Email Automations: Your New Best Friend
Customer communication is key when creating long term relationships. Showing customers that they are appreciated and that you value them is vital when trying to increase customer return rate, increase sales, and ensure a positive customer journey and experience.
Email automations are a series of automated emails that are sent based on a subscriber's contact information, behaviour, or preferences. These emails work together to accomplish a goal, like on-boarding a service, purchasing a product, or simply welcoming the subscriber to your business.
Creating email automations not only helps convert more subscribers, but also takes the headache away from attempting to create new emails for every point in the customer journey. This automatic flow keeps your subscribers and customers continually and consistently engaged, reminding them of your brand and fostering a long term relationship.
The Basic Email Automations:
There are countless email automations you can create and customise based on your business, your audience, and your needs. Below is a list of the basic email automations you should consider implementing for your business.
1. Welcome Series: This is a series of emails welcoming subscribers to your brand/ business that is triggered when someone creates an account on your site or subscribes to your newsletter. This can contain anywhere between 1 to 10 emails that get sent out sequentially providing information about who you are, what your unique value proposition is, and why people should want to engage with you and your business.
2. Abandoned Cart Series: An email flow to stay top of mind with users who abandon their cart before completing the order. This series can include a discount code to try and get the user over the line and convert them, and also information around the value of purchasing from you. Try not to send more than 2 to 3 abandoned cart emails as they can quickly become spammy if you send too many.
3. Re-Engagement Series: Reconnect with customers with an automated re-engagement email. This can be set up to email contacts when they meet certain criteria; such as length of time since their last website visit, email activity, or form submission. This is a great way to remind people that you still exist and that you have value to provide to them.
4. Reminder Emails: These are automated emails that are sent out reminding customers to repurchase a product, leave a review, or simply browse your product offerings.
5. Upsell Flows: These emails are sent to customers who purchased a certain product, and in turn recommend related products. Eg. If someone purchased a bike from you, you could send them an email outlining all your biking accessories like helmets, locks and pumps. These Upsell Flows need to be created per product or category to ensure that the products you are recommending are complementary to the products they have already purchased.
The Key Elements To An Email Automation
Now that we know what emails to set up as automations, the next step is understanding the key elements to an email automation or workflow.
1. Trigger: The trigger is what action is taken to trigger the email flow. This could be the subscriber being added to a specific list, purchasing a certain product, or filling out a form.
2. Sequence: This is how the email automation is set up and how customers move through it. Is there a time delay between emails? Or a conditional yes/no split based on specific actions the customer has taken since entering the automation?
3. Subject Line & Preheader: Your subject line and preheader should be short, clear and concise with no spam words. This is how you capture your subscribers’ attention within their inbox so time needs to be taken to get this right. We recommend doing some A/B testing to see what works and what doesn’t. It’s all about trial, error and adaptation to find the right fit.
4. Email Body: The content of your email which includes copy, images, formatting and design. This is where you pull the customer in and try and relay your message to them. Make sure it’s easy to read, has a consistent flow, and is visually appealing. You also want to make sure that your content has value to the customer otherwise you may end up with high unsubscribe rates.
5. Call To Action: Ensure there’s a Call To Action within each email. Don’t be too pushy but make it clear and easy for the customer to take the steps you want them to take.
An important thing to always keep in mind is to never just sit back and set and forget your automations. Like everything, continual optimisation will ensure the best results. Look at your analytics. Are your open rates low? Consider rewording your subject line. High unsubscribe rates? Look at how many emails you are sending and ensure that they all contain value.
And there you have it. Email Automations are an incredible resource that can provide revenue and create deeper relationships with your customers with minimal effort once they have been set up.
Do you need help with your Email Automations? We’d love to help!