Email marketing has gotten more sophisticated. So even platforms like Mailchimp that may have seemed simple when you first signed up, require a little know how in order to get your money’s worth out of it. This blog post breaks down why working with a Mailchimp Pro Partner can help you get the results that you want so you can use email marketing to gain and retain clients.
How a Mailchimp Pro Partner Thinks Differently
What You Get With a Mailchimp Pro Partner as Your Email Marketing Strategist
Why Skipping the Strategy Step Will Cost You
What Your Email Marketing Could Look Like with a Pro Content Strategy
Email as a Loyalty System
You know that email is an effective channel for your marketing. Or at least it seems to be. In theory. I mean, you hear other companies are able to make email marketing work. In a 2024 survey, 61% of the marketers who work with companies that have had high increases in revenue — referred to as Performance-Obsessed Marketers in this survey — reported that email had a significant impact on their growth.
According to Mailchimp’s Revenue Blueprint study, 61% of Revenue Leaders report that email has a significant impact on their organization’s growth.
But when you open Mailchimp it can feel confusing. Gone are the days when you’d just write up an email blast and schedule it out.
Now there are lists, tags, automations, segmentation. SMS is an option. You can integrate it with your Shopify, Canva, and Stripe. Meanwhile, AI tools keep nudging you.
You know all of that can help, but you’re not sure how to make it work for your next campaign.
No wonder you end up sending emails out late, inconsistently, or not at all. And, by the way, you’re paying a whole lot of money to have Mailchimp, and you’re not even using it all.
You’re not alone.
At Downstage Media, we talk to founders every day who want to get more mileage from their email marketing. They want to connect with their subscribers, tell them what they are working on, and lead to a sale.
But Mailchimp — like all of email marketing — has gotten more sophisticated. You need someone to usher you through the process so you can get results sooner. That’s where a Mailchimp Pro Partner comes in.
How a Mailchimp Pro Partner Thinks Differently
At Mailchimp’s recent partner event at Manhattan’s Bowery Hotel, attendees gathered for sessions on strategy and innovation. Annie Figenshu attended. And stole a lot of swag.
Annie Figenshu. Before she jammed as much swag into her bag as she could. Bonus? Part of the swag was a backpack so she had more room to jam stuff into!
At Downstage Media, we know email marketing. And we know Mailchimp. Anyone who touches email marketing for clients is either certified in Mailchimp or a Mailchimp Pro Partner.
Mailchimp Pro Partners are:
Certified: trained and tested on Mailchimp’s platform, strategy, and marketing foundations.
Proven: required to show strong client track records before earning the badge.
Connected: with access to Mailchimp’s partner community, product teams, and early features.
Versatile: skilled not only in email, but in related marketing disciplines like design, SEO, and integrations.
Teachers: partners are encouraged to share knowledge and empower clients, not just execute tasks.
Being a Mailchimp Pro Partner doesn’t just mean you know all of features of the platform. It means you take a whole-brained approach to designing an email marketing strategy:
Left brain: technical mastery of Mailchimp — automation, segmentation, reporting
Right brain: creative mastery of content — storytelling, strategy, audience psychology
When those come together, you get more than well-performing emails. You get a loyalty system powered by content your audience actually wants to read.
So when you work with us at Downstage Media, you not only get our unique — mildly unhinged? — blend of creative strategy, you’re also tapping into the resources Mailchimp gives its partners. So you get better results.
And here’s the bigger truth: the skills that come with being a Mailchimp Pro Partner aren’t limited to Mailchimp. They apply to email marketing no matter what platform you’re on. Strategy, segmentation, automation, campaign clarity. These are universal. So even if your team uses another tool, the same whole-brained approach still helps you connect your content to a system that gains and retains clients.
What You Get With a Mailchimp Pro Partner as Your Email Marketing Strategist
Annie Figenshu is Mailchimp Email Marketing Certified, ensuring campaigns are built on proven strategy and best practices.
When you work with a Mailchimp Pro Partner at Downstage Media, you don’t just get a marketer who knows how to set up and write an email blast. You get a strategic partner who understands how these four elements work in your email marketing strategy.
Email marketing is an enduring presence in the marketing landscape
How automations strengthen the customer journey
The importance of gathering data for personalization and then using it wisely
How to invest in AI to drive business outcomes
At Downstage, we have a system and process for each of these elements in order for you to get the most out of what you are doing. Let’s break down each one.
1. Email Is Still Relevant Now
Performance-Obsessed Marketers lean more heavily on direct channels like email, SMS, and chat to generate brand awareness, while Baseline Marketers spread efforts across social media, websites, and digital ads. (Source: Mailchimp, The Revenue Blueprint, 2024)
Email marketing is not going anywhere. Yes, people use it differently, than they did twenty years ago, but few channels give you access to the amount of data that email does. As a marketer, of course I’m referring to data like clicks rates, open rates, and how much each subscriber spends. But also as someone who values the audience experience, I am talking about the data that you get when a subscriber replies back with, “I love what you said here!” Believe it or not, at Downstage Media we get emails like that from our weekly nurturing emails. And, yes, our clients do too.
There’s just not another channel that is as reliable and as relevant as email right now. As you can see from the bar graph, 87% of marketers who gain significant growth for their clients rely on email more than any other for brand awareness. 58% of marketers say that email marketing is the top channel for generating awareness. But that number climbs to 64% when you look at the marketers who work for companies with higher revenues and have increased growth significantly (16% or more) with those companies. It’s clear that the marketers who handle bigger numbers and bigger growth know that email marketing is a valuable channel.
2. How Automations Strengthen the Customer Journey
Performance-Obsessed Marketers go beyond welcome emails, using robust automations like back-in-stock alerts, post-purchase instructional emails, and behavior-based triggers to create more personalized customer journeys. (Source: Mailchimp, The Revenue Blueprint, 2024)
Annie Figenshu is Mailchimp Email Automations Certified, bringing advanced expertise in building automated campaigns.
You know that feeling of satisfaction when you come into the house and the slow cooker has been working all day and you can smell dinner? You take a deep breath and you know that dinner is handled?
That’s the food equivalent of email automation.
There are many different types of email automations that can be set up in Mailchimp. But which are the most effective? Which ones do the marketers that increase revenue for their companies use?
Those marketers who are able to grow their companies’ revenue by 16% or more find that their top three email automations are:
Welcome emails
Product Review emails
Post-Purchase Instructional emails
These are all ways to strengthen relationships with your customers and keep them engaged from when they first become subscribers to when they first become customers.
Oh, and speaking of converting from subscribers to customers, 29% of marketers say that marketing automations help convert leads to sales. That numbers swells to 37% when you look at the marketers that grew revenue a significant amount this past year (16% or more).
Mailchimp Pro Partners are trained and certified on Email Automations so we know how to setup these flows so you can have that come-home-to-a-slow-cooked-meal satisfaction.
3. The importance of gathering data for personalization and then using it wisely
Revenue Leaders see stronger results from personalization, reporting higher customer engagement, loyalty, conversions, revenue, and brand recognition compared to Baseline Marketers. (Source: Mailchimp, The Revenue Blueprint, 2024)
Sure, you can always insert someone’s first name in the subject line. But with a more personalized approach to email marketing, you can tailor the emails that you send by making the most of insights like demographics, interests, geography, and purchasing patterns.
And the benefits of doing so are many. Here are the top three that the highest-performing marketers point to:
Increased customer engagement
Increased revenue
Increased brand recognition
One of the people that Downstage Media calls in to support you with this is Marti Kerner at Spring Ahead Media Solutions. Marti is one of the top Mailchimp Pro Partners. Her knowledge of the platform is unparalleled. She says, “Merge tags are a key way to personalize your emails” and breaks down how to do it in one of her many Mailchimp Tutorial videos.
With a Mailchimp Pro Partner like Marti Kerner guiding your email marketing, you will have someone who can connect your data from multiple sources, personalize your communications, and leverage AI to estimate customer attributes like demographics.
Oh, and speaking of leveraging AI…
4. How to invest in AI to drive business outcomes
Most marketers are already using AI, with 76% adopting Generative AI for content creation and 82% using Analytical AI to predict outcomes and spot trends. (Source: Mailchimp, The Revenue Blueprint, 2024)
Annie Figenshu is a 2025 member of the AI Business Society, connecting with leaders who apply AI to business growth and strategy.
Sure, we’ve all had ChatGPT give us a subject line and some text for a campaign.
But 80% of marketers who are able to increase revenue for their clients at the highest revenue level are using not just Generative AI, but Analytical AI.
It’s about shifting from just saving time writing campaigns, to using AI to analyze subscriber behavior and then leveraging predictive analytics to figure out what moves your audience is going to make next.
Mailchimp Pro Partners know how to do this and to design campaigns and automations around these behaviors.
But, just in case, I’m also a member of the AI Business Society
Why Skipping the Strategy Step Can Cost You
So, yes, clearly Mailchimp — like all of email marketing — has gotten more sophisticated. To get results sooner, it’s important to have someone usher you through the process with a clear strategy and a method for execution.
Skip the strategy, and execution stays messy. Campaigns don’t connect. Automations don’t convert.
What Your Email Marketing Could Look Like With a Pro Strategy
Picture opening your email platform and seeing everything mapped out: campaigns scheduled, automations running, content flowing to the right people at the right time.
Your prospects have proof of your expertise before the first call. Your clients get consistent, useful messages that remind them why they chose you in the first place. Every send becomes a touchpoint that builds trust, shortens the sales cycle, and strengthens loyalty.
Instead of wondering if your emails work, you’ll know they’re helping you win new business and keep the clients you already have.
Get a Handle on Your Email Marketing
If you’re ready to get the most out of for email to start working the way it should — bringing in new clients and keeping the ones you already have, let’s talk. We’ll map out a plan that fits your business and your team.
With a Mailchimp Pro Partner guiding the strategy, you’ll have a clear strategy your team can follow, and the confidence that every send is building trust and loyalty.
The Content Entrepreneur Expo isn’t just another industry event. It’s where creators, consultants, and founders go to sharpen their content strategy, meet real collaborators, and build businesses with staying power. Annie Figenshu—author of Simple Social Media and co-author of The Content Entrepreneur—will be there in Author Alley, ready to connect.