When customers sign up for a product or service, they embark on a journey. Along the way, they expect to encounter relevant, timely messaging to orient and lead them toward important milestones.
Marketing automation software Autopilot makes it easy to map out and launch customer journeys that reach out at just the right time with personalized email, in-app messages, SMS, and even postcards. But customers’ paths can differ, and companies may use various tools to track, educate, and contact customers. To offer connections to hundreds of web tools, Autopilot turned to workflow automation tool Zapier.
“Zapier is such a fit for us because it allows our customers to pick and choose their own integrations,” says Anne Fleshman, Director of Marketing at Autopilot. "It's like glue that connects apps together."
How Autopilot shows customers the value of connecting to Zapier
To introduce the Autopilot-Zapier integration in late 2015, Autopilot hosted a webinar with Zapier CEO and Co-founder Wade Foster and a mutual customer who uses both Zapier and Autopilot. But the partnership didn't stop there: today, Autopilot continues to highlight Zapier to all customers in a variety of ways.
“We like to engage people with Zapier when they are already on our website and in our product,” Anne says.
Onboarding
Autopilot also found that onboarding emails are an opportune time to introduce Autopilot users to Zapier. That way, new customers can use Zapier to easily weave Autopilot into their existing workflows right away. Autopilot's onboarding emails show off the possibilities of using Autopilot and Zapier together and link to a corresponding help document where new users can learn more.
Courses
Autopilot also dedicates a lesson to Zapier in its online course series called “Flight School” and emails the lesson to enrollees, too.
Zap templates
By including Zap templates—pre-made Zapier workflows—in these materials, Autopilot makes it even easier for new users to set up the integrations.
In their online course, Autopilot shows off Zap templates that help users get started organizing contacts and automating customer outreach between Autopilot and other apps using Zapier.
Autopilot also embeds Zap templates on a dedicated Zapier page in Autopilot's apps directory. This way, they drive more users to set up Autopilot Zaps.
How Zapier increases upgrades for Autopilot
Integrating Zapier into customer onboarding and training has paid off: Autopilot's paying customers who connect to Zapier are 17% more likely to upgrade compared to those who don’t connect.
That’s good news for Autopilot. With scalable pricing based on the number of contacts in customers’ databases, Autopilot values upgrades because many customers start with a low-price plan and ramp up as their businesses expand.
Users become more likely to upgrade after weaving Autopilot into all of their existing workflows and connecting Autopilot to other apps that matter to their business. Connecting to other apps via Zapier often necessitates upgrading to accommodate for the increase in contacts; it also means that Autopilot users are getting more use out of the tool by integrating it with their existing workflows.
“We find that the Autopilot users who connect to Zapier are highly invested in Autopilot,” Anne says.
Autopilot customers who are already Zapier users appreciate the integration because it makes it easy to incorporate Autopilot into their workflows, but users who aren’t familiar with Zapier also stand to benefit.
“It’s an opportunity for us to intro them into automating manual workflows in their day-to-day,” Anne says.
Whether customers have used Zapier before or not, promoting Zapier encourages them to grow with Autopilot since it inspires them to connect to all of the apps they use to organize contacts and create comprehensive customer journeys.
“We are all about marketers who are thinking beyond acquisition,” Anne says. “Other departments use Autopilot—like sales or success teams, for example. Zapier integrates with tools that many different departments use."
