There’s been a surge in the craze for digital marketing, making people forget that electronic mail remains the most powerful and cost-effective channel, and when properly harnessed, is most likely to be better than other channels currently in use.
As a marketer, blogger, or entrepreneur seeking to improve your email campaigns, you must embrace email automation.
At the end of this article, you would have learned how to send timely and personal messages using email marketing automation to drive brand loyalty and increase customer engagement.
Types of Emails
Besides the various types of emails you may be familiar with, there are two basic ones related to our article and these are transactional and marketing emails.
Transactional emails: Usually containing information unique to a customer and triggered by an event, transactional emails are sent to individuals to facilitate the completion of a transaction or process. They could come in the form of an order confirmation email confirming the purchase of a product from your site.
There are also other uses of transactional emails some of which are for password resets, event reminders, and account updates, amongst others.
On the other hand, Marketing emails sometimes sent as promotional offer emails are sent to new and existing customers generally. They are mostly used for commercial purposes and are sent tactically and at a scheduled time.
Just like transactional emails, marketing emails have other uses some of which are for sales campaigns and newsletters, amongst others.
Defining email marketing automation
The opposite of standard mass broadcast, email marketing automation allows you to send out emails to your subscribers based on a pre-defined trigger or event. This could be in the form of a welcome email for new subscribers, notification of a new blog post et cetera.
Types of Email Automation
Email automation is divided into two namely behavior-based and time-based email automation.
Behavior-based automation This is a much smarter email automation as it allows you to personalize when you deliver your emails, giving you room to monitor the action taken by the recipient upon receipt of the mail, especially if they click on a specific link.
Time-based automation Here, you can schedule the date and time an email will be delivered to your subscribers. All you need to do is create the mail, designate its recipients and then schedule its time of delivery.
Benefits of email marketing automation
- Email automation ensures prompt delivery of emails as it sends emails to the recipients based on your trigger events. It also allows you to modify delivery based on the time zone of the recipients.
- It helps save ample time as it allows you create an email once and then letting it run automatically, thereby letting you attend to other needs.
Email marketing automation tools
In acquiring an email marketing software solution, you have to be precise as to the automation features wanted as there are different types with their own style of automation. There are also some free tools available, as well as a trial period. Some of these tools are:
1. ConvertKit which permits you to use its visual builder to create and send automated email marketing messages. It has a 14days free trial, after which you have to pay at least $29/month to get up to 1,000 subscribers.
2. ActiveCampaign: It has a Messaging app that lets you interact with website visitors as well as a CRM toolkit for monitoring your customers and contacts. Also, segmenting contacts and setting up welcome series can be easily done using ActiveCampaign. Just like ConvertKit, it offers a 14days free trial after which you pay $15/month to get up to 500 subscribers and $70/month if interested in the CRM and Messaging features.
3. MailerLite: This automation tool allows you to create simple or sophisticated workflows. It also permits you to welcome new subscribers or engage existing customers, thanks to its advanced email automation features. It has a Forever Free Plan for up to 1,000 subscribers, while its paid plan starts at $10/month and increases as you add more subscribers.
Types of automated emails
There are seven types of automated emails you could create and these are;
1. Greeting mails
This is the most common type of automated email and it involves welcoming and thanking subscribers as they join your list. It can be done either as a single email or as a welcome series.
2. Gratitude mails
Here, you generate an automated thank you message to be sent to customers whenever they make a purchase or donation. This helps to harness a long term healthy relationship.
3. Online course emails
Looking for a way to persuade people to join your email list? Offer them a free email course. Using email automation allows you to give these trainings in batches and at a set interval.
4. Promotion emails
Here, you can send automated promotion emails that contain special offers to customers who make regular purchases or are in a membership scheme.
5. Re-commitment emails
This targets inactive customers. In this type of automated email, events, and activities such as the length of time since a customer last visited the website or clicked on an email can be conditioned in your workflow. To further reawaken their interest in your products or services, you can also put up an exclusive offer.
6. Subscription renewal emails
To ensure you do not lose new and existing customers especially those who renew their subscriptions, always endeavor to send them an automated renewal email reminding them of the near expiration of their subscription, account, or policy. With this, they are constantly reminded subconsciously of the need to renew their subscription to your feed.
Conclusion
Ensure your email marketing strategy has a combination of automated messages and one-off campaigns, as this will help ensure that relevant and personalized messages are timely sent to your new and existing customers.
As a smart business owner seeking to maximize revenue, you need to embrace email marketing automation as it increases customer engagement, saves time, whilst increasing your revenue.
I expect your next email marketing strategy to be standard, so start working and generating that income!
Do you have an email list that needs to be revived? If yes, read my article on how to bring back your email list from the dead.