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As a business owner, you want to stay connected to your customers and make sure they remain interested in your brand. Email automation is a digital marketing tool that helps you strategically target new and existing customers. But where do you start? Below, we'll break down how email automation works and provide a few ideas to get you started.
What is Email Automation?
Email automation is a marketing tool that targets customers based on triggers, rather than a business's manual actions. These triggers may include customer behavior, preferences, and sales history, and they are linked to an action response. For example, after a customer signs up for an account (trigger), they will then receive a welcoming email (action response).
By setting up email automation, you relieve yourself of sending tedious manual emails to each lead. Setting triggers and action responses allows you to target the right person at the right time to optimize your chances of getting a new lead. That way, you can promote customer engagement and retention while keeping your marketing strategy efficient. According to data from Epsilon, automated emails can have a 70% higher open rate than manual emails, indicating that customers are eager to engage with action-personalized email responses.
Welcome Your Customers
A welcome email is the first message that customers receive after they've subscribed to your mailing list or purchased a product or service. In fact, according to Omnisend, 74% of customers expect a welcome email, and 46% of customers actually open it. This email should welcome your customer and introduce your brand to promote excitement about your goods or services. Make sure to thank your customer for subscribing, and follow up by setting expectations about what they will receive from you.
This is a good opportunity to talk about your business and its goals or mission. Think about the welcome message as an onboarding experience for the customer; they should be more informed and interested in your business once they've finished reading the email. You might even consider offering a welcome discount on their first purchase within the email. Close with a CTA that directs them to relevant brand content.
Promote Products or Services
Promotional emails can help convert multiple different kinds of customers, including those who have abandoned their carts or have browsed without intending to purchase anything. Don't just send an email every single time a product is launched or discounted, however. Instead, consider your user behavior and set triggers according to specific interests.
If a customer abandons their cart, for example, you can send them an email when the item in their cart drops in price or becomes low in stock. Cart recovery emails are shown to convert 5% of customers, according to a study by Omnisend. You can also send an email to a customer who's been browsing to let them know that an item of interest is back in stock, or even to refer them to other relevant items.
Birthday, Milestone, or Holiday Wishes
Nothing says "personalized" like an email for your customer's birthday. It's also a good idea to send emails for the holidays and to acknowledge customer milestones, such as a one year subscription anniversary. Many businesses send out these emails, however, so make sure yours is creative and personalized to stand out.
For a customer's birthday or milestone, show them why they're important to your business and reward them for their loyalty. While a customized message may suffice, a small discount or voucher is even more memorable.
Win Back Customers
Sometimes, customers become inactive. A win-back or re-engagement email campaign is usually triggered after a set period of inactivity and is intended to reencourage brand interest. When setting the inactive time trigger, consider how often your customer may need to repurchase your product or service, and plan the trigger around that timeframe. If you're too early, they might not be ready to purchase again, but if you're too late, they might have already moved on to another competitor.
Create an Educational Series
Consider teaching your email subscribers about topics relevant to the products and services your business offers. If your business sells garden supplies, you could write an email explaining the uses for different types of soil. Educating customers about relevant topics may help generate more interest in your business. Make sure that whatever educational material you provide also includes a CTA to visit a product page on your website, as this will give you the best chance of converting customers.
Email automation is an excellent marketing tool, not only for offloading tedious work and optimizing your workflow efficiency, but also for connecting your business to customers in optimal ways. Get started with email automation today, and watch your leads and sales grow.
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BBB of Southern Piedmont and Western N.C. contributed this article.