The unshakeable grip that email has on the world is demonstrated by its prevalence in various areas of life and business. Email is far from just a popular form of communication today; it’s also consistently one of the most successful marketing channels. It isn’t only the most common way to communicate now and is frequently ranked as the top converting marketing channel.
Marketers can use email automation to send personalized messages or deliver them when a user performs a certain activity on a website.
It’s a great approach to encourage current leads. Still, it may also interact with new consumers and communicate with old ones regularly, reminding them of your brand and informing them about new deals, discounts, or offers. There are several advantages to utilizing email automation.
The most intelligent companies use automated email campaigns triggered by users’ activities to boost their email marketing efforts.
As a result, automatic emails are timely, personalized, and hyper-relevant to the recipient. Consequently, they are opened and clicked more frequently, resulting in increased visits and income for your company.
Get to know all about automation. Right from what is email automation, and how does it work?
Email automation is a process whereby email messages are automatically generated and sent to recipients based on predetermined criteria. Email automation can be used for various purposes, such as sending out automated marketing messages, notifications, or even follow-up messages.
Many different software platforms offer email automation services. These platforms typically provide users with a drag-and-drop interface for creating email automation workflows. Once a workflow is created, it can be triggered by various events, such as when a recipient clicks on a link in an email message or when a new lead is added to a CRM system.
Email automation can save businesses a lot of time and money. It can also help to improve customer engagement and satisfaction by ensuring that customers always receive timely and relevant communications.
Let us now look at an example of how email automation works:
Say you run an online store and want to send a “Welcome” email to all new customers. With email automation, you can create a workflow that automatically sends this email to every new customer who purchases on your website.
The email automation workflow would look something like this:
- Customer purchases on your website.
- A “Welcome” email is automatically generated and sent to the customer.
- The customer receives the “Welcome” email.
This is just one example of how email automation can be used. There are many other possible use cases for this technology. Email automation can be used to send out automated marketing messages, notifications, or even follow-up messages.
The bottom line is that email automation can save businesses a lot of time and money while also helping to improve customer engagement and satisfaction. A person receives emails based on the marketer’s specified criteria and campaigns.
Let’s take a glance at some benefits of email automation for small businesses.
Email automation can be a game-changer for small businesses. Small businesses can save time and money by automating email communications while maintaining strong customer relationships.
Here are some of the benefits of email automation for small businesses:
1. Increased productivity
Automating email communications frees up time that can be better spent on other tasks, such as developing new products or services, marketing, or customer service.
For instance, automated welcome emails can be sent to new subscribers without needing manual input from the small business owner. This means that the owner can focus on other tasks, safe knowing that their new subscribers are being looked after.
2. Improved customer relationships
By automating email communications, small businesses can ensure that customers always receive timely and relevant information. This can help build strong relationships with customers and turn first-time buyers into lifelong fans.
For instance, automated birthday emails are a great way to show customers they are valued and appreciated. These emails can be set up once and then sent automatically on the customer’s birthday, making it easy to stay in touch without forgetting to send the email manually.
3. Reduced costs
Email automation can help small businesses to save money on email marketing costs.
For instance, automated emails can be sent to large groups of people at a lower cost than sending individual emails. In addition, automated emails are often more effective at getting customers to take action, such as making a purchase, which can also lead to cost savings.
4. Improved accuracy
Email automation can help small businesses to improve the accuracy of their email communications. This is because automated emails are less likely to contain mistakes, such as typos than emails that are manually written.
For example, automated order confirmation emails can help to ensure that customers receive the correct products or services and that they are made aware of any changes to their orders, such as delays. This can help to avoid customer service issues further down the line.
5. Increased sales
By automating email communications, small businesses can increase their sales. This is because automated emails can help to increase the number of people who see your marketing messages and take action, such as making a purchase.
For instance, automated Abandoned Cart emails can be sent to customers who have added items to their shopping cart but have not completed the purchase. These emails can remind customers of the items they’ve left behind and encourage them to complete their purchases.
Email automation can be a powerful tool for small businesses. Small businesses can save time and money by taking advantage of its benefits while still delivering great customer service.
6. Create unique content that is tailored to your business and interests
The most important advantage of email marketing is customization. No one wants to read an email that appears to have been sent out to many people.
Email marketing enables you to create customized mailing lists based on your customer’s interests and personality traits. Email is the ideal channel for delivering personalized messages thanks to its ability to fine-tune subject lines, images that connect with your consumers, and helpful content that aids your audience.
For example, an e-Commerce store can use email marketing to send out recommendations for products similar to those the customer has already purchased. A B2B company, on the other hand, can use email marketing to share helpful blog posts with its audience or case studies that demonstrate how the company has helped other businesses in its industry.
7. Timing is everything when it comes to email marketing
The timing of your email campaigns can be just as important as the content itself.
Sending emails at the wrong time can result in lower open and click-through rates, ultimately leading to fewer sales. On the other hand, sending emails at the right time can help you to achieve your desired results.
For example, if you’re a clothing retailer, you might want to send out an email campaign in the summer, when people are more likely to look for new clothes. If you’re a B2B company, you might want to send out emails during business hours, when your customers are more likely to be at work and able to read them.
8. Reach a larger audience with minimal effort
Email marketing allows you to reach many people with very little effort on your part. All you need is an email list and an email marketing service, such as MailChimp or Constant Contact, and you can start reaching out to your target market immediately.
There’s no need to invest in costly advertising campaigns or to wait for organic reach to build up over time. With email marketing, you can start seeing results almost immediately.
For instance, if you send out an email campaign to your entire list of subscribers, you can expect to reach a large number of people with very little effort.
9. Build credibility
Most individuals decide to delete suspicious emails from an unknown sender or with a questionable subject line. It just feels odd, and customers are quick to remove any message that doesn’t look credible.
When emailing people who don’t know you, it is essential to establish your credibility immediately. You can quickly build credibility with your audience by ensuring that your emails look professional and include trustworthy content.
One way to do this is to avoid using gimmicky subject lines or images that might come across as too sales-y. Instead, focus on providing helpful and informative content to show your audience that you’re an expert in your field.
Emojis may be used to increase the click-through rate for certain clients. For others, the same subject line might cause them to seek the unsubscribe option. You must adapt your material to suit your readers’ desires. Instead of being sent straight into the spam folder, emails tailored according to your readers’ wants are more likely to be opened and even forwarded to other potential customers.
Creating a permission-based email list with a checkbox for users to opt-in to your mailing list ensures that customers know which emails they sign up for and how often they’ll receive them. This builds trust and credibility with your audience, making it more likely that they’ll open and click through your email campaigns.
10. You have a valuable asset in your email
This advantage ranked tenth in the list does not imply it is the least significant benefit. In fact, as a business owner or marketer, this is almost certainly the most critical aspect of email marketing to grasp.
Consider the overall picture. The platform guides every action you take on social media. Every post, connection, and so on are all under the site’s control.
When utilizing email marketing, you have complete control over your email list and all of your campaigns (whether or not they’ve been sent). This means no one can steal or stop you from interacting with your clients, regardless of who you pick or when it happens. However, your email materials must be legal and follow the provider’s rules and conditions to avoid deletion.
Do you have an email marketing campaign for your small business? What advantages have you obtained from it? In the comments area below, share your thoughts on this subject!
Email-Automation Best Practices
Email marketing platforms are effective tools that can help you expand your business regardless of your sector. However, it comes with rules and restrictions, much like any strong instrument. Consumers no longer wish to receive irrelevant commercial communications. They already receive too many.
Therefore, to ensure your marketing messages are well-received, it is important to follow some best practices for email automation.
The following are some of the most popular email-automation best practices.
1. Send a confirmation or welcome email after completing the sale
After someone joins your newsletter or fills out a contact form, send them a confirmation or welcome message. The confirmation email assures them that you’ve received their signup, while the welcome email helps to build the new connection.
2. Based on time zones and analytics data, send emails
According to many marketers, most emails are read within the first 24 hours. If you want your emails to be opened, keep an eye on your contacts’ time zones and analytics data to figure out when is the best day and time to send them. How email-automation tools like Mailchimp suggest, the ideal day and hour to send each message.
3. Automatically resend emails that have been opened to contacts who haven’t
If your email has been opened by more than half of your contacts and you’re using an email marketing platform like Mailchimp, you can automatically resend the email to those who haven’t opened it yet. This can be a great way to increase engagement with your message.
4. Trigger an automated email based on a contact’s behaviour
You can set up certain behaviours to trigger an email, such as when someone views a product on your website but doesn’t purchase it. These automated messages are called behavioural emails and can be very effective in getting people to take action.
5. Use an abandoned-cart email series for eCommerce sites
If someone adds items to their cart on your eCommerce site but doesn’t complete the purchase, you can send them automated emails reminding them of what they left behind and encouraging them to come back and finish the sale.
6. Include a personalized message in each automated email
When sending automated emails, it’s important to include a personal touch. This could be as simple as having the contact’s first name in the subject line of the greeting.
7. Give contacts the option to unsubscribe from their automated emails
It’s important to give contacts the option to unsubscribe from your automated emails if they no longer wish to receive them. Include an unsubscribe link at the bottom of each email and make it easy to find.
8. Use segmentation to divide contacts based on geography, behaviour, and interests
Personalizing emails is another surefire approach to enhancing open rates, click-through rates (CTR) and overall engagement.
Segmenting contacts by location, behaviour, hobbies, purchasing history, lifecycle stage (e.g. lead, MQL), and other characteristics is the best method to achieve this. You may target specific contacts and customize the emails to be more relevant to the receivers, resulting in more valuable communications.
For example, you might want to send a customer who just made a purchase a follow-up email asking for feedback on the product. This is much more likely to get a response than if you sent the same message to your entire list.
9. Work on Quality
The quality of your contacts in your database is essential for determining your email automation’s effectiveness at helping leads convert and increase sales.
The easiest way to improve and maintain high open and click-through rates, user engagement, and conversion rates are to send email automation only to the most relevant, valuable contacts.
It’s not necessary to add any contacts to your database; instead, request a double opt-in from users. This technique ensures that you only have individuals who are truly interested in hearing from you regularly. On the other hand, people who aren’t responsive may be shown opt-in boxes from time to time, which helps reduce uninterested people.
This way, your database is a self-cleaning, high-quality source of leads.
10. Don’t always fall for sale
Email marketing, like every other form of marketing, does not have to be about selling all the time. When email marketing is concerned, it can look pushy and spammy to ask for a purchase constantly. Instead, make sure your emails provide genuine value to your recipients. When promoting via email, don’t be afraid to educate and amuse your contacts.
Your goal should be to build a relationship with your leads and customers so that they think of you first when they’re ready to buy.
To do this, send them helpful information, such as blog posts, eBooks, guides, and other resources to help them in their journey. Intersperse these valuable pieces of content with promotional emails to create a well-rounded email strategy.
When you focus on providing value first, sales will naturally follow.
Naturally, the CTA at the bottom of the email should still be there, but the sale should not be the primary goal of every message.
11. Make it as simple as possible for clients to opt out
Pay attention to your subscribers’ time and choices. Allow them to unsubscribe at any time. Don’t make the process difficult if people don’t wish to hear from you again.
This area aims to ensure that your database comprises only high-quality contacts. By focusing on audiences that would be genuinely interested in your communications, you minimize the possibility of unsubscribes in the first place.
12. Test
Sending automated emails may present many difficulties. Before the email is delivered, you may use testing to look for any broken links, images, or tracking tags. Also, testing might help you perfect your email’s load time or improve its subject line.
You may improve the effectiveness of your material by testing it. You may learn how to optimize your content by researching what links your visitors click. This way, you can fine-tune your message to increase conversions – shorten it, modify its format or layout for insights into what converts best.
Some email automation also includes spam testing. Because spam filters can even recognize your most well-thought-out material, some marketing solutions automatically run your email through important spam filters to determine when it is being flagged as spam and provide you with actionable advice on resolving the situation.
Completely agree! Email automation may be very successful when done correctly, but it is not a set-it-and-forget-it proposition. You must remain on top of things and ensure that each email you send delivers value.
How Email Automation Can Help You With Your Business: Use Cases and Examples
There are a variety of ways email automation might be beneficial to marketers. Take a look at the most popular uses for automated emails below:
1. Welcome email
Your website might not be the first place they go to purchase anything, but since your visitors have already expressed an interest in your services or products, they are more likely to do so in the future. It’s a great approach to remind people of your brand whenever they decide to convert by keeping in touch with them regularly.
What could be more effective to implement than email automation?
Subscribing to your newsletter is a simple step toward conversion, and there are several strategies that a marketer may utilize to assist customers in converting without distracting them.
To persuade them not to unsubscribe, provide incentives such as discounts on their first purchase or other perks.
2. Transactional email
Transactional email is a type of email that informs customers about the status of their orders and delivery. However, it is often mislabeled. A variety of other events on a website or mobile app may trigger transactional emails (purchases, invoices, and receipts), not simply linked with transactions.
Email examples of automated transaction emails include notifications about the password recovery procedure, delivery status, account updates, and social media postings.
3. Drip campaigns are one of the most common ways for a business to nurture its leads.
According to statistics, 96 percent of people who visit your website aren’t yet ready to buy. They are ideal prospects to continue interacting with since they have indicated an interest in your product or services. Getting them to sign up for your email list is a fantastic method to keep in touch with them and encourage them to buy later.
Subscribing to your list is a considerably less significant step towards conversion for a user than immediately giving money to you. As a result, people are far more inclined to do it. You may use an email automation tool to create a sequence of lead-nurturing emails or drip campaigns (find out more here) to remind people about your brand and eventually persuade them to purchase from you.
Lead nurturing campaigns convert leads into customers through a succession of automated emails. Such an initiative might start with basic, all-encompassing emails that showcase the product’s advantages or cover several use cases. The messaging may become more sales as time goes on in this type of campaign.
Drip campaigns may be used for non-sales-oriented activities such as onboarding new clients. Instead of selling, the objective of these emails would be to encourage new consumers to use the new program.
Multiple leads nurturing, and drip marketing techniques may be utilized for distinct goals. You may mark certain leads for nurturing in some CRM systems, such as Salesforce or Highrise. The platform sends communications to these prospects through an integrated email automation service like Zapier.
4. Newsletters that inform users about new material or products
Email automation can be useful for informing your readers about a new product or content you’ve developed: blog posts, videos, and so on. This is an effective technique to expand your blog’s audience while exposing your new pieces to individuals who are most likely to engage with them.
5. Anniversary emails with a discount on your next purchase
Send birthday wishes or other messages to individuals who have given you their birthday (if they have provided this information), after a year as a client, or another milestone. Provide your recipient with an incentive. Offer, for example, 15% off their next purchase.
6. Updates about your products
Keep your followers informed about current events, new product launches, and newly introduced product features, services, webinars, and so on using emails. Email is an excellent platform to keep your consumers up to date on your product offerings, remind them of your firm, and educate them on the many ways to utilize it.
7. Consult the market and obtain feedback
Automated emails are also an excellent way to send out customer surveys, consumer research, product feedback, etc. You’ll be able to understand your client’s problems and requirements using this information, which you can apply to enhance your product.
If your product is not what your customers had in mind, you may need to modify your marketing messages.
Sending out short surveys to your consumers might help you come up with new features and prioritize development pipelines. Surveys allow you to find out what your customers want with your product and why they bought it in the first place.
8. Customer engagement and retention are critical to your business’s success.
People may forget about your product if they didn’t use it since they signed up for it or purchased it. The emails can demonstrate the product’s advantages and educate the audience. Such communications might also assist increase a customer’s perceived value of the product in their eyes. People will be more likely to convert into regular customers if they understand the product’s usefulness and completely comprehend it.
If the customer has no prior experience with the product, you may encourage them to do so. You can also inquire about their interest in using it and offer more reasons for doing so. You may send automated reminder emails to your clients if they have abandoned their cart before completing the transaction.
Losing current consumers might be costly to your firm, but retention is relatively inexpensive compared to acquisition.
They are sending out email campaigns to subscribers informing them that their subscription is about to expire, that space is running out, or that a recurring payment has been unsuccessful increasing the likelihood of those consumers staying with you or upgrading their plan.
Dropbox actively uses such emails to advise customers that they are approaching capacity (and encourages them to switch to the premium, paid account).
Last Words
Although email marketing is a rather personal and inexpensive approach to reaching your target audience, it can be extremely effective in informing consumers about your product or service and keeping them engaged across platforms.
With email marketing automation, marketers can now utilize sophisticated automated marketing software to target potential customers based on their interests. Because of increasingly challenging cookie-based targeting and various restrictions imposed by new privacy laws, this topic has recently received much interest.
Instant mass emails have the potential to be effective. When done correctly, they enable your company’s messages to end up in the same inbox as your customer’s communications, which can’t be overstated in an era of ad-blocking and increasingly distracted readers.
