So far, so good. But here’s the prob: The type and specificity of merge tags vary from ESP to ESP. Plus, who’s got the time to read up page after page of documentation? On average, ESP documentation runs over a hundred to thousand pages. Plus x2, even if you read it all, how many times are you going to switch tabs mid-campaign just to check again?

But then, there are ESP-specific experts like us, specializing in more than 50 ESPs, and always here to help you. 

In this guide, you’ll learn how to use Mailchimp merge tags. 
As Mailchimp pro partners, we have helped many clients over the last 12 years with their Mailchimp requirements. So, let’s tee off! 

How Merge Tags Work in Mailchimp

Mailchimp merge tags are of two types:

1. System Merge Tags: These pull data from your Mailchimp account. They allow you to include elements like RSS content, social sharing links, and account details. Additionally, system merge tags can be used to translate emails and add links for updating profiles, unsubscribing, or forwarding emails.
   
2. Audience Merge Tags: These pull data from your audience records. Audience merge tags enable you to include information such as email addresses, signup form URLs, first and last names, company names, and other audience-specific details.

Each audience field in Mailchimp corresponds to a specific merge tag. When a merge tag is included in an email, it is replaced with the content stored in the respective audience field (ensure all your contact information is uploaded correctly). For example, |FNAME| automatically inserts the recipient’s first name into the email. 

Some merge tags are linked to additional content, such as text or images, via URLs. 

To link an image to a merge tag, use the hyperlink tool found in the editor toolbar to embed the merge tag in the URL. When subscribers click on the linked image, they’re directed to the URL specified by the merge tag. Whenever you send an email containing merge tags, Mailchimp retrieves the latest data from the corresponding audience fields. So, here’s an overview of some commonly used merge tags and their functions:

• *|ARCHIVE|*: Creates a “View in browser” link, directing subscribers to your email campaign page.
  
• *|BRAND:LOGO|*: Inserts a default logo placeholder, useful for custom templates as a substitute for an image URL.
  
• *|MC:TRANSLATE|*: Adds links that let subscribers translate your email into different languages.
  
• *|DATE:X|*: Displays the date in a specified format. Replace X with your desired date format.
  
• *|SURVEY|*: Generates a one-question survey with a set no. of responses for subscribers to select from.
  
• *|FNAME|* and *|LNAME|*: Display the subscriber’s first name and last name, respectively.
  
• *|EMAIL|*: Shows the subscriber’s email address.
  
• *|UNSUB|*: Inserts an unsubscribe link, typically placed in the email footer.
  
• *|FORWARD|*: Adds a “Forward to a friend” link, enabling subscribers to share your email with others.
  
• *|TWITTER:PROFILEURL|*: Includes a link to your X profile in the email.

So much for Mailchimp merge tags in general. Let’s learn how to use the Mailchimp first name merge tag. 

How to Add Name in Mailchimp Email 

To add a name in Mailchimp emails, follow these steps:

• Create a List: Start by ensuring you have a list containing all the required contact information.
  
• Design Your Campaign: Choose to either create a new campaign or edit an existing one.
  
• Select Your Audience: Specify the recipients for your email campaign in the “To:” section, as shown below. 

• Personalize the “Send To” field: You can either choose to include just the first name or the full name of the recipient. 

Next, add Mailchimp merge tags in the subject line.

How to Add Mailchimp Merge Tags in Subject Lines 

You successfully personalized the email in the last section. Follow these steps to add the subject line:

• Define the subject line: Write the subject line and include the appropriate merge tag to personalize it, as shown. 

• Set the Send Time and Edit Email Content: Select the send time for your campaign, and customize the content.
  
• Insert Merge Tags: In the campaign editor, place your cursor where you want the merge tag to appear. You can either type merge tags directly into your email content or choose them from the Merge Tags drop-down menu. You can customize merge tags and define default values. Use the first name tag (|FNAME|), click the “Merge” tab and select the desired tag.
  

Typing Merge Tags Manually: When typing a merge tag directly, ensure it is enclosed within asterisks (*) and pipes (|). Avoid typos, as errors can cause the tag to display incorrectly, leading to a poor user experience. For instance, an email starting with “Hello, |FNAME|” would appear unprofessional if the tag fails to resolve.

Using the Merge Tag Toolbar: To prevent syntax or typing errors, it’s recommended to add merge tags via the Merge Tags menu. Simply click the Merge Tags drop-down in the editor toolbar and select the required tag. 

The screenshot below shows an example from a custom-coded email template editor.

Send a test email to verify that your email content is displaying correctly.

Speaking of testing, how can you test merge tags in Mailchimp? Let’s learn that in our next section. 

How to Test Merge Tags in Mailchimp

Mailchimp has provided us a way to test merge tags. Here are the details of the process. 

• Since merge tags won’t populate in a test email, there is no point in sending one for that. Instead, use Preview mode and toggle on the “Enable live merge tag info” option, and then send a live email to your team.
  
• For testing merge tags on signup forms and response emails, fill up the form, and when you receive the email, check if the merge tags are working properly.

Bear these points in mind while testing Mailchimp merge tags:

1. Check Merge Tag Syntax: Ensure that the merge tags are correctly formatted, with each tag enclosed between an asterisk (*) and a pipe (|). Tags will not render if the syntax is incorrect.
   
2. Verify Case Sensitivity: Merge tags must be written in uppercase letters, as they are case-sensitive. Avoid using lowercase letters to prevent errors. For greater accuracy, it’s best to select merge tags from the Merge Tags menu to minimize human error.
   
3. Review Formatting: Merge tags are style-sensitive; therefore, double-check for unintended formatting, such as italics, bold text, or other errors, that could affect their appearance.
   
4. Send or Schedule: Once you’ve inserted and customized all necessary merge tags, tested their functionality thoroughly, and verified their formatting, send your email or schedule it for a future date. 

For more information, consult Mailchimp’s dedicated resource. 

Conditional Merge Tags in Mailchimp

The secret to dynamic, personalized emails is the conditional merge tag. In Mailchimp, conditional merge tags help you determine “who sees what” in their emails. You set conditions for each subscriber according to which your emails show/hide certain content. 

As an example, Mailchimp illustrates how a wine brand would employ conditional merge tags in their promotional email so that the latter’s content will not be visible to recipients below 21 years of age, in the following way: 

Not to quibble, but Mailchimp’s illustration is faulty in that there should be no subscriber below age 21 on the contact list of a wine brand in the first place, so the question of using conditional merge tags with respect to age does not arise. But you get the point: Conditional merge tags help you achieve dynamic personalization. Feel free to consult Mailchimp’s guide on this. The rest of the scenarios or examples covered there are bang-on. 

Wrapping Up! 

Now that you know how to add and test Mailchimp merge tags, you should be good to go. Keep the best practices and potential misapplications in mind, and your email marketing in Mailchimp is sorted. For more info on all things Mailchimp, visit the blog.

The post How to Use Mailchimp Merge Tags: The Complete Guide appeared first on Email Uplers.

In this guide, we will show you how to create an email template in Salesforce Lightning Experience. Let’s roll!

Looking before Leaping – Limitations of Salesforce Templates

Before we get down to brass tacks, it is important to realize that Salesforce email templates are not perfect. They have the following limitations:

• Depending on your Salesforce account/version, there is a limit to the number of email templates that you can create.
  
• The file size for attachments and images also depends on the Salesforce version.
  
• The Salesforce version determines the number of merge fields you can use for every email template.
  
• The platform edition specifies the character limit in the email body, subject line, and so on.
  
• HTML templates in Salesforce may come with certain formatting limitations in the interest of improving security.
  
• In terms of email design, Salesforce offers customization options; however, do consult dedicated design platforms if you need to create highly complex email templates.
  
• Because of innate limitations in displaying dynamic content, you cannot enable advanced personalization in Salesforce. 

The point of listing these limitations is to restrain marketers from going overboard with their ambitions when it comes to implementing email marketing in Salesforce. You need to adapt your strategy to the ecosystem in order to achieve the desired results. 

With that in mind, let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of creating email templates in Salesforce Lightning Experience. 

Steps to Enable Salesforce Lightning Email Templates

For the benefit of all kinds of Salesforce users, we are starting from scratch. If you feel you don’t need to know how to enable Lightning email templates, feel free to skip this section. 

Enabling Lightning templates is a twofold process. First, let’s learn how to enable Template Folder sharing so that multiple users can share templates among themselves. This initial step lays the groundwork for effortlessly creating and utilizing reusable email templates within Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

1. Template Folder Sharing in Salesforce

Log in to your Salesforce account and follow these steps:

• Navigate to Setup and enter Lightning Email Templates in the search box. (Since we are using Lightning Experience, you need to click the gear symbol in the upper-right corner. )
  
• Now, toggle on the Folders and Enhanced Sharing option (see below image)

2. Enabling Content Builder in Salesforce

In order to enable Content Builder, follow these very simple steps. 

• Search Permissions in the search box. Create a new Permission Set, as shown below.

• Navigate to System Permissions toward the bottom of the screen.

• Choose Access drag-and-drop content builder. Then, click Save.

Creating Email Templates in Salesforce Lightning

We’re finally here! Go through the following steps to create email templates in Salesforce Lightning Experience. 

• Navigate to the App Launcher and find Templates in the menu, as shown below. 

• Choose Email Templates. Click New Email Template toward the upper-right corner of the screen. You should see the following dialog box.

• Fill in the relevant fields as shown above. Once completed, click Save.
  
• You should see the Edit in Builder option, as shown in the following screenshot. If you don’t see the option, it means that the new setting is yet to be updated. 

• Click Edit in Builder. You should see the Template Builder, as shown in the screenshot below. This is where all the action takes place.

• In our last section, we showed you how to enable the Content Builder. The left-hand side of the Email Template builder consists of all the drag-and-drop components. On the right, you can edit the details of each component. 

(If you are using Salesforce Sandbox, you might not be able to view the Edit in Builder option. We recommend not creating a new Permission Set in the Sandbox. Instead, choose from the pre-built Permission Set labels and then navigate to System Permissions.)

You are now ready to create your first email template in Salesforce Lightning Experience. Once you are done with your template, just click Save on the upper-right corner, and you’re all set!

Salesforce-recommended Best Practices for Email Marketing

You now know how to create an email template in Salesforce. But, without a strategic scaffolding to support your marketing vision, you couldn’t leverage email to the hilt. 

We’re in Salesforce territory. So, it’s best if we hear what constitutes a successful email campaign from the team itself. Edna Tan, Senior Analyst at Salesforce, identifies a quadrilateral schema (see below) of email marketing success, which includes the following elements:

1. Relevance and Empathy: Tan recommends email marketers to be hands-on with “what’s happening in the world.” This will allow you to empathize with customers, adapt to their needs, and engage appropriately. 
2. Segmentation: You must understand your target audience and segment your list to send highly targeted, relevant content. 
3. Personalization: For Tan, true personalization “goes further than segmentation.” It involves kneading customer data to deliver personalized email experiences. 
4. Execution: Tan insists on the significance of the review process for flawless execution. The build of every email, in terms of content and design, needs the “review and approval of key stakeholders.”

Chris Munro, Marketing Automation & Data Senior Analyst at Salesforce, draws attention to the importance of “strong branding” in email marketing. 

“… when an email lands in your inbox, it has the same look and feel as the brand’s store or website,” says Chris. “One of the reasons I find this so effective is because it immediately tells me who the brand is and I can just get straight into the content.” 

Basically, Chris is here talking about brand consistency – a very important step toward providing customers a unified experience, and reinforcing trust. 

Now that you are familiar with email templates in Salesforce, you might be tempted to go whole hog right away, and start building complex email journeys. However, as Tan and Chris remind us, over time, multiple complex journeys become too hard to manage. 

The wiser approach would be to plan a comprehensive email journey and then break it up into smaller journeys. “For example, start with a welcome email. Then, add to the journey as you go, rather than trying to build ten emails at once,” suggests Tan. 

Wrapping Up!

We covered a lot of ground in a short space. You now have both the plan and tools at your disposal to create your first email template in Salesforce Lightning. 

If you are a Salesforce rookie, you might have some trouble navigating the platform. But don’t worry! It’s well worth the time and effort. As a marketer, you want to be able to create visually engaging emails with ease. For a comprehensive guide to mastering Salesforce Marketing Cloud, we’re here to support you every step of the way.

The post How to Create Email Templates in Salesforce Lightning Experience appeared first on Email Uplers.

This is important to realize in order to prevent encumbering the word “dynamic” with a vague, general association. Sending the right message to the right people without manually changing the content of every email – that’s the whole schmear of dynamic emails. 

In this guide, we will learn how to create and utilize dynamic content in Constant Contact. Each platform has its own peculiar air. Success depends on the extent to which you can understand and master the platform. To that end, let’s first try to capture a 360-degree view of Constant Contact so that you don’t run into any shockers later. 

Constant Contact: Pros And Cons

The following table highlights the pros and cons of using Constant Contact for email marketing. 

A word on the last con: if you are a business with a large contact list or are planning to expand your list over time, Constant Contact may not be the guardian angel you’re kneeling for.

Plus, the platform offers limited automation options in its entry-level plan; in fact, you can only automate your welcome campaigns. For more automation features, you must graduate to the mid-tier and top-tier plans. So, make sure to keep these things in mind while signing up. 

Dynamic Email in Constant Contact: A Bird’s-Eye View

We will get down to brass tacks in our next section. It is important first to understand the general schema of dynamic emails. This includes the following events:

• Gather contact data via signup forms or web analytics to implement personalization. Organize this data into segments. Tell your clients how you plan to utilize all this data.
  
• Add contact attributes so that you can group your recipients/subscribers. Attributes could be anything from age and location to frequency of purchase, CLV, etc.
  
• Create your dynamic content and integrate it into the platform. Constant Contact allows you to add dynamic subject lines, links, images, CTA buttons, etc.
  
• Add your dynamic email to automation workflows. For instance, you can add your new dynamic email to a welcome email workflow. 

The following flowchart captures an aerial view of dynamic email in Constant Contact. 

Dynamic Email Creation in Constant Contact (Old Editor)

We now come to the technical core. So, in order to tailor messages to individual recipients/subscribers, you need to create rules. Dynamic content rules will determine what content a recipient/subscriber will see. You will create rules depending on the information you have on a particular recipient in the CRM instance. 

• Log in to your Constant Contact account. Click Create or Edit Email.
  
• On the left toolbar, you should see a lightning-bolt symbol, which is the Dynamic Content option. Click it.
  
• Now click Add rule group, as shown in the following image. 

• On clicking Add rule group, you should see a pop-up window. Click +Add.
  
• Name your rule. Choose the segment for which you want to enforce the rule.
  
• Click Create and Add Dynamic Content Rule to This Email, as shown below.

• You can now add rules for every segment that you create. Click Save once you’re done.

Dynamic Content in Constant Contact (New Editor)

In this section, we will learn how to create a dynamic content block in Constant Contact (new editor). So first, log in to your account and then:

• Go to Marketing Campaigns. Select Email in the dropdown menu, as shown below. 

• You can either create a new email or choose to edit an existing template. We chose the following Christmas template as our example. And this is also how the email editor looks.

• To add dynamic content, select the content block you want to make dynamic by clicking the lightbulb symbol. You should see the following pop-up window.

• Slide the toggle on. Complete the fields. Click Save.

• You should see the selected content block within a dotted capture as shown below. Only clients in New York will be able to see the content inside the dotted line. The rest of the content will be visible to all recipients/subscribers.

Editing Dynamic Content Block in Constant Contact 

Editing a dynamic content block is very simple. Go to the relevant block and click the lightbulb symbol. 

The pop-up window will appear as usual. You can then modify the fields accordingly, as shown in the following video. We changed Clients in New York to Clients in Amsterdam. 

Removing Dynamic Content Block in Constant Contact

If you want to remove the dynamic option from a content block, simply click the lightbulb and slide the toggle off. Click Save. That’s all! Follow the live action below.

A Few Things to Keep in Mind

Add flesh to your email campaigns while keeping the following Contact-recommended points in mind:

• To maximize the potential of dynamic content, you must go beyond your contacts’ first names and email addresses. Collect as much data as you can.
  
• While entering criteria, make sure “it appears exactly as it appears in your contact’s profile.” Otherwise, the system will not register it, and the dynamic content will not show.
  
• Add a default content block along with the dynamic block so that it is visible to all such recipients who don’t qualify for the criteria you defined.
  
• Your test email will not display dynamic content blocks with custom fields. The test version will only show the dynamic content according to the details in your own account.

Wrapping Up!

Dynamic emails stand at the forefront of personalization. Whether you have a long contact list or not, you will want to leverage dynamic emails to showcase your commitment as a brand to the likes and dislikes of your subscribers. 

When you get right down to it, all marketing is essentially human-to-human (H2H) marketing. Dynamic emails are your best bet relative to reflecting this universal principle.  

The post Geek Guide: Streamlining Email Creation with Constant Contact’s Dynamic Content Approach appeared first on Email Uplers.

In this guide, we will show you how to create a Klaviyo dynamic email in the context of the following models: 

• How to add “First-name” personalization in Klaviyo
  
• How to build dynamic blocks in a cart abandonment email
  
• How to add dynamic images to an email
  
• How to dynamically show/hide template blocks in Klaviyo

To begin with, let’s explore how to implement “first-name” personalization in Klaviyo.  

Inserting First Name Property into Emails

Follow these steps to add a variable that will dynamically populate a recipient’s first name. (Note that the process is the same for messages and push notifications.)

• Log in to your Klaviyo account. Open an email.
  
• Click Add Personalization in the text block, as shown below. 

• Select First Name from the list. Then, click Insert. 

On clicking Insert, you should see this tag: {{ first_name|default:’there’ }}.
On sending the email, the tag will be replaced with the concerned recipient’s first name. 

Note that Klaviyo also offers you the option to customize the first name variable. Next, we will see how to implement Klaviyo dynamic content. 

Building Dynamic Blocks in A Flow Email 

In this section, we will learn how to create a dynamic block for a cart abandonment reminder email. First, create your flow by following these steps:

• In the Klaviyo dashboard, go to the Flows tab on the left and click Create Flow.
  
• Click Create from Scratch. Enter a name for your flow and click Create Flow.
  
• Click Metric under Trigger setup. For a cart abandonment email, we will use the Checkout Started event, as shown in the following screenshot. 

• Click Done, and drag and drop an Email Action into the flow. 

Having created a flow from scratch, in the following steps, we show how you add a dynamic table to the email block you added to your flow:

• Click Configure Content, then click Drag and Drop, and choose a template.
  
• Now, drag a table block to the email template. Note that, at this point, the table is static.
  
• Convert the table into a dynamic block by navigating to Table Settings.
  
• Select Dynamic. Your table is now a dynamic block. 

Next, we will identify the row collection and select a row alias. First, you need to find the name of your array. (In Klaviyo, a list is a data type that contains an array of values):

• Click Preview and Test in the upper right corner of the Klaviyo dashboard.
  
• Click Event. Select the Checkout Started event.
  
• Now, go over the Preview data and find out the relevant array, as shown below. 

For this example, the two arrays are Items and line_items, as shown below. The Items array lists the name of each item, whereas the line_items includes additional details about a particular item, such as name, image URL, price, vendor, stock-keeping unit, etc. 

Now, you choose a row alias. The point of using a row alias is to identify variables that need to be pulled from your arrays. In the present example, the dynamic table block lists the items in the customer’s abandoned cart. Accordingly, you can use the “item” alias. 

You want to choose an alias that is simple, descriptive, and easy to remember. That done, we will now add dynamic product details. Follow these steps to add the product title:

• Go to one of the table’s columns and paste this event variable: {{ event.extra.line_items.0.title }}
  
• Convert the above event variable to this: {{ item.title }}. So, you are basically replacing the text used for the Row Collection with the newly-created alias.
  
• Preview the email to check if the title of the item displays correctly. 

Similarly, you can add product URL variables, currency variables, and so on. 

Adding A Dynamic Image in An Email

With the help of dynamic images, you can customize emails for each recipient on the basis of their profile data stored within Klaviyo or their event data. For leveraging Klaviyo integrations First, you need to store dynamic image information in Klaviyo, after which you can add it through the following steps:

• Open the email template where you want to add the dynamic image.
  
• Now click Preview and Test. You should see something like the following. Click Search for a Profile if you have stored the image as a custom property, or Click Event if the image variable is stored within an event’s data.  

• Copy your tag, and drag an image block to the email template.
  
• Click Browse, and select Dynamic Image. Now paste the tag you copied in the last step into the Dynamic variable or Dynamic URL field, as shown below. 

• Click Save. As always, preview your email to see if the tag is working fine. 

Displaying or Hiding Template Blocks

In this section, we will learn how to show template blocks only to a certain number of email recipients. There are two ways of implementing this: through profile data and through event data. First, let’s see how to implement it with the help of a recipient’s profile data. 

We will apply conditional logic to show or hide template blocks:

• Select the Add Personalization option.
  
• Choose an option from the dropdown to add it to the text block in the template.
  
• Now, choose the variable name from within the tag. In the following example, the complete tag is {{ person|lookup:”Likes Promotion”|default:”” }. But the variable name is person|lookup:”Likes Promotion.” You must choose the variable name, not the full tag, to use in your condition. 

Now, we will implement the same conditional logic with the help of event data. Follow these steps:

• Go to the template editor. Click Preview and Test.
  
• Click Event under Preview Data Source. Select the event from the dropdown menu that will trigger the email.
  
• In the Event Properties dropdown, find the data you’d like to include.
  
• Click the Property name, copy the tag, and paste it into the text block of the template.
  
• Extract the variable from the tag to use it for your condition, as shown in the following Klaviyo email example. 

Wrapping Up!

Personalization is one of the defining aspects of email marketing. Klaviyo’s dynamic email features help you send the right message to the right people at scale. 

Navigating Klaviyo is not particularly difficult. The platform is easy to use and intuitive. Designed exclusively for e-commerce retailers, Klaviyo is ideal for building personalized email campaigns for your audience base. 

The post Expert Guide: Creating Dynamic Emails in Klaviyo appeared first on Email Uplers.

The key is to provide relevant information and resources at just the right time without bombarding your leads with too many emails or calls. The ultimate aim is to create a positive and memorable email journey that builds strong, lasting relationships with your audience.

With HubSpot email workflows, you can meticulously plan your campaigns targeting specific groups or industries and personalize your marketing efforts to guide leads through their buying journey with the help of content that speaks directly to their needs.

Lead Nurturing: The First Principles

Before we turn the technical cheek, let us first understand what lead nurturing is. Lead nurturing is the process of encouraging and persuading prospects to buy. This is the broader goal of managed email campaigns; lead nurturing is specifically about this. 

Evidently, it is a time-taking process since you are seeking to build a relationship with your audience. You can’t hurry that. You are not primarily trying to sell. It’s an important point that many marketers tend to overlook. 

You are not generating demand but seeking to animate a “latent demand.” Your prospects are already interested in your brand. They are already in the funnel. Your job is to stimulate their interest, moving them through the stages of the buying cycle. 

Understanding The Nurturing Process

First and foremost, lead nurturing is not email communication as such. Instead, it is a workflow or a sequence of communications where every step has a clearly defined objective. 

You determine the objective based on what action you desire the lead to take according to what stage they are in. An effective lead nurturing process will include the following:

• Segmentation: Nurturing requires nuanced communication. Segmentation ensures that your content resonates with the recipient. 

(Importantly, you need not limit the nurturing process to leads only. You could also nurture one-time customers and gradually absorb them into the funnel.)

• Contact Profiling: You need to gather as much information you can about your leads in order to communicate with them on their terms. You may tune up the email frequency in the case of a new customer or when someone has shown some interest in your brand.
  
• Personalization: Personalization is indispensable to lead nurturing. Send the right content to the right lead at the right stage at the right time. In every communication, you must aim to answer a specific question or resolve a doubt.
  
• Progressive Profiling: With every offer you make, you ask for a bit of additional information from the contact — this is known as progressive profiling. 

For instance, the first offer could be a gated blog post where you can ask for the contact’s email address. Your next offer could be a detailed case study in exchange for which you can request more granular information, and so on. 

Now let’s take a brief look at lead nurturing best practices in our next section. 

Lead Nurturing Best Practices

Much of what constitutes lead nurturing is “learning as you go.” Because it is a gradual process, you need to adapt your strategies according to how your prospects engage with your content. No goal is final, and you may have to make adjustments frequently. 

Suppose you want to design a welcome campaign for ten new subscribers. The second email in the welcome program may introduce your products and services. So you need to send the same information about the same products/services to all ten subscribers. 

Now, as the subscribers engage with your offered solutions, you need to keep tabs on how each of the ten is interacting with your brand. Capture the digital body language of your new subscribers, and identify those who are actively signaling intent. 

The first 30 days of engagement is crucial. After this, your contacts may not be as willing to share information. Utilize the 30-day window to the max. Implement progressive profiling during this period. In this regard, feel free to use HubSpot’s automated email workflows to gather necessary information from maximally engaging contacts.

What about those who are not showing interest in your content? No, you don’t ignore them right away. Rather, transfer the dormant contacts to a re-engagement program. Now this workflow will help you determine if you should keep these contacts in your database. 

In another scenario, contacts who did show intent might suddenly not decide to engage further. It’s a real possibility that the most engaged leads will not end up making a purchase. In that case, you need to re-incorporate them into the nurture workflow. 

One important point: as a lead turtles down the sales funnel, remember to exclude them from the nurture workflow. You don’t want to send automated welcome emails to those who are ready to make a purchase! 

The next step is to measure the effectiveness of your lead nurturing campaign. Track the right metrics as per your goals. If your goal is to speed up the sales process, measure the number of days it takes for leads to traverse the funnel. 

The entire process is about you actively making necessary modifications according to changes in customer behavior. 

HubSpot Email Workflow Examples

Now we come to the practical part of lead nurturing. In this section, we will look at four HubSpot workflow examples. Let’s start with a re-engagement nurture flow. 

1. Educational Or Content Drip Nurture Flow

The Educational or Content Drip Nurture Flow takes a more subtle approach. It’s a systematic, automated strategy that delivers valuable content gradually to leads over a set timeframe. 

This means that Instead of overwhelming them, this approach provides a personalized and digestible learning experience, keeping leads engaged and boosting conversion potential. By gauging lead interest and engagement, you can focus on prospects with the most potential, establishing your brand as a thought leader in your industry/niche.

Here we have used the trigger as anyone who filled out any form published on our website. You can change it as you need. 

2. Trial Or Demo Nurture Flow

A Trial or Demo Nurture Flow is a strategic sequence of interactions designed to guide trial or demo users toward becoming paying customers. It emphasizes showcasing the value, features, and benefits of your product or service to optimize conversion opportunities. 

A well-designed Trial or Demo Nurture Flow plays a key role in the customer acquisition process, ensuring a positive user experience and optimizing conversion opportunities.

Those who have filled out the trial form will be added to the active list and is used as a trigger for the below HubSpot workflow example.

3 Promotional Nurture Flow

A Promotional Nurture Flow is a focused marketing approach that encourages leads to make a purchase or take a specific action. By strategically delivering promotions and exclusive offers, this flow guides leads through the funnel, turning potential customers into paying ones.

It aligns marketing efforts with sales goals, creating a win-win for businesses and leads.

In our final example, we have compiled an active list of leads we intend to target for the promotional campaign. 

To identify those who have shown interest in the promotional email, we have implemented a click condition. Our email includes a single click that redirects the recipient to the required landing page. Based on their response, recipients either receive further emails or do not. Those who have shown interest are further added to a separate list.

Note: Adjust the lead nurturing flow above according to your business goals, target audience, and buyer funnel. Choose the type of nurture campaign that aligns with your business goals, the buyer’s journey, and the characteristics of your target audience.

4. Re-engagement Nurture Flow

The Re-engagement Nurture Flow is all about rekindling the spark with contacts who’ve grown distant. It’s a targeted email strategy designed to bring back those who are slipping away, thereby keeping your email list robust and active. 

This approach not only renews connections but helps in segregating the uninterested contacts, ensuring cleaner data and more focused targeting in the future.

In the example below, we have used an active list as the trigger. The active list consists of contacts who need to be re-engaged based on our requirements. In the flow, whoever opens any email gets added to a static list, which we will nurture further. Those who don’t receive an email will receive another email, and so on.

Wrapping Up!

Lead nurturing is an integral part of email marketing. It takes time, but if implemented to a T, you can convert leads to paying, even long-lasting, customers. 

The post Explained: How to Use HubSpot Workflows for Your Lead Nurturing Campaigns appeared first on Email Uplers.

An excellent means of driving urgency by generating the feeling of FOMO (fear of missing out), countdown timers are a simple yet elegant solution to fetch greater clicks and engagement during high-traffic periods. A recent study states that emails containing a countdown timer yield almost twice as much revenue per recipient as compared to ones that don’t have one. And the best part? It doesn’t take much work to create one, either! Particularly if you happen to be a Mailchimp user. As a platform, Mailchimp warrants no introduction. From building pixel-perfect emails from scratch to setting up complex automation workflows in a hassle-free manner, Mailchimp’s virtually endless capabilities help several email marketers out there breathe easy. Not least among them is the ability to build an effective countdown timer for your campaigns, which is precisely what we aim to discuss today.

In this blog, we will shed light on the process of creating a countdown timer in Mailchimp, touching on its use cases and some best practices in the process. Eager to get started, let’s go!

Merits of Adding a Countdown Timer

Before we learn how to make a countdown timer, let us take a look at some of its benefits. 

• As mentioned earlier, countdown timers are great at creating a sense of urgency, which ultimately nudges the customer into taking action. 
• When you add a ticking clock against your best-selling products, it makes them appear more scarce, thereby enhancing their desirability in the eyes of your buyers. Countdown timers, thus, allow you to capitalize on the psychology of your buyers and shoot up your conversions.
• By adding a countdown timer, you essentially announce a deadline against your offer. Subsequently, this prompts buyers to avail of it as soon as possible, empowering your email campaigns to drive far greater clicks and overall engagement than usual. 
•  Don’t be under the impression that because countdown timers create urgency, they must be causing your buyers to go frantic; on the contrary, countdown timers help streamline their decision-making process. How? Since they communicate the time period of the offer’s validity well in advance, it gives customers the scope to plan and prepare for it efficiently.
• Extending beyond their functionality, countdown timers exist as a visual component in your template; one must never lose sight of this. If curated mindfully, they can really amp up the visual appeal of your email, compensating for the lack of other elements such as images, illustrations, GIFs, and animation. 
• Wish to build hype around a particular product or service? Get the job done with countdown timers! Build anticipation in your audience’s mind for an upcoming launch, sale, or event, and get the whole town talking about it!

Types of Countdown Timers

There are two types of timers:

1. GIF Timers

A GIF timer doesn’t count down in real time but rather, as the name suggests, is simply a looped animation of one. Since they are extremely straightforward to create, a lot of brands opt for this route. However, because they are nothing but an imitation of an actual timer, they may fail to have the same impact and generate the same sense of urgency that an actual timer would. So, to ensure that your subscribers buy into this illusion, you must look to fortify other elements of your template, namely its copy and design language; this way, your readers won’t singularly fixate on the GIF timer and treat it as a regular one. Another problem that these timers bring to the table is that they restart from the first frame every time the email is opened. This, as you can already envision, can cause a great deal of confusion for your customers. An effective way to combat this lies in creating longer GIFs, ones that keep ticking for about 2-3 minutes before starting over again. Despite the limitations of GIF timers, many marketers prefer them because, unlike their counterparts, HTML timers (which we talk about next) don’t carry the risk of getting flagged by email clients. That said, they must evaluate which email clients offer support to GIFs to reduce the margin of error. 

2. HTML Timers

Contrary to GIF timers, HTML timers count down in real-time and are, hence, more effective. And you need not possess any coding knowledge to create one; there are multiple tools available online that you can utilize for the same (You are advised to entrust this task to an experienced coder, however, to obtain a timer that lives perfectly up to your expectations). In spite of scoring full points on the authenticity front, HTML timers aren’t without their pitfalls, either. For starters, they can be pretty expensive to develop. Then, should there be any bugs in the code, your timer runs the risk of being flagged by spam filters, eventually dealing a blow to your sender reputation. 

How Can You Create a Countdown Timer in Mailchimp?

You can either integrate a countdown timer created externally with Mailchimp or develop your own inside the platform as well. We talk about both methods in this section. 

Method 1:

1. Select a platform where you want to create the countdown timer. Here, we are choosing NiftyImages.

2. Go to https://ux.niftyimages.com/, signup, and create an image.

3. Select the Countdown Timer option under Create New Image. 

4. Choose from the given prebuilt options or upload your own countdown time.

5. Customize the timer as per your requirements.

6. Define a name and save the timer.

Method 2:

1. Go to your Mailchimp Account and create a new campaign in Mailchimp.

2. Click the Design Email button.

3. Select Classic Builder to integrate the countdown timer in your Mailchimp email template. If you select New Builder, then the ‘Code’ content block option will not reflect in the editor.

4. Drag the block into the template and paste the code below in the section’s HTML editor.

<div class=”mcnImage”>

<center>

<img

src=”Enter your Timer image URL here” style=”width:100%; height:auto;”>

</center>

</div>

5. This will be reflected as shown below:

Understanding Countdown Timer Use Cases

A countdown timer can be used on myriad occasions. Let’s take a look at some.

• New product launch: Want your subscribers awaiting the launch of a new product with bated breath? You’ll find few better ways of realizing this than by sending an email with a countdown timer. 
• Upcoming sale: Build excitement around an approaching sale by attaching a timer next to your much sought-after offerings, leaving your buyers with no choice but to populate their shopping carts. 
• Event registration: Including a countdown timer in the announcement email of an upcoming event is a surefire way of dialing up the number of registrations it’ll receive.
• Discount voucher redemption: Nudge your subscribers into making a purchase by offering them a discount coupon and ensure they redeem it by inserting a timer that counts down to said coupon’s expiration date. 
• Early access: Offering early access to loyal subscribers is a great way to strengthen your bond with them. Who doesn’t love being part of an exclusive club, after all? But how long should they wait before the doors guarding this early access open up for them? No better way of communicating this to them than through a countdown timer.
• Abandoned carts: A subscriber has left certain items in their cart unattended and bounced off. You don’t want that. Perhaps they didn’t mean for that to happen either; who knows? So, you pop them a reminder, telling them that you have safeguarded their items, but only for the time being. As soon as all the digits on the countdown timer, which you have added, of course, touch zero, the iron-clad guarantee that you offered them shall cease to exist. 

Best Practices to Keep in Mind While Creating Countdown Timers

• This will probably sound very obvious, but we’ll state it nonetheless- label your timers clearly: days, hours, minutes, and seconds, all designated neatly, leaving nothing up to assumptions. 
• Be mindful of the placement of your countdown timer. While most brands choose to position it right at the very top to maximize its visibility and to create an instant impact on the reader, you can feel free to play around as per the composition of your template.
• Choose such a color palette for your timer that it contrasts strongly with the rest of the email; the aim is to make it as conspicuous as possible. 
• Make sure your CTA button and timer are in close proximity to one another; they are supposed to function in tandem. The urgency manufactured by the timer in the mind of the buyer will find an outlet in the CTA button. 
• Keep a post-countdown message handy. There’s a good chance that not all your subscribers will be able to engage with your countdown timer campaigns. In the emails you design after the digits hit zero, substitute your timer with a compelling copy that both, tells the buyer what they missed availing of during the countdown period and what they stand to lose if they keep delaying further. 
• Always A/B test your timers before sending them out. This will allow you to curate them in a way that is sure to register well with your subscribers.

Wrapping It Up

From capturing the attention of readers to amplifying conversions, the utility of countdown timers, particularly during high-traffic periods, is invaluable. And thanks to Mailchimp, creating one that ticks all the right boxes is incredibly hassle-free. Got any savvy countdown timer tips for us? Let us know in the comments!

The post Countdown Timer in Mailchimp- How to Create One and Things to Keep in Mind! appeared first on Email Uplers.