When it comes to email marketing, most people think of newsletters or those fancy marketing emails. However, the real strength of email marketing lies in automation. It’s a cost-effective way to keep your subscribers engaged, increase sales, and grow your business.
Benefits of email automation
Email automation is more than just a feature that allows you to send automated emails. It offers many benefits that can help you boost sales and increase engagement.
Cost-effective: Email automation is a cost-effective approach to email marketing, as it saves human hours. You can create all your automations at once, and they will keep working on their own indefinitely.
Segmentation and Targeting: Automation allows you to group your email list contacts by behaviour, preferences, or demographics, allowing you to send more relevant content to each group. This helps improve your conversion rates.
Contacts Nurturing: Automated email workflows can gradually nurture new contacts, helping them move through the marketing process with very little manual assistance, which increases the chances of conversion.
A/B Testing: Email automation makes it easy to test different versions of email campaigns. You can change things like content, subject lines or call-to-action buttons. This helps you find out which email works best with your subscribers.
Email marketing automation scenarios
Welcome email
A welcome email is the first email communication sent to a new subscriber, customer, or user after they sign up for a newsletter, service, or website. Its primary purpose is to greet the recipient, confirm their subscription or account registration, and provide them with essential information to get started.
Typically, a welcome email includes:
- A thank-you message: Expressing appreciation for joining or signing up.
- Confirmation details: Confirming the subscription or account creation with relevant details.
- Introduction to the brand or service: Briefly explaining what the company or service is about.
- Next steps or instructions: Providing guidance on how they can make the most out of their subscription or account.
- Contact information: Offering ways to reach out for support or more information.
- Incentives: Coupons, discounts, or special offers (if applicable) to encourage the recipient to take action.
- Social media links: Encouraging them to connect on social media platforms.
A well-written welcome email can help set the tone for the relationship, engage the recipient, and reinforce their decision to subscribe or register.
Abandoned cart emails
According to a report by Baymard, nearly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned before checkout. This is where an abandoned cart email automation proves useful. While it may not recover all lost sales opportunities, it can certainly recover a significant percentage.
These emails are usually sent a few hours to a day after the cart is abandoned and can include:
- A gentle reminder of the forgotten items.
- High-quality images or descriptions of the products left in the cart.
- Incentives like discounts or free shipping to entice completion of the purchase.
Re-engagement campaign
There may be scenarios where a customer hasn’t interacted with your business for quite some time. Often, they simply forget about your business, and automated re-engagement campaigns provide the gentle reminder needed to bring them back.
The objectives of re-engagement campaigns are to bring back their attention, renew their interest in your products or services, and motivate them to take further action, such as making a purchase or engaging with your content. These can include:
- A “We miss you” message with an exclusive offer.
- Asking the recipient to update their email preferences.
- Inviting them to explore new content or products.
Post-purchase emails
Automated post-purchase emails are a great way to keep customers updated on the purchase, delivery, and usage tips. It is also a great way to collect user feedback, which can be used to improve products or for marketing purposes. Moreover, it makes your customer feel valued, which helps you build a connection.
Some examples of post-purchase emails:
- Thanking the customer for their purchase.
- Providing information on shipping and tracking details.
- Offering tips on how to use their purchased products.
- Encouraging customers to leave reviews or feedback.
Birthday or anniversary emails
Personalised greetings on birthdays or anniversaries are a great way to create positive emotional connection. This brings small joys to the recipient and makes them feel connected to the brand, which in the long term helps build brand loyalty. This can be achieved by:
- Sending birthday wishes along with a special discount or gift.
- Commemorating the anniversary of their first purchase with your brand.
- Offering exclusive deals or bundles as a token of appreciation.
Event invitations/reminders
Whether you’re organising a physical event or hosting a virtual webinar, having automated email reminders is always helpful.
They help you manage communication with your audience and ensure timely updates and reminders, improving the experience for both you and your participants. With automated emails, you can easily send invitations, confirmations, updates, and follow-ups, making the process smoother and letting you focus on delivering a great event.
This series could consist of:
- An initial invitation with event details and registration link.
- Reminders leading up to the event with sneak peeks or agendas.
- A follow-up message thanking attendees and sharing key insights or recordings.
Create email automation for free
Although many email marketing tools allow you to create email automations for free, they often limit the size of your contact list or the number of emails that can be sent each month. While these limits are necessary, they often make the tools unusable for most use cases.
Therefore, it’s always a good idea to compare the free tier limits before choosing one.
| Free Tier (max subscribers) | Free Tier (max emails) | |
|---|---|---|
| EmailOctopus | 2,500 | 10,000/mo. |
| MailChimp | 500 | 1,000/mo. |
| Constant Contact | Not available | Not available |
| Klaviyo | 250 | 500/mo. |
EmailOctopus allows you to set up automations for a list of up to 2,500 subscribers, which is great for anyone who is just getting started with email marketing.
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