5 Ways to Maximize Sales Potential With QuickBooks Segmentation

Benefits of the QuickBooks + Mailchimp integration

When you connect QuickBooks to Mailchimp, you’ll have the tools you need to build your business from day one. It only takes a few clicks to set up the integration, and the information flows from QuickBooks to Mailchimp in real-time, so you’re always up to date. Before getting started, just make sure your QuickBooks customer data is clean and organized; this will help you get reliable insights into their interests, behaviors, and more.

Once you’ve connected QuickBooks and Mailchimp, you’ll be able to take advantage of all the integration’s benefits, including Mailchimp’s powerful segmentation tools. You can use your QuickBooks financial data—like items or services purchased, invoices paid, date of purchase, or spending over time—to group your audience and target specific customers with messages designed to re-engage them with your brand. For example, you can create a segment of customers who’ve paid invoices recently and send them a survey to encourage testimonials and referrals. We’ve found that sending automated messages based on paid invoices can result in, on average, a 93% increase in open rates and a 174% increase in click-through rates.

You’ll also have access to other Mailchimp features that make it easier to communicate with your customers, including:

• Mailchimp inbox, our messaging tool, which allows you to have one-on-one conversations to provide exceptional customer service, answer questions, and collect feedback.
• An audience dashboard that gives you an overview of everything you need to know about your customers, including their location, how they engage with your marketing, and estimates about their future buying behavior.
• Automation tools that allow you to trigger messages based on customer actions like paying an invoice, or using retargeting ads to reach people with the right message at exactly the right time.
• Customer Journey Builder, which takes automation further so you can effectively use your time elsewhere in your business without negatively impacting your customer relationships. You can create customized workflows that are tailored to your business goals and adapt to your customers’ behaviors or engagement. If a customer performs (or doesn’t perform) a certain action, you can automatically send them down a specific path, trigger a different message at an exact time or date, or add a specific tag to their Mailchimp profile for later follow-up.

For example, you could build a customer journey that sends an automated email to customers imported from QuickBooks who haven’t done business with you in the last 60 days since paying an invoice. Every time a customer hits the 60-day mark with no activity, the journey is triggered and sends an email describing your latest services and offerings and including a coupon to reward existing customers for their loyalty. Folks who don’t open the email, however, wouldn’t receive any additional messages and can be automatically tagged as lapsed customers for re-engaging at a later time.

5 tips for creating a solid marketing strategy to increase sales

1. Re-engage lapsed customers

Prioritize bringing lapsed customers back to your business. You can segment your QuickBooks audience by people who haven’t made a purchase within a specific time frame, like the last 6 months or a year. Then, send an email highlighting an item that might interest them or offering a discount to use your services again.

You can send an email every few months to share new product launches and business updates to help keep your brand on their radar. If they’ve unsubscribed from your newsletter, you can re-engage them after a new purchase by sending a survey.

2. Take advantage of your customers’ contact profiles

When you connect QuickBooks to Mailchimp, we’ll automatically add tags to your synced QuickBooks customers to help you stay organized. Use this as a basic segmentation to review invoices, total individual revenue per customer, service payments, emails sent, and more. With QuickBooks and Mailchimp data synced, the contact profiles will show you a merged activity feed, which will help as you create segments for future marketing outreach.

3. Request testimonials

A testimonial, whether written on your website or shared through word of mouth, can supercharge the growth of your business for little to no cost. Reach out to your repeat QuickBooks customers with a short Mailchimp survey. Ask them to rate their experience with your business or to refer their friends. And thanks to Mailchimp inbox, you can get immediate notifications to follow up one-on-one and respond to feedback.

4. Reward customer loyalty

Organize your audience by top spenders and use personalized email marketing to keep them coming back.

One way to do this is to segment your loyal customers by their yearly spend and send them a warm thank you email for supporting your business throughout the year, coupled with a discount code. Remember to use merge tags for customer names to make your email more personal.

Beyond a discount, you could also share exclusive news about your business or upcoming events, or offer folks rewards for referring new customers.

5. Review your reports

The QuickBooks + Mailchimp integration allows for insights and reports in one place. Take advantage of revenue-generated data to see what’s working (and what’s not) with your customers. Any insights from reporting will help you build more efficient customer journeys and segments to recover lost customers.

Connect with your customers, save time, and boost sales

As a small business owner, you wear many hats. Incorporating your QuickBooks customer data with Mailchimp’s marketing tools can save you time and help you increase sales—with products you’re already using.

With the powerful insights you can get once QuickBooks and Mailchimp are integrated, you can re-engage your customers, capture referrals, reward loyal regulars, and see trends in customer behavior. These insights will help you stay agile as you grow your business and improve customer retention.