Businesses do not only sell products or services. Most importantly, they sell their ideas and visions. Personal brand promotion is built in close connection with customers. While manually delivering emails to around ten to twenty clients can be fun and enthusiastic, sending out hundreds or even thousands of messages by hand to subscribers can be inefficient and cumbersome.
There is no time like the present to talk about email marketing and effective ways of tailoring messages to the audience.
What is Email Marketing Automation?
Email automation is a vital tool for businesses of all sizes. With email marketing, you can easily process the flow of sending targeted and personalized emails in no time.
To fully automate the process, you would need to set up individual workflows. Meaning, it is essential to consider personalized triggers so that emails align with a subscriber’s behavior and relevant information. Crafty workflows result in nurturing new leads, and ensure that customers value the personal touch. As a result, every business has the lion’s share of devoted clients.
Benefits of Email Automation
Still wondering whether you should automate your marketing emails? Let’s jump straight to the benefits.
Authentic Customer Connection
You would not want to be bothersome in your clients’ inboxes. People always mark pesky messages as “spam”. So, sending emails at the right time is one part of the deal. Always keep in mind the personal touch. By organizing your customers in groups, such as location, demographic, or, say, purchase history, you focus on their individual stories. Hence, it shows that you care.
Loyalty Foundation
When you have managed to create an almost elusive yet strong bond – invest your effort and creativity into building a loyalty foundation. For example, special announcements or birthday emails are quite an adhesive marketing approach. On top of that, even feedback and survey messages can build more loyalty between businesses and clients.
Sales Boost
Why create a business if nobody is buying your goods? Automate your emails to attract more revenue. Such a marketing approach will surely transform your leads into customers.
Types of Automation
In a vast pool of marketing tools provided by email marketing services, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the number of options available.
But, to set the record straight, we will focus your attention only on those that are both beginner and professionally friendly.
Welcome Emails
Usually, it is a series of emails that are sent to new subscribers to make an introduction to a brand or a service. You can easily set them up. In the very first message, draw attention to the company’s story together with a personal welcome. As a bonus, offer your subscribers a special deal.
Abandoned Cart Emails
The hustle and bustle of the modern world makes us decide on the spot. However, sometimes we can be easily interrupted and diverted from our shopping path. It leads to completely forgetting what we had wanted to buy earlier.
Abandoned cart emails come to the rescue. Just like notifications, abandoned cart emails remind you to come back to the deserted cart and finish the shopping. A bit of personalization can be brought with dynamic information about the products that were left waiting in the cart.
Thank you Emails
An excellent way to establish a customer relationship is to send a “thank you” email. This helps your brand express genuine gratitude to customers for choosing you and your service. Thank you emails are versatile. You can send them when the subscription has been confirmed or when clients download something from the website.
Re-engagement Emails
Not every campaign makes customers fired up with the content. A plethora of reasons can disengage subscribers from your brand. But you can mend it yet with a fresher approach. A perfect trigger that can rekindle interest in your brand is re-engagement emails.
You can send targeted emails to different groups of customers and do the following trick – first, mention their pain, and then offer them a fix. Say, you have a group of dormant accounts. An email that will share recent fascinating news about your brand, achieved goals, and what new things you can offer them will change the situation for the better.
Setting Up Email Automation
Setting up email automation is simple and complicated at the same time. In order to do it the right way and make it beneficial for your business goals, we recommend brainstorming.
It is an essential part of any marketing process. First thing first, you need to underscore the main goal of the email campaign and identify who your target audience is. Then, think of as many triggers as you can create for your email marketing workflow. Thirdly, always create a series of email messages that will work with your campaign goal and the subscribers. Do not forget to add personalization. And finally, you are ready to set up emails.
Step 1 – Choose an Automated Email Service Provider
It is hard to choose “your” email marketing service from a plethora of companies. It is easy to get confused about what is the best platform for you, so we suggest conducting careful research based on your needs.
If you are a small business, this guide should help you with your choice.
Step 2 – Plan out the Email Strategy
Having chosen the provider, you are ready to map out your strategy. Do not create a myriad of different emails. Find a few that certainly do the work and use them as the foundation for your further business development. Always keep in mind to set out a client connection with a welcome email.
Step 3 – Choose the Workflow
Never opt for quantity over quality. You can create a brand name and credibility only through quality and consistency. Not only should you build connections through words but also with a visual component. Make the design and layout of your emails original and personal to your business background.
Step 4 – Create Segmented Lists
With list segmentation, you can personalize messages to different audiences. They should be based on preferences, demographics and location, and personal behaviors. Such an approach increases the chance that your emails will be noticed.
Step 5 – Examine the Metrics
Metrics are the key to any business. By monitoring rates, bounce rates, clickthroughs, and shares you always know how recipients react to your emails. It gives a broader understanding of how the chosen strategy works.
Streamline Your Communication with Email Automation Best Practices
First and foremost, every business has to have the purpose of email automation. It’s not about sending out mass emails to your entire contact list. The purpose of every business is to target individual messages that “click” with your audience. With automation, you can speed up the process of communication.
Best practice #1 – Segmented Contact List
The number one best practice for email automation is to segment your contact list. Divide your subscribers into smaller groups based on shared characteristics, such as their interests, location, or purchasing history. By doing so, you can tailor your messages to each group and increase the likelihood of engagement.
Best practice #2 – Personalization
Another essential best practice is to personalize your messages. Use your subscriber’s name in the subject line or opening greeting and create content that speaks directly to their needs and interests. Personalization shows that you care about subscribers’ experience. Do so to increase the conversion and click-through rates.
Best practice #3 – Accurate Timing
Timing is another critical factor in email automation. Send your messages at a time when your subscribers are most likely to be engaged and receptive. For example, a promotional email is likely to be seen when your subscribers are shopping online, or in the evening and on weekends. Email automation is the best for specific events, such as a subscriber’s birthday or anniversary.
Best practice #4 – Perfect Engagement
We may sound like a broken record by now, but automation creates a seamless customer journey. Email automation creates consistency and ensures all your messages are relevant. Plus, use automation to send follow-up messages, reminders, and other communications that keep your subscribers engaged and informed.
Mastering Advanced Email Automation Techniques for Optimal Results
Email automation has advanced significantly over the recent yers. Advanced techniques showcase that it is getting easier to create personalized and engaging campaigns that yield excellent results. Let’s explore some advanced email automation techniques that can take your campaigns to the next level.
Predictive Analytics: Using Data to Tailor Campaigns to Individual Needs and Preferences
An advanced technique is the use of predictive analytics. The likelihood of customers’ actions can be predicted with proper data analysis. We highly recommend gathering demographic information, browsing behavior, and even recent purchases. This way you can tailor emails to subscribers’ preferences and needs.
Dynamic Content: Creating Personalized Experiences That Keep Subscribers Engaged
Dynamic content is another advanced technique that can make your emails more engaging and relevant. This involves using content blocks that change based on a customer’s behavior or preferences. For example, you could use dynamic content to show different images or product recommendations based on the subscriber’s browsing history.
A/B Testing: Optimizing Campaigns for Maximum Results Through Iterative Experimentation
A/B testing is another advanced technique that can help you optimize your campaigns for maximum results. This involves testing different elements of your emails, such as subject lines, messaging, and calls-to-action, to see which performs better. Test results will make your emails more effective with time.
Final Thoughts
Email automation is a vital tool for businesses of all sizes to easily process the flow of sending targeted and personalized emails in no time.
With automation, individual workflows can be set up with personalized triggers so that emails align with a subscriber’s behavior and relevant information. Businesses can benefit from email automation through authentic customer connection, loyalty foundation, and sales boost. Types of email automation include welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, thank you emails, and re-engagement emails. To set up email automation, businesses should choose an automated email service provider, plan out the email strategy, choose the workflow, and create segmented lists.
