Automation of email marketing

How to save time and increase sales

Digital marketing is an ever-changing ecosystem where ambition and innovation dictate the rules.

If you want to stand out from the competition and watch your business grow while you concentrate your efforts on other promotional activities, automate some of your email marketing strategy.

Email automations are a way to save time and increase engagement with your audience. They're not the easiest thing in the world, but they're not the hardest either.

In this article, we'll tell you what email automations are, what elements they contain, how they're made, and what best practices to follow when creating them.

What are email automations?

These are email campaigns that are automatically sent to specific segments of your subscribers. The process starts when a certain condition is met, which is called a trigger. A trigger can be anything - for example, a certain date, an order placed, a new user signing up, products abandoned in the cart.

Email automations are sent at the right time to the right users, making them a valuable tool for any marketing strategy. They enable marketers to create timely and personalized messages that can have a different purpose.

For example, if a user adds items to their cart and then leaves them without completing their order, this could trigger an automatic abandoned cart email. We'll look at more examples in more detail below.

Email automations save marketers a lot of time and effort, but they still require serious planning, testing, and creating compelling and personalized content that converts.

Among the benefits of automated email campaigns are:

• Less manual sending of emails.
• More time to use to create quality content.
• Personalised messages sent to users at the right time.

As a result, you can expect:

• More results - user engagement and conversions
• More revenue.
• A more effective marketing strategy.

What is email workflow?

This is a series of automated emails that are sent once certain actions have been completed or a behaviour has occurred. These emails work together to accomplish a goal, such as introducing the user to the specifics of your business or bringing them closer to the final step in the marketing funnel - the checkout.

A series of automated emails is an excellent tool to guide users through the customer journey, with personalised messages that increase the effectiveness of your email communication.

Series often perform better than single emails, but be careful not to overdo it and leave enough time between emails in the same series.

How do email automations work?

To have a complete automated email workflow, the following three elements must be in place:

Trigger.

This is the condition that started the campaign sending. For example, in a newsletter signup trigger, a welcome email series can be sent to welcome new users and tell them about your business. If the trigger is a specific date, such as your roommates' birthday, on the day they can receive a personalized holiday greeting and gift from you.

Entertainment.

If you want a certain amount of time to pass between the trigger and the send, the delay will be helpful. For example, if a user leaves products in their cart without completing their order, you can choose to wait a bit before receiving an automated email with the "forgotten" products.

Message.

This is the content of the emails themselves. Automations allow for a new level of personalization, much more refined than just adding the user's name to your subjet. You can collect and use information like:

• their journey through your website (which pages they visit);
• products under consideration;
• products ordered;
• products forgotten in the cart;
• the number of times your emails are opened in a given period, and more.

All of this will help you create the content in your automated campaigns to be tailored to the experience users have with your business.

What is audience segmentation?

In order to make your messages relevant, it is important to take the time and divide your co-scribes into specific segments. Then, when setting up your automated campaigns, you choose which segment gets what.

Audience segmentation is done based on certain actions that users have performed or conditions they meet. For example:

• what products they have bought from you;
• how many orders they have - for example, 0 (leads), 1 (new customers), 2 (returning customers), more than 2 (loyal customers), etc;
• how many email campaigns they have opened in the last month;
• which city/country they are in;
• where or what they work and others.

Let's say your brand offers beauty products and you have a segment of customers who bought a certain shampoo. Through email automation, you can suggest that they buy another product from the same line - something they would presumably be interested in.

You're required to spot the different opportunities your customer segments offer and take advantage of them by creating targeted and personalized email automations that hit the mark. The rest is magic 🙂

Important automations to try out

Email automation can be used in many cases. Both for educational purposes, such as introducing new users to the specifics of your business, or to prompt them to complete an order (for an abandoned cart). Some important automated email campaigns you should not miss are:

• Floo for welcome. Once a user registers on your website, you can send them a series of emails telling them about your brand mission, the products/services you offer and what the benefits are.
• Floo for abandoned trolley. When a user adds items to their cart and does not complete the order, you can prompt them with a series of emails. In them, you can add the contents of his cart as well as a discount promo code to intrigue him.
• Floo for loyal customers. Segment your most dedicated fans and reward them with a special offer to let them know you appreciate their support.
• An email for an upcoming birthday. Send a birthday greeting and gift to your subscribers.
• Flowy for a product review. A few days after order delivery, you can prompt your customers to share their opinion and experience with the product ordered.
• Flow to re-engage inactive subscreens. Segment your list subscribers according to their activity. There will be highly engaged (e.g., opened your last three email campaigns), less engaged (opened one of your last three campaigns), and those who aren't paying attention at all and haven't opened any of your campaigns. With a series of emails with interesting content and cool offers, you can remind them of your business. And those who continue to ignore you are better off being deleted from your subscriber base so they don't confuse your data for analysis.
• Floo for "waking up" customers who haven't ordered in a while. Like the above floo, this one will help you squeeze the last drops of juice out of certain segments. Target your customers who haven't ordered in, say, 3 months. Depending on what you're offering this period can vary greatly. In a series of emails, remind them how good your products are, what they ordered last time and offer a discount to entice them to come back.
• Flou to promote certain events. For example, if you're promoting a webinar, you can send one email to prompt registration, then a second email to remind you a few days later.
• Floo for downloadable content (most often an ebook). The user leaves an email, in return for which they receive a message with a link to download the book, and a day or two later they receive a second email in which you introduce your business and invite them to take a look at your products or services.

Best practices in creating successful email automations

Pay attention to the content

Email automation saves time, but original personalized content takes a lot of effort. Don't overdo it.

A little goes a long way - start with a flowy

If it seems complicated, start with small steps. Set up a float, test it before launch, and once you activate it, monitor the results.

Don't overdo the frequency of emails

Align your automated campaigns with the regular promo newsletters you send and make sure you set things up so that it's not possible for someone to get three emails from you in one day.

Personalise your messaging according to the customer's experience with your brand

Add products that your customers have ordered or viewed, or suggest similar ones. Make each email relevant to the interests of the person who will receive it.

Segment by interests

Some of your subscribers may only open the emails with special offers, while others may open those with educational information. Track trends and take advantage of this when segmenting your audience.

Keep track of engagement metrics

Bounce rate, click-through rate, conversion rate are among the important metrics to watch to see if your automated campaigns are delivering the results you want.

Keep an eye on recent events

If you offer tours, for example, it would be a bad idea to send an email about a trip to a destination where there has been a recent natural disaster. Keep an eye on what's going on and change your automated email campaign settings accordingly.

Keep the human element

Marketing automations are a great way to save time and increase results, but don't forget to keep the human face of communication with your subscribers.

Email marketing automation is a valuable practice that can yield many positives for both your brand and your customers. Timely, relevant and human communication is a winning strategy for your business growth. If setting up and monitoring email automations seems complicated, we at ADvantage Digital Agency are here to build and execute a comprehensive plan to take your email marketing activities to the next level.