and improvement services can take months between the point of contact till sale. Automated email marketing like MailChimp will keep your firm top-of-mind and nurture your prospects during that period. Building a website on Squarespace makes email integration easy. 

If you're an architect, interior designer design-build contractor or landscape designer, setting up your Squarespace website with an automated email marketing with MailChimp is the best lead to sales conversion tool you have. Learn More.

Some of the most challenging aspects of running a functional inbound marketing campaign relate to integration. You may have all the best digital marketing software available, but if those various tools, scattered through software, databases, and Web portals, can’t actually communicate with one another, you’re left with two less than ideal situations. Either you resign yourself to the limited integration of your tools, or you spend countless hours transferring data from one to the other.

That’s why, when you’re searching for an email service provider, it helps to know that it integrates with the forms on your website. Squarespace has taken the lead on providing easy integration to its customers for several third-party services, including MailChimp. With Squarespace, you can quickly and easily integrate the data you get from your Squarespace visitors by automatically transferring it to your lists in MailChimp. This kind of integration is important:

• It streamlines your business processes and connects the pieces of the puzzle securely and efficiently. As anyone who has spent time in digital marketing knows, many of these tools and services become truly powerful only after they’ve been integrated.

• No website, social media platform, or email marketing service can function at a high level until it shares information and collaborates with your other marketing arms.

Take a detailed look at how to set up an automated emails on MailChimp, and then how to connect that campaign with different sign up forms on your Squarespace account.

Designing an Email Workflow with MailChimp

Automated workflows are all about making communication more efficient for leads in the heart of your sales funnel. A great workflow doesn’t generate leads, and it may not close the sale, but it’s the ideal solution for a lead-heavy business that’s enduring a “leaky” funnel. MailChimp automation keeps leads on track by providing personalized, targeted messages to just the right leads at just the right time.

Email campaigns build on themselves. If you set up a core workflow with say, a dozen emails sent progressively over time after an initial action, you need to make sure that most of your leads will take that action. Otherwise, if your workflow depends on an action that only half your leads are making, the other half are missing out on the entirety of the workflow. Likewise, once a workflow begins flowing, you cannot alter your list, the workflow type, or the email order. This is because you already have active subscribers in the email queue. You do retain the options of deleting an entire workflow or emails.

While there is no limit to the length (i.e. number of emails) of a workflow, pay-as-you-go plans from MailChimp charge per email sent to a lead, including test emails. It’s one more reason to spend time designing the most efficient workflow possible, and monitoring its achievements over time to maximize your return on investment.

First, go to the Automation page, then click "Create Automation Workflow"

A drop-down menu will prompt you to select which list you plan to use for your workflow. (You can segment recipients in your list at a later stage.) You can then choose the type of workflow you want to create, like a welcome message workflow. If the workflow you wish to use is grayed out, that’s because your list doesn’t meet certain requirements for that type of workflow.

The rest of the setup process allows you to choose tracking options (like how often you want to receive a report about your workflow) and fill out Workflow Configuration fields. These are the universal settings applied to every email in the workflow; more specific settings for individual emails will be changed later.

The Trigger step is one of the most important parts of creating your new workflow

Default workflow types are connected to default triggers, but you can also establish custom triggers, which may require you to enter more information. If you plan to import subscribers from a CSV file, you can choose whether their addition to the list will act as a trigger, or whether they should be excluded from the workflow.

Under the Build Workflow heading, select Add Segmentation Conditions

This will allow you to segment your list based on a range of user-defined conditions. This step will allow you to design and add new emails, as well as to organize them within your workflow and set when each email should be sent.

To start the process, click “Add Email.”

(Some workflows have default options that allow you to design a recommended number of bulk emails simultaneously.)

Choose "Design Email" to get started.

You’ll be prompted to name your email, add a subject line, and a return name and email address. If you use automation merge tags in your subject line, it will automatically show the position of the email within a given workflow. You can then reorder your emails, and the merge tag will follow them to the new position. A merge tag will allow you to add the recipient's name. (The same is true for merge tags used in the content of the email.) MailChimp offers several email templates to choose from for the body of your email.

Set Your Workflow Timeline

Determining the workflow timeline revolves around two date concepts: absolute and relative.
Absolute-date events or triggers are items like birthdays, and you can schedule emails to go out in the weeks or days before such events. Relative-date events are actions like sign-ups, which can occur on any day and have a flexible workflow that starts after the action trigger.

Finally, confirm your workflow design (or choose Resolve or Edit to alter it), and then choose Start Workflow.

Connecting your Squarespace Blog to Mailchimp

You can connect your newly created workflow to three aspects within Squarespace: the Form Block, Newsletter Block, or RSS to Email Campaign. Connecting a Squarespace Form Block to MailChimp allows MailChimp to start a workflow whenever someone fills out a form on your site. To connect the two services, go to the Storage tab in the Form Block Settings. Next, click the MailChimp button to connect your MailChimp account with Squarespace. You’ll be prompted to log-in to your MailChimp account with your username and password. Then, you’ll need to choose an existing list as the destination for information sent through the form.

While Form Blocks are perfect for adding new leads through form submissions, Newsletter Blocks are the Squarespace component that signs up visitors for your e-newsletter or other electronic publication. The process of connecting a Newsletter Block in Squarespace to your MailChimp account is nearly identical to that for the Form Block. You have added options to provide a description and disclaimer for visitors signing up for your newsletter. All Newsletter signups through MailChimp use a double opt-in process.

An RSS to Email Campaign sends automated updates about new blog articles in your RSS feed to subscribers in your MailChimp account. After connecting the two accounts, you can establish the timing for sending out emails related to new information from your RSS feed.

The Bottom Line on MailChimp & Squarespace

(This is literally last line in the article) Digital marketing tools are powerful. But what they offer individually is far more valuable collectively. Take the time to connect your Squarespace forms to your MailChimp account and watch your inbound marketing campaign grow exponentially.

Email Marketing Tips From a MailChimp and Squarespace Designer

• 7 Time-Saving Interior Design Marketing Automation Tips

• Email Marketing | Send Home Remodeling Blog Articles With Almost No Effort

• How To Keep An Email Marketing List Fresh: Don't Get Blacklisted

• The Pros and Cons of The Squarespace Email Campaigns System

• Using MailChimp For Direct Mail Postcard Marketing Campaigns

• What is Automated Email Marketing and How Can It Help My Business

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About Michael Conway and Means-of-Production

My firm builds Squarespace websites and inbound marketing solutions for commercial and residential design and construction firms. We work for architects, interior designers, design-build contractors and landscape design firms. Contact me for a free-of-charge consultation and marketing review. It takes about 40 minutes and you'll be provided a list of actionable improvements designed to help you achieve your specific website design and marketing goals.