Email marketing automation not only saves staff time but also increases member engagement by sending customized messages based on the recipients' interests and actions. Studies have shown that targeted emails have higher open & click-through rates. Luckily, MailChimp has some really powerful automation tools you can utilize with Novi Groups to make automated emails and drip campaigns. 

Here are some ways Novi clients use automated emails and create drip campaigns: 

If you’re just getting started with MailChimp, check out their how-to articles that explain their terminology (Audience, Groups, Segments, and more) and instructions for setting up initial email campaigns. Click here for MailChimp’s help articles. You can also find additional useful information in Novi's article - MailChimp and Novi AMS Integration Overview. For the purposes of this article, we’re assuming you are familiar with MailChimp and already have at least one group synced over.

Your pricing plan with MailChimp determines the amount of automation allowed. 

In addition, MailChimp has a limit of 60 groups within an Audience. If you hit the 60 group limit, you won’t be able to send out additional email campaigns to a group until you delete some of the interest groups in MailChimp. 

If you frequently utilize the Event Setting “Sync attendees with MailChimp Interest Group” and create a new group for each event, it’s a good practice to periodically go into your MailChimp account and remove the event-related interest groups you no longer need. When you delete an interest group from MailChimp, it automatically clears the interest group from the MailChimp Sync field in Novi (it does not delete the Novi group in the Novi database). 

From MailChimp, start creating a new email and select Automate. Decide which type of campaign you want to use: Single email, or onboarding series. The onboarding series will walk you through the process of sending out an email drip campaign to that group. Create a name for the campaign, then select the Audience "Novi AMS."

In this example, we'll set up an Onboarding Series for Welcoming New Subscribers.

Under Select an Audience, choose Novi AMS.
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On the next screen, there are instructions on how to set up the first email in the campaign and options for the email conditions.

To filter the email recipients to a specific Novi AMS Group, select Filter by Segment or Tag. Next, click "Choose segment or tag" then select "Contacts match the following conditions" and select "Novi AMS Interests" from the dropdown list. 

From there, determine your conditions – any/all, one of, all of, etc. 

The third drop-down field contains the Novi Groups. You can select multiple groups by using the CTRL or Command key. 

Click Save Segment once you've selected the Novi Group you want to email. 

From there, select Design Email to edit/design the first email in the series. 

After you've created the first email, you'll want to set up the subsequent emails in the campaign. This is a great opportunity to customize your messaging based on specific triggers. 

With Triggers, you set the conditions for when you want the email to be sent, such as Previous Email Not Opened, Specific Link in Email Clicked, etc. This can be particularly useful if you’re pushing for a specific call-to-action. 

MailChimp also notifies you about certain triggers that cannot be used until after you've sent the first email. For example, you can't set up a trigger for "Previous Email Clicked" for the first email in a series.

Now you've got a start on customizing drip campaigns with Novi groups!
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