Email marketing without automation is akin to chopping a tree with a spoon – you might get the job done, but without the right tool to help you succeed, you’ll have to put in more effort only to get subpar results. Precision is vital in email marketing, and marketers utilize automation to send personalized emails to the right people at the best time. Read our guide to discover how automated email marketing can help your business develop brand awareness, encourage sales, or enhance customer engagement.
What is email automation?
Email automation utilizes predefined rules to send personalized messages to customers based on their behavior. It is often employed through marketing automation software.
Most email automation is triggered by customer behavior. For example, when a customer signs up for your newsletter, a welcome email is automatically sent to his inbox. If a customer leaves items in his cart without checking out, an automated email reminding him to finish his transaction is sent.
Marketers can also use marketing automation to promote their products or services, greet subscribers on their birthdays, or send an automatic reply to customer complaints.
Why should you use email automation?
It’s easy to see the value of automated email marketing when faced with thousands of subscribers in your database. Can you imagine sending out personalized emails to them one by one? The task becomes even more challenging when you consider that not everyone in your subscribers list is in the same part of the buyer’s journey – the emails you’ll send to first-time buyers should vary from those you’ll send to loyal patrons.
Email marketing automation can tailor emails to your audience’s needs while automatically sending them out when your audience is most receptive. With more time on your hands, you can focus your energy on more important matters, like creating compelling content that converts. Discover the best content development tools here.
What are the benefits of email marketing automation?
Email automation is essential for many businesses, especially e-commerce, and the numbers are here to prove it. In an Epsilon research, triggered emails receive 70.5% more opens and 152% more click-throughs than generic newsletters.
Moreover, triggered personalized emails generate 75% of email revenue compared to one-size-fits-all campaigns, according to a DMA study. Here are more reasons why your business should employ email marketing automation.
Efficiency
The most apparent benefit of email automation is efficiency – email marketing software can help you reach as many people as you wish without having to send out emails one by one. This gives you more time to focus on other aspects of email marketing, such as composing effective and personalized emails. This leads us to the next benefit.
Personalized emails
Statista reports that 90% of U.S. consumers are annoyed by company messages that aren’t relevant to them. Email marketing software can help you send messages to a segmented audience based on their behaviors and interests. This allows you to send relevant messages to customers based on where they are in the buyer’s journey, helping them move down the sales funnel faster.
Improved user experience
Email automation allows you to create a better overall user experience. With email marketing software, you can send deadline warnings, payment reminders, incentives, birthday and holiday greetings, etc.
You can find what works for your product or service and create an email campaign that fits accordingly. With a better user experience, you can build more relationships, enhance conversions, and improve click-through traffic.
Enhanced customer retention
Marketers know it’s harder to convert a new lead than sell to a loyal customer. Email automation allows you to constantly keep in touch with your customers and engage them with deals, discounts, or new offers, thereby improving customer retention rates.
Measurable results
Email marketing software allows you to track your performance using metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. You can use this data to terminate inefficient campaigns, improve your marketing strategies, and focus on content your audience loves.
Where should you use automated emails?
Marketers employ email automation to serve various purposes, but here are a few of the most common ways it is utilized.
Newsletters
Regularly sending newsletters with valuable content is a great way to keep your customers engaged until they make another purchase. Newsletters that are compelling, personalized to the person’s interests, and relevant to the times are most effective at keeping readers engaged.
Welcome emails
Customers are most receptive to your messages after signing up for your newsletter. Email automation allows you to send compelling welcome emails that give your subscribers an idea of what they can expect from being a part of your email database. If they find your content compelling, they’ll be more likely to interact with your emails in the future.
Abandoned carts
A scheduled email can be sent to someone who abandons their cart, prompting them to complete their purchase. This practice is vital for e-commerce businesses, as the average cart abandonment rate is around 77%.
Replies to customer complaints
Complaints deserve to be taken seriously, and customers become increasingly frustrated while waiting for your response. Using an automated email, you can explain your complaint process and let people know you’re working to resolve the problem.
Re-engagement
If you have customers who haven’t engaged with your emails for quite some time, you can re-engage them with automatic emails that offer deals or discounts. Email automation software allows you to segment these types of subscribers so you can send them targeted messages.
Sales or discounts
Email automation allows you to launch an entire sales or discount campaign from start to finish without having to send individual messages to all your subscribers. Send out teasers, lead magnets, countdowns, promo launches, retargeting, and abandoned cart messages according to schedule. Learn how to write compelling promotional emails here.
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