Email Marketing Automation – Effective Workflows
Email Marketing Automation
Email marketing automation seems like a complicated process. The reality is that it is simple and effective to implement email automation.
Now, let’s explore how automation helps in effective email marketing.
Email marketing automation is a series of workflows that enable us to send emails instantly based on some set triggers.
The baseline for marketing automation is understanding the audience behavior and acting on it.
Here are few of the popular automated email workflows that marketers need to leverage to enhance customer engagement:
Welcome Emails
Research indicates that 96% of visitors to your website aren’t yet ready to purchase or opt-in for your service. However, they are interested in your product/service.
They are your prospects who you should continue communicating with and nurture them for a future purchase.
Personalized welcome emails are an excellent way of connecting with your first-time audience. Establish a continuing relationship with your visitors who have signed up with you.
Grow your business reach by providing newsletter subscription, live product demo, white papers & case studies, etc., which the prospects can download by filling up their credentials.
Include relevant content and giveaways like e-books and case studies if you are a B2B service provider. For retailers, promo codes are the best way to engage a new audience.
Feedback Request Emails
Get the voice of the customer. Understand their pain points to work ahead to be a customer-driven brand. Product usage, shopping behavior, etc. would give insights on brand performance. It determines what is your future direction.
Feedback emails are crucial for the brand. It helps to be at the customers top of mind and deliver exceptional customer experience.
Re-engagement emails
Re-engagement emails are another exciting way to connect with your lost customer. Reconnect with your audience who haven’t responded for a while by sending them emails.
Various incentive plans would work well for your audience. Based on the length of inactivity and engagement trends with your brand, design your campaign.
For example, Lowe’s does an engagement email campaign in an intelligent way.
At the time of product upgrade, Lowe’s notifies its existing subscriber base with exclusive offers. Their ‘product upgrades discount’ and ‘return the old product for new’ campaign trigger customers to go for a repeat purchase.
Increase product usage
With the advent of marketing technology, numerous online applications have risen. Most of them use a free trial period plan. They gain the attention of potential customers to try on an buy the tool for a licensing fee.
A series of emails triggered at various intervals of trial sign-up, upgrade to paid version, etc. are likely to enhance the product usage. Due to the continuous interaction with the user and brand.
For example, the email automation software provider, Campaign Monitor, offers a free trial to explore their software capabilities. Users realize the value before upgrading to a paid account. Similarly, there is an umpteen number of online providers following this business model.
Inform your customers of upcoming expirations
A lost customer leads to business loss. According to Bain & Co, a 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75%.
Notify the customer about account/subscription expiry at the right time. It leads to a higher customer satisfaction.
Allow buffer time for customers to upgrade/downgrade or continue their license. Provide the account information status to make them take an informed decision.
Send timely reminders based on the business value. It helps in building a customer connect and eventually building customer loyalty.
Possibilities of email marketing automation
The extent of email automation workflow is endless. Almost any action that brands want their customer to take today could be automated.
For example, landing page personalization, email reminders, etc. The ultimatum of any automated email marketing workflow remains closing a sale. I.e., triggering a prospect to the final purchase decision.
The purview of email marketing automation starts with welcome emails. Followed by reminder emails, birthday & events emails, blog promotions emails to lead nurturing emails and email campaign series.
The automated workflow lays out the stages of a customer journey in detail. It determines the required actions for the brand to capture the attention of their customers.
Thus, in a nutshell, email marketing automation is an essential technique brand must put into action. It helps in delivering exceptional customer experience with minimal efforts if executed right.
Stay tuned for similar interesting content. Meanwhile, you can also check out our insights page to know more on the latest marketing concepts in use currently.