Sweet Auburn BBQ co-founder Howard Hsu has always aspired to create a welcoming space, just as his parents did in their restaurant.
Sweet Auburn BBQ came onto the scene about 15 years ago when Howard and his sister Anita started their food truck catering business. Sweet Auburn BBQ combined their passion for American-style barbecue and its origins in Southern traditions with their Asian heritage.
"Community has always been rooted into my upbringing. My immigrant parents were warmly embraced by the community, and people enjoyed visiting their restaurant and experiencing the sense of fellowship there. It served as a gathering place, and I cherish the idea of bringing people together over a meal," says Howard.
That sense of community is at the heart of the Sweet Auburn BBQ brand. Its restaurant in the Poncey-Highland neighborhood of Atlanta is now a beloved staple in the local culinary scene, and they also have another location south of the city in McDonough.
To build that community, Howard and his team use Wix and Mailchimp together to foster relationships with new and regular customers, inviting them to the restaurant for a great meal and unique experiences. They've been Mailchimp customers since 2014 in what Howard calls a "great partnership."
At the heart of a warm and welcoming experience is their commitment to delivering content that resonates with their audience of over 16,000 subscribers plus their website visitors through the Wix + Mailchimp integration*. By pulling website data, the Wix integration helps you segment and target website visitors to create personalized messaging in Mailchimp based on interests and nurture relationships to build community. In the end, it helps turn those visitors into customers and helps expand your reach.
Growing Sweet Auburn BBQ with Mailchimp
After using an “overly complicated website builder,” Sweet Auburn BBQ sought a more user-friendly platform that offered design flexibility and supported e-commerce. In October 2019, they made the switch to Wix, a cloud-based website builder with an intuitive, no-coding interface.
Using Mailchimp as their customer data hub, Sweet Auburn BBQ was able to segment their audience and target those segments with customized email marketing campaigns that brought people around Atlanta into their restaurant to connect with the community. In 2024, Sweet Auburn BBQ sent more than 850,000 emails leading their customers to their site and targeting them for specific potential purchases.
“Focus on attracting an audience that is truly engaged with what you’re selling. It’s something we do with Sweet Auburn BBQ, resulting in very positive responses to any emails we send out,” says Sweet Auburn BBQ's Marketing Manager, Madelyn Turner.
Firing up their engagement with Wix
Sweet Auburn BBQ needed a user-friendly site to share basic restaurant information like location, hours, and menus. But they’re much more than an average restaurant—they regularly host events such as dumpling workshops, cocktail classes, and chef collaborations, and also offer frequent special deals.
With all this activity, Sweet Auburn BBQ’s website would have to be able to showcase and promote events and be easy and quick to update with the latest happenings and deals. Importantly, it would also need e-commerce capabilities to allow visitors to buy tickets as well as branded merchandise, sauces, and rubs.
"A website is a restaurant's business card," says Madelyn. "I appreciate the flexibility of Wix's design features. I can create a website that matches my vision without needing a more complex solution. The back end of Wix is very user-friendly.”
Madelyn uses Wix's event features to cap the number of participants and avoid overselling events. Before the event sale ends, the team looks at data from Mailchimp and Wix together to understand customer behavior and check how well their promotions worked through the email campaigns. The team continues to expand the way they use the integration as they learn their specific needs as a brand, and learn what hard performance data they can analyze to make adjustments where needed.
"Having a direct link with your audience and having it be email, it's much more personal. They are signing up and it's all consensual. There aren't any ads. You can tailor your audience to see specific content. It's more tailored and curated, and you're reaching people that are engaged with your brand."
They also use Wix Events as their solution for event ticketing without having to send customers to a third-party platform. All transactional emails come through Wix. "It's nice to have it all native in our Wix site, with competitive fees. People can do the whole process in one place," says Madelyn.
Once events populate the site, the team promotes them to their more than 16,000 email subscribers on Mailchimp, and the events regularly sell out. "We like to promote our collaboration with other Asian American chefs and restaurants to drive our story and our brand to the email list," says Howard. Ultimately, the integration helps them meet their goal of bringing people together to socialize and enjoy each other’s company in the Sweet Auburn BBQ space.
Every year, their biggest profit comes from holiday catering through smoked turkey packages pre-sold on the website. The team can easily add that year’s offerings to the website from the backend. They then launch a holiday email campaign to let their audience know it's that time of the year.
While turkey emails go to everyone on the email list, Madelyn uses customer segmentation for the Atlanta and McDonough restaurants to share more location-specific information. The Wix + Mailchimp integration automatically tags people by location on Mailchimp.
A fun touchpoint with customers? By collecting customers’ birthdays when they sign up for the newsletter, Sweet Auburn BBQ can use automation flows to send them a free banana pudding, a crowd-favorite. Madelyn calls it “passive branding.”
"Having a direct link with your audience and having it be email, it's much more personal. They are signing up and it's all consensual. There aren't any ads. You can tailor your audience to see specific content," says Madelyn. "It's more tailored and curated, and you're reaching people that are engaged with your brand."
Building relationships through SMS
When examining their audiences in Atlanta and McDonough using Mailchimp’s analytics tools, a key finding was that their McDonough audience preferred SMS. With almost 400 engaged subscribers, Sweet Auburn BBQ is now focusing on growing their Mailchimp SMS marketing* list one text at a time.
Something that Madelyn sees as a benefit with SMS is the immediacy of communications. The team usually sends flyers promoting events or specials at the restaurant with a link to learn more, using ongoing A/B testing. Recently, the team sent a “happy hour special” text around 3 pm for rush hour subscribers, which ended up having a 25% click-through rate.
“A brunch email could go out on Sunday morning and miss everyone that didn’t check their email, but an SMS text can offer value immediately,” says Madelyn.
Rebranding with Wix and Mailchimp
As Sweet Auburn BBQ undergoes a visual brand refresh, the team is building a story beyond farm-to-table with brighter colors and attracting a younger audience with nightlife offerings and experiences. The flexibility of the Wix integration with Mailchimp has allowed them to make quick A/B testing changes on the site and through their emails as they finalize the rebranding.
"Having that platform, where we can connect with guests digitally and share what’s happening—telling our story is very important to us," says Howard.
Want to personalize your marketing and boost engagement? See how our Wix integration and SMS marketing can help.
*Thanks for reading our customer stories. We hope they give you the insights and inspiration needed to take your marketing to the next level.
That being said, we have to tell you that:
- The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the individuals involved and do not represent those of Intuit Mailchimp or any of its cornerstone brands or employees.
- Features and functionality vary by plan.
- Wix Integration: Mailchimp and Wix sold separately. Integration available. Availability of features and functionality varies by plan type. For details, view Mailchimp plans and pricing.
- SMS Marketing: SMS is available as an add-on to paid plans in select countries. Application and agreement to terms is required before purchasing credits. Messages can only be delivered to contacts in the country selected. Australia messaging available only for contacts with +61 country code. SMS credits are added to your account after purchase and approval. Credits are issued monthly and unused credits expire and do not roll over. MMS only available for Standard and Premium plans sending to US and Canada contacts. Pricing varies. Click here for details.