Do you use various software tools, like an accounting package, CRM or eCommerce platform, to help you run your business? Of course you do. It’s almost impossible to run a business without these tools.
You probably have a lot of information about your customers sitting in those tools, information like name, email, location, gender, purchase history, and possibly even more. Today’s consumer is well aware that companies collect their data, and most expect brands to use this data to serve the customers well.
Imagine what you could do if that data was available in your email service provider (ESP), and the results you’d get from being able to segment your subscriber list and send them hyper-relevant campaigns.
Well, you don’t have to imagine any longer! We’re going to show you how to do exactly that.
Plus, we’ll also show you why integrating your apps is crucial to today’s email marketing success, teach you some of the advanced email campaigns you could be sending, and give you the tools you need to make it happen.
Email is one of the most effective marketing channels around today.
In fact, according to a recent study by VentureBeat, email has the highest ROI of any marketing channel, beating out social media, paid search, TV, radio, etc.
However, your organization’s success with email marketing largely depends on the quality and depth of data in your email lists.
If you have a lot of old subscribers and very little data about them, then chances are your ROI will be a lot lower than if you had up-to-date lists and comprehensive information about each subscriber.
But how can you make sure your lists are always up to date? And how can you ensure you have in-depth data about each of your subscribers ready to use in your campaigns?
The answer to both of these questions is integration, as it’s likely you already have the information you need in your other business apps.
For eCommerce companies, that data might live in your chosen eCommerce platform. Or for sales and service-based businesses, that data might exist in your CRM or accounting tool.
By integrating these tools with your ESP, that data can be automatically available to help you segment your lists, insert dynamic content into emails, or even trigger automated email campaigns to customers.
All of this makes for more relevant and appealing campaigns that ultimately drive more revenue for your business.
Now that you understand the importance of integration, let’s take a look at what can actually be integrated:
If you run an online store, then chances are most of your customer data is located in your chosen eCommerce platform, including the customer’s name, email address, gender, purchase history, and more.
This data can be used to segment your lists and send highly relevant campaigns, so making it available in your email marketing tool is a great step towards driving more revenue from email marketing.
Here’s some inspiration for campaigns you could send if you integrated your eCommerce platform and your email marketing software:
Showing customer reviews on your website is a proven way to increase conversions. In fact, research from Bazaarvoice shows products with reviews have a 10% higher conversion rate than those without.
By integrating your eCommerce platform with your email marketing tool, you can set up automated email campaigns that get sent to customers after purchase to request they leave reviews on your site.
Segment your audience by demographic information such as gender, location, etc. to send highly-relevant campaigns that aim for 1:1 personalization.
Got a new sale or promotion coming up? Rather than sending your offer to your entire list, you should segment your list (by gender, location or whatever is most relevant to the promotion) and send the campaign to only those subscribers you know will be interested.
By integrating your email tool and eCommerce platform, the data you need to perform this segmentation will be ready and waiting for you.
If you send a regular newsletter, you’ll know it’s a powerful driver of traffic and sales. However, the key to success with a newsletter is making sure the content is relevant to each and every individual subscriber.
Once you’ve integrated your email tool and eCommerce platform, you can use dynamic content to show different content to different subscribers based on what you know about them (I.e. showing men’s clothing to males and women’s clothing to females).
A birthday is an exciting time for anyone, and also a time in which people treat themselves a little more than they normally do.
By integrating your eCommerce platform with your email tool, you can setup automatic birthday emails that go out to your customers with a special offer or discount for their birthday. This little surprise in their inbox keeps your customers happy while driving them to your store to make a purchase.
If your business has salespeople driving new customer acquisition, then chances are there is a wealth of information in your CRM system that could be used to fuel targeted email marketing campaigns that help you convert leads into customers.
By integrating your CRM and email marketing tool, you can:
According to research, over 50% of leads generated are qualified but not yet ready to buy. By integrating your CRM and email marketing tool, you can set up a series of automated lead nurturing emails that go out to these prospects to educate them on how your product can benefit them, nurturing them through the buying cycle until they are ready to be closed by your sales representatives.
Sometimes a prospect might need a special offer or a certain piece of information to get them to convert.
By integrating your CRM with your email marketing tool, you can segment your subscribers by the stage of the sales cycle they are in and send them highly relevant campaigns to close the deal. Special offers & discounts can work great in this area, as well as case studies and whitepapers depending on your business.
If you have a sales team, then chances are they are recording every closed deal in your CRM along with the date they closed it. When integrated with your email marketing tool, this information becomes incredibly valuable at renewal time. You can send customers an automated email series in the leadup to their renewal date reminding them of the impending renewal and encouraging them to take action.
Imagine you’ve just launched a great new product or feature that you think your existing customers will love. By having your CRM integrated with your email tool, you can segment your subscriber list to only show current customers and send them a campaign informing them of the great new product or feature you’ve released. This highly relevant email is great for customers and drives increased revenue from your existing customer base.
If you’re doing email marketing and reading this post, then chances are your business has a website whose goal it is to drive revenue for your business.
Whether you achieve that by capturing leads through contact forms or by selling products directly on your website, the information people enter into your site is incredibly valuable in your email marketing tool.
By integrating the two, you can implement a number of email marketing initiatives that will increase revenue for your business. These include:
Research shows 35%-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first, and by integrating your website forms with your email tool you can set up an automated email that goes out to everyone that contacts you thanking them for their inquiry and promising them you’ll respond shortly.
According to research, 98% of visitors to your website are qualified but not yet ready to buy. By integrating your website forms with your email tool, you can set up an educational email course that captures visitors details and sends them relevant, informative content that encourages them to purchase.
If you use content marketing to attract and convert new customers, then email is one of the most critical methods of building your audience. By integrating your website with your email marketing tool, you can automatically send new blog posts to your subscribers each time you hit publish. Given that email subscribers are 3x more like to share your content over social networks, this is one of the most effective methods of building your audience and growing your business.
For a lot of business, the accounting application is the main source of customer information.
These applications contain all of your customer’s contact information as well as details on what items they’ve purchased, how frequently, and how much they’ve spent with you.
By integrating your accounting tool with your email marketing software, you can create targeted email campaigns that drive revenue for your business. Some examples include:
Research shows it costs 7x more to sell to a new customer than it does to sell to an existing one. By having the name & email address of your existing customers constantly up to date in your ESP, you can send them newsletters and campaigns that drive repeat purchases at a much cheaper cost per sale.
By integrating your accounting software with your email marketing tool, you can use demographic information to create geographical segments and send more targeted campaigns and promotions to your customer base that get more click-throughs and conversions.
Your accounting program has a wealth of information about customer purchases, and can tell you exactly what a specific customer has bought. By integrating your accounting program with your email marketing tool, you can use this information to segment your lists and send special VIP offers to your most valuable customers or send promotional campaigns to customers who have purchased similar items before.
Campaign Monitor customers enjoy integrations with hundreds of different accounting, eCommerce and CRM applications to help you send better, more effective email campaigns.
A full list of integrations can be seen in the Integrations section of our website, but some of the most popular include:
Salesforce is a popular CRM tool designed for sales professionals. With Campaign Monitor’s Salesforce integration, you can see what lists a contact is in, add or remove them from lists, and see what emails they’ve opened and clicked right from within Salesforce. You even create rules that automatically add people to lists based on their activity (like when they become a lead or when their opportunity stage changes).
Shopify is a popular eCommerce platform that allows business owners to easily setup an online store. With Campaign Monitor’s Shopify integration, you can automatically sync information about your customers (such as their name, location, spend amount, last order date, etc) between Shopify and your Campaign Monitor account.
You can then use this data to send highly targeted email campaigns, like special offers to frequent shoppers, discounts or rewards to big spenders, or even set up automated email campaigns to go out post-purchase to ask people to leave a review.
WordPress is the most popular content management system in the world and powers more than 23.5% of sites on the web. Your WordPress-based website can be integrated with Campaign Monitor using a variety of different tools that integrate in a different way.
Tools like Pippity, Sleeknote, and SumoMe are great for creating popups to capture people’s email address, while plugins like Gravity Forms and Leadin allow you to create contact forms on your site that automatically send new submissions to your chosen lists in Campaign Monitor.
Zapier is an integrations platform that connects over 500 different applications together, including Campaign Monitor. Data from other applications (new customers in your accounting package for instance) can be pushed into Campaign Monitor as subscribers, or you can pull data out of Campaign Monitor (like new subscribers) and push them into other systems (like into your CRM system as new leads). Zapier has a free plan that works great for minor use, or paid plans start from $20 per month.
By integrating your business apps with your email marketing tool, you can start sending your leads & customers a variety of different campaigns that help you close more deals and drive more revenue from your existing customer base.
So use the ideas and tools mentioned here to set up an integration today. You’ll thank us for it when your life is easier and your revenue is higher.
Campaign Monitor integrates with hundreds of applications to help you send targeted campaigns that get results.