How to Use Email Marketing Automation for a Successful Campaign

Did you know that email marketing is the best marketing channel when it comes to return on investment (ROI)?

And when you think of it, it’s kind of logical. When somebody regularly receives emails from you, keeps reading them, and even decides to purchase your product or service motivated by a series of converting emails, that means that the relationship between you and your customers is strong.

That’s where email trumps other marketing channels – it is more personal and builds more trust with your customers.

Here are some more stats that show great power of email marketing:

• 89% of marketers think that email is the best channel for lead generation.
• People who buy from emails generally spend up to 138% more on purchases.
• Email is without a doubt the best channel for customer acquisition and retention.

And now comes another question, maybe even more important than the one that opened the article: Do you know how to improve your email marketing ROI?

The answer: By using email marketing automation strategies.

Read the tips below to find out the most effective steps to email automation.

First, Send a Welcome Email

A vast majority of your website visitors are not ready to pay for your product or service when they come to your website for the first time. But your relationship with them shouldn’t end just because they don’t feel ready to commit.

The important thing is that they have clearly shown interest in your brand. This means they think that you could potentially solve their problem.

And that is all you need, at least for now.

To continue communicating with them, get them to subscribe to your email list. For this, you can use a WordPress email plugin.

When they do it, send them an automated welcome email. In this email, besides telling them you are glad that they have become a part of your business family, you should also give them a special offer available only to subscribers.

See how easy it is?

In addition, you can use a very clever trick. Generate a discount code and include it in your welcome email. This way, you motivate people to purchase from you.

A hidden benefit of this strategy is that you can track website form conversions and campaign effectiveness to see their effect on sales.

Ask for Product Feedback

Do you agree that it is extremely difficult to build a product that will amaze your customers? It requires a deep understanding of their wants and needs, but that is the easy part. The main challenge here is the fact that you cannot read their minds.

Wait, but why would you read their minds? Instead, ask them for feedback directly – in an email.

When a customer makes a purchase, send them an automated email that asks them to express their opinion on the product or service they have purchased.

This is a win-win situation for you and the customer. Not only do you let them know that you value their opinion, but you also get crucial information that can help you improve your product in the future.

Promote Your Blog Posts and Events

If you run a blog (and this is something you should definitely do), why not mix it with your email marketing?

Email is among the most effective channels for growing your audience and promoting your blog posts. In addition, email subscribers are three times more likely to share your posts on social media than your visitors from other sources.

Basically, when you publish a new post on your blog, send your subscribers an automated email which promotes the post.

To entice your subscribers to read the blog post, the email should include:
– engaging visual elements (e.g. a nice image)
– a preview text explaining what the post is about
– a prominent call to action that invites them to read the post

Moreover, you should use automated emails to promote important events. If you are planning on organizing meetups, webinars, or other types of events, make sure your subscribers know about them.

But even though you can get a decent number of registrations for an event, some of the potential attendees will always flake out. To prevent this, you can automate a series of emails to remind them of the upcoming event. This is very similar to what Facebook does when you express interest in an event.

Just pass your customer’s email address together with the event date into a list in your email marketing tool and then create a series of automated emails to remind them to attend in the days leading up to the event.

Also, you should set up an automated email which will provide them with slides from the event and access to the on-demand version of the event (e.g. webinar) after the event is over. Use the same event date field as before to send follow-up emails.

Nurture Your Leads

Remember what we said about your leads not being ready to make a purchase yet? That is where lead nurturing enters the stage.

The best thing? You can use email automation to reduce the cost of your lead nurturing campaign.

First, you need to tag the leads which are not ready to buy yet and integrate them with your email marketing system.

Next, plan your nurture emails carefully:

• how many emails you want to send
• what you will promote
• what the email copy is going to look like, etc.

Then, send a series of automated emails over a period of time to educate your subscribers about how beneficial your product is and why they should use it.

During your lead nurturing campaign, consider covering the following topics:

• how your customers can use your product to achieve their goals
• the reason why they should switch from their current solution to your product
• a case study or social proof showing how your product or service has helped other customers

What type of automated emails should you send?

There are some types of emails that achieve better results than others. And what is even better, some of them can be automated.

Your business can benefit from the following automated emails:

• Welcome email
  We have already covered this one earlier in the article. A welcome email should let your customers know what type of exclusive information they will receive now that they are on your email list.
• Curation email
  Curated emails are extremely popular and effective, especially in the ecommerce industry. The reason for this is the fact that they enable marketers to show the bestselling items and segment customers according to their specific interests.
• Discount email
  If your customers are not sure whether they really want to buy your product, discount emails are the go-to solution. However, don’t send them too often as this can significantly reduce your profit. Instead, send them only to those leads who engage with your campaigns on a regular basis.
• Abandoned cart email
  Again, this type of email is great for ecommerce businesses. According to Omnisend, 46.1% of customers actually open abandoned cart emails. Moreover, 13.3% click inside the email, and 35% of those customers who click end up making a purchase.

When it comes to this type of emails, you have two options: send one email or a series of them. If you send one email to remind your customers about the items they left in their cart, send it within one day of cart abandonment.

On the other hand, if you opt for a series of abandoned cart emails, send these follow-ups within three to five days and offer a discounted rate for the product.

If you are a fan of Gmail and you use it for your campaign, you can use a Gmail audit tool to test various types of cart abandonment emails and see what works best with your subscribers.

• Anniversary email
  If you or your customer has a birthday or some type of anniversary, this is your time to shine. Anniversary emails generate up to 342% more revenue than other types of promotional emails. So, be kind and send some promo codes to your subscribers.

Final Thoughts
Email still rules the world of digital marketing when it comes to ROI. However, not a lot of marketers are willing to invest enough in this channel. Neither effort-wise nor money-wise.

But if you use email automation and the right outreach automation tool, you will be able to schedule a perfect email campaign while considerably reducing the cost of your email marketing campaign.

The post How to Use Email Marketing Automation for a Successful Campaign appeared first on Priority Pixels.