To reach out to potential customers, you need to provide them with the required information at the right time. E-mail automation comes into play here; without auto-generated e-mails, it would be hectic to your nurture and engage the target audience.
Well, this sounds tempting, right? A workflow that will give your team a major opportunity to reach out to clients while saving time. Sounds like a huge burden is lifted off your shoulders. But as tempting as it sounds, it might be perplexing. Read this article to eliminate the confusion.
What Is E-mail Automation?
E-mail automation is an effective way to communicate with potential clients as it allows you to reach out to them at a specific time with personalized contextual content without manual work. This process involves segregating clients on their behavior and allocating them into groups.
Automating E-mails saves your team time that would have been spent on tasks such as preparing the lists, and sending and scheduling generic messages. It revolves around a workflow that is triggered when pre-determined actions are used.
Let us now see how to set up a workflow.
How To Set up Automated E-mail?
As the famous Chinese proverb goes “What is earned with hard labor is eaten with pleasure”. Now, setting up the workflow involves a lot of steps but don’t step back because of it as the progress you could make with it is immaculate.
Step-1: Select software for E-mail automation.
There are different types of software available in the market today for auto-generating your E-mails. But you need to select the one which best suits your business goals. Let me provide you with a few automation tools which you can choose from.
1. HubSpot Marketing Automation
Best automation tool for Large businesses. Few Features:
- Automating repetitive marketing tasks
- Built-in E-mail automation app
- Collects integrated CRM contact data
- Lead-scoring
- Lead-rotating
Price: Free, $45/mo (Starter), $800/ mo (Professional), $3,200/ mo (Enterprise)
2. Constant Contact
Best automation tool for NGOs and small businesses. Few features:
- Website sign-up forms
- Drag and drop tools
- Integration with social media platform ads
Price: email automation is available in the Plus plan costs $45/mo for 500 subscribers. The final price is based on the number of contacts.
3. Mailchimp
Best automation tool for small businesses. Few features
- Connecting your E-commerce Platform to your E-mail platform.
- Customer Journey Automation
- Date-based Automation
- Behavior Automation
Price: Free, $9.99/mo (Essentials), $14.99/mo (Standard), $299/mo (Premium)
4. Campaign Monitor
Best automation tool for marketing agencies. Few features:
- Multiple users
- Assigning roles
- Branded E-mail templates
Price: For $29/mo, you can send email marketing automation to 12,500 subscribers. The plan with unlimited email automation flows costs $59/mo.
Step-2: Know Who Receives Your E-mail Campaigns.
You need to segment what will each audience receive. The automation software you choose must have the feature of client segmentation on the criteria you decide. Once you have segregated the groups based on their behavior and traits. Proceed to the next step.
Step-3: Set-up campaign goals.
Once you have segregated groups, you need to determine the purpose of contacting them. Yes, of course, it is to increase the conversion rate but that will only happen if you know why are you targeting the target. For that, you need to see what is common among the group and solve the mystery of “Why them?”.
Step-4: Determine the enrollment criteria.
This refers to the criteria which you set up to identify a potential customer as a qualified lead. You can use the workflow based on information present in your marketing database. For example, page views, content downloads, contact properties, etc.
Step-4: Create E-mail campaigns
When performing manually, there are certain steps you think of before acting on them. You should do the same while setting up the workflow. There is a blueprint that you will have to follow to create effective campaigns. Once you determine what will the outlay of your E-mail, you will have to ensure the following:
- Schedule send
- If/Then branching
- Updating and synching all your contacts to CRM
Once you have all this figured out, you will have to create all the e-mail assets to add them to your campaign.
Step-5: Activate The Workflow
Once you have set up the proper workflow, you may run a test run if that’s possible. Mistakes occur, but that is normal. You have to monitor your workflow and keep updating if there are any errors. Moreover, you can always improve your workflow according to the business goals.
Examples Of Automated E-mail Workflow
Let me walk you through some examples of automated workflows which you could in your E-mail campaigns
1. Welcome E-mail
Main trigger: Subscribing to the newsletter.
Give your new subscribers a warm welcome, including what can they expect from you, your best offers, and best articles, and educate them about the different features of their subscription.
2. Abandoned Cart Recovery E-mail
Main trigger: Visiting a website without buying
This workflow targets an audience who adds a product to their cart but does not complete the purchasing process. This E-mail content is a reminder to them to complete the purchase, you may as well add some discount or incentive to induce them into buying the product.
3. Order Confirmation E-mail.
Main trigger: Order placement
In this e-mail, you include basic billing details, and shipping details, suggest products similar to their purchase or something related to the product, and link to tracking pages if available. Not only does this summarizes their order but also provides customer support contact. This shows the customers that they can always confide in you and reach out whenever possible.
4. Product Review E-mail
Main Trigger: Few days after the order is delivered
The final e-mail you could send them is the product review e-mail. In this mail, you can ask how is the product and if it lived up to their expectation. You can also make them aware of the recent offers and discounts if any.
To Sum It Up…
E-mail automation is a good and efficient way to save the time of your team as well as increase the sales of the company. It allows you to optimize strategy and personalize e-mail content to increase effectiveness.
Hopefully, this article provided you with the information you needed to kick start your e-mail automation journey!