When I first started working with a nonprofit offering mental health service their founder had 400 contacts in an Excel sheet… and no idea where to start. She wasn’t failing at email marketing, but she was out of time. She was showing up at events, hosting workshops, meeting new partners. But manually following up with every donor, client, and community member just wasn’t sustainable. That’s where Mailchimp Customer Journeys came in. The goal was to use the tool as a way to think clearly about outreach. A method to automate just enough to stay consistent without burning out.
The First Five Things to Do Before You Touch the Journey Builder
Let’s skip the shiny dashboard for now and start with the real prep work. Automation that works starts with clarity, not clicks.
01. Audit your list
Start with what you know. Look at your contact list, even if it’s messy, and jot down how people found you.
- Signed up at a workshop?
- Past client?
- Donor from last year’s fundraiser?
2. Group contacts by intent, not job title
Don’t overthink it. Just ask: What kind of message would this person find useful?
- Donors might want impact stories and behind-the-scenes updates
- Clients may want to know more about other service reminders or new offerings
- Professionals will likely want to know about upcoming CEU invites and events
3. Tag, don’t overbuild
Stick to one audience and use tags to organize. It keeps costs down and avoids headaches later.
Some example tag structures:
- “Donor,” “Client,” “Professional”
- “Attended Workshop,” “Newsletter Signup,” “Interested in CEUs”
- “2024 Events,” “Sponsorship Lead”
4. Pick one goal
And I don’t mean “build a funnel.” Something more like: “Send a welcome email to people I met at last month’s event.”
Helpful one-goal examples:
- “Thank new donors with a follow-up impact email.”
- “Send a three-part intro series to new therapy clients.”
- “Follow up with sound bath participants one week later with next month’s schedule.”
5. Upload with intention
When we imported the client’s list, we used just three tags:
- Donor
- Client
- Professional
That alone gave us enough structure to build a simple, powerful journey.
For example: Let’s say someone signs up for your newsletter after attending at a workshop. The new contact automatically get tagged as “Attended Workshop” in Mailchimp.
That tag triggers a welcome email that includes a thank-you message, a recap of the workshop, and a link to upcoming events.
A week later, the system sends them a second email. This time with a personal invitation to sign up for a related program (like a group session or seasonal class), or simply stay connected through the monthly newsletter.
This is a simple two-email journey that builds trust, reinforces relevance, and keeps your organization top of mind without requiring you to manually follow up each time.
If you can sketch it with sticky notes, you can probably build it in Mailchimp.
When Automation Becomes Overengineering: A Cautionary Sidebar
I sincerely get the urge and excitement to “automate everything.” Especially when constant app notification and smart watches track your every move. But it’s important to pull our heads out of the weeds from time to time and zoom out. Optimizing every minute of your day may make you 1,000x more productive, but we’re not robots. We’re humans. When we find ourselves struggling to untangle the how, it’s time to refocus on the why. And that’s exactly what happened with this client.
They had tagging strategies, signup forms, even Zapier ready to go. But when I asked: “What are you actually planning to send to each group?” They didn’t have a clear answer.
On the surface, in the weeds, it may have felt like a technology issue. But it was really a lack of mapped-out strategy causing the constant roadblocks. They had skipped the groundwork: who gets what, when, and why?
And without that, no amount of automation would fix it. Even the best system needs content, ownership, and upkeep. The other part being overlooked was economies of scale. Hours of head scratching went into over-engineering a solution for a relatively small list. So, that’s the other thing to ask yourself: if your list is under 100 people per segment, that’s an intern-sized task, not a software problem.
Before you jump to automation, ask:
- Is this solving a time problem or a clarity problem?
- Will this system still work in 3 months without touching it?
- Who is going to maintain and update the content.
Final Thoughts: Start Small. Stay Strategic.
In the end, we didn’t automate everything overnight. We started with a single journey and three simple tags. And it gave their founder her time back.
You can do the same.
One audience. One goal. One journey.
That’s enough to turn email chaos into clarity.
