Imagine a new person signs up to your audience and immediately receives your first newsletter, without you having to send anything manually. That is exactly what the Customer Journey in Mailchimp is for. This guide shows you step by step how to create your first journey, fill it with content, control its timing, and finally activate it.
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What a Customer Journey is
At its core, a Customer Journey is an automation. You define which message is sent and when it is sent as soon as a certain event occurs. This event is usually that a person becomes part of your audience. So you don't have to trigger every email individually. The system takes care of that for you, and that is exactly where the benefit lies.
Creating a journey
Log in to Mailchimp and click Create at the top. Then select the Customer Journeys area. Next, click Start creating to begin the creation process.
Scroll down and select Create from scratch. This way you start with an empty journey instead of a template. Now give it a meaningful name, for example "Customer Journey Number 1". The name will appear in your overview later, so it's worth choosing a clear one.
Then select, at the bottom, the desired audience to which the journey should be linked. Next, click Start building.
Defining the starting point
The starting point is the first step of your automation. It defines the event that triggers the journey. To do this, click Choose a starting point.
For most cases, you choose the option They sign up to your audience. It means that the journey starts as soon as a person signs up to your audience. Alternatively, you can also have it start when a person finds you via a landing page or is manually imported into the audience.
Setting up the first email step
For a message to be sent after the starting point, you need the Send email block. You'll find it in the left sidebar. Drag it below the starting point. The field then says "Gets email", which means that every person who enters the journey receives this email.
Now click the email block and open the settings. Here you first define the sender and recipient. Enter the sender from whom the message should come.
Next comes the subject line. Word it so that it sparks curiosity, for example with a number or a question. An example would be "Five tips for getting through the winter more healthily". Below it, you can add the preview text. It appears in the inbox next to the subject line and should tease the content further, for example with "The first tip will surprise you …". Confirm with Save.
Controlling sending days and sending times
Below the subject line you'll find the Schedule area. Here you determine on which days of the week the email may be sent. You can select or exclude individual days. If, for example, you don't want to send emails on weekends, select only Monday through Friday.
Pay attention to the start time here. Someone who signs up on a Monday but doesn't receive an email until Saturday waits unnecessarily long. Especially when new contacts should read the first newsletter quickly, it makes sense to send the email as immediately as possible. That way attention is maintained, and the reader knows right away what to expect.
Therefore, for the option What time of day should your email send, choose the setting As soon as possible and then activate Only send between. Set a time window there, for example 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The reason: in the middle of the night only a few people are online, and an email that arrives at three o'clock in the morning easily gets lost. Save the settings with Save.
Create content with the Creative Assistant
Now it's time for the actual content. For this you use the Creative Assistant. It is a tool you can use to create emails. You can either choose Select template to start with a template, or Use a previous campaign as a template to reuse an existing campaign.
For a simple start, a basic text template is a good choice. Select it and then adapt the text. Write a headline, such as "Five tips to get through the winter healthy," and below it the individual tips with short explanations.
At the end of every email there are mandatory details. These include a copyright notice, the unsubscribe link, and your address. The address is usually taken automatically from your Mailchimp account. Make sure it is an address at which documents can be served and where you can actually be reached during normal business hours. P.O. boxes are unsuitable, and an address where you are not actually present is not permitted. If in doubt, you should seek legal advice.
You can also liven up the email with images, GIFs, or small elements. Simply drag and drop them into the content area or select them via Browse. Finish editing with Save and close and then with Save & return to journey.
Add a time delay and a second email
A journey rarely consists of just one email. To attach another message, drag another Send email block below the first email. If this second email should not be sent immediately but later, insert a Time delay in between.
Click on the Time Delay and set the duration. You can choose minutes, hours, days, or weeks. In the example, the second email is sent five days after the first. Confirm with Save.
You also need to set up the second email completely. Click on the block and then on Edit. Again select sender and recipient and write a new subject line, such as "Five delicious smoothie ideas for you". For the preview text, a teaser like "Recipe idea number one is my favorite" works well.
For the content, proceed exactly as with the first email. Pay attention to the sending schedule here as well. Again choose Everyday and Only send between with the time window from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Save and confirm with Save and return to journey.
Fix error messages
Before you activate the journey, Mailchimp checks whether all content is complete. To do this, click Continue at the top. If default texts are still present, a message appears saying that the default content must be removed. Replace these texts with your own content, even if it is just a placeholder like "Test". Mailchimp is very strict about this. After that, you can finish editing again with Save and return and move on to the next step.
Define the goal of the journey
In the next step, you describe what the journey is supposed to achieve. Mailchimp uses this information to provide more suitable reports and recommendations in the future. The options include, among others:
- Reengage contacts, to win back inactive subscribers,
- Nurture relationships, to build a connection with subscribers,
- Sell stuff, to sell products,
- Drive audience actions, to increase clicks and opens,
- Share information, to use surveys or landing pages,
- Manage my audience, to manage tags,
- Something else, if none of these options fits.
Choose the option that suits your project. In the example, this is Nurture relationships with a focus on content marketing.
Activating and Evaluating the Journey
Once everything is set up, click Turn on at the top. The journey is now live, and Mailchimp reports that your contacts are already on their way. After a few days, you can view the progress.
Click View journey to open the journey. There you can see how many people have received the emails and how many have opened them. The reports give you more detailed data, such as which links were clicked. With Pause edit, you can pause the journey and adjust it if needed.
Summary – Creating a Customer Journey in Mailchimp: Step by Step to an Automated Email Sequence
You have learned how to create a customer journey in Mailchimp, define a starting point, set up emails with subject lines and sending times, create content with the Creative Assistant, and connect a second email via a Time Delay. You also know how to set the goal, fix error messages, and activate and evaluate the journey. This way, your communication runs automatically while you focus on the content.
