Email marketing automation is a crucial aspect of your email strategy. It's essential to have an automation system in place that saves you time, increases the effectiveness of your email campaigns, and can be personalized based on customer profiles. In this blog post, we'll cover what you need to know about email marketing automation - from how it works to how automation can help boost the effectiveness of your emails.
What is Email Marketing Automation?
Email marketing automation is a tool that can be used to help you continuously engage with your customers and prospects. It lets you automate tedious tasks, such as sending emails or triggering events based on specific actions.
There are several different types of automation, from drip campaigns to workflows. This blog post will focus on email marketing automation, one component of an automated customer relationship management system (CRM) with marketing automation features.
A CRM combines all aspects of your business's relationship with customers into one place - including sales, marketing, and support. For example, email marketing automation allows you to create sequences that automatically send marketing emails based on a trigger or action in another area within the CRM. These automated emails can also be used for other purposes, such as customer onboarding workflows, webinar reminders, and much more.
How Does Email Marketing Automation Work?
Email marketing automation is a bit like having an assistant. First, you set up the email sequence, and then they perform the necessary actions. So, if you create an automated series for new customers to receive their welcome emails after purchasing your products or services, this will happen automatically - no manual effort required.
Triggers & Actions: Key Elements of Email Marketing Automation
Trigger: The event that starts or triggers an action or chain of events within your CRM that leads to sending an email message via automation. It's what sets things into motion and creates each step along the journey towards customer success (or failure).
Actions: These are all pre-programmed tasks that occur when specific conditions are met, such as: sending a welcome email, updating a lead score or status in CRM, triggering the next step in the automation sequence. An email campaign can be used to offer discounts and coupons that expire after a specific timeframe. Other purposes of an email campaign could be to nurture your leads and educate them on your products or services, which will help build trust with them.
The Benefits of Using Email Marketing Software
There are several benefits to using email marketing automation.
- Drive revenue - email marketing is great for increasing revenue, especially if you have a mailing list of customers who've already bought from your business. For example, a sequence can be set up to automatically send out coupons and discounts that expire after a specific time frame - motivating them to make another purchase.
- Increase customer retention & loyalty - email marketing automation can also be used to help you retain your existing customers. For example, suppose they haven't purchased in the last month or so. In that case, an automated sequence will remind them of what's available and encourage them to make another purchase (assuming that there are still products on their wishlist).
- Increase brand awareness - email marketing is one way for companies to stay top-of-mind with potential customers who've never purchased from their business before. For example, a series might include information about special offers that expire after 24 hours, as well as tips and tricks explicitly related to the product or service that they're interested in purchasing.
- Deliver targeted messages - with automated email campaigns, you can send automated messages at specific intervals based on a customer's behavior or activity within CRM. For example, if they haven't completed a particular action, this may trigger to follow up with them and offer support if necessary.
- Time and money savings - you can automate repetitive tasks or actions that would otherwise have to be done manually by your team, freeing up time for them to focus on other essential aspects of running the business.
Email marketing campaigns allow you to set up sequences of emails specific to the customer to provide more value to your audience. This means they'll receive more relevant, helpful content than what you could offer with a single message sent manually at one time.
How to Set Up Your First Campaign
Email marketing automation is easy to set up, but it can be time-consuming to learn everything from scratch. So instead, using proven email service providers such as Pulse Technology can assist you with creating your email marketing campaigns and how the sequence should function for maximum impact with your audience. You can then work on personalizing this content before launching your first campaign!
Once you've chosen your email marketing service, you're now ready to launch your very own automated emails, thanks to email marketing software. If you need more guidance or support along the way, feel free to contact our team of experts at any point in the process. We look forward to hearing about all of your future successes and achievements!
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Tips for Making The Most Out of Your Campaigns
You've set up your first digital marketing campaign, and it's ready to go! But how do you make the most out of email marketing automation?
- Targeting - one of the key benefits of automated emails is creating content tailored towards specific activities or actions within CRM. This means sending out something valuable along with offers, discounts, or coupons depending on what they did (or didn't) complete. Personalizing this message with merge fields will be more likely to get a response than sending out generic information without any context for who they are as an individual.
- Timing - another factor that impacts open rates and click-throughs is sending messages throughout different time frames such as weekdays vs. weekends, morning vs. evening, etc. Experiment with sending automated emails during other times to determine when your customers will most likely check their inboxes and take action on the content you're offering them.
- Testing - don't be afraid to test things out! Set up a few campaigns that use entirely different sequences of messages, different subject lines, or send it at a time where there's no other activity going on within CRM (such as over the weekend). Look for ways in which these tests can impact open rates, click-throughs, revenue increases from special offers, or even if they've made another purchase since signing up for your list. Test everything to discover what works best, so you have an effective strategy moving forward!
Email Marketing vs. Email Marketing Automation
While both email marketing and email automation revolve around emails to communicate with your audience, there is a difference between these two terms. Email marketing typically refers to creating content for an automated sequence that will be sent out at different times as part of a predefined process - this can include arrangements such as welcome series, re-engagement campaigns, etc. So, in addition to using targeted messages based on specific activities or behavior within CRM, you'll have complete control over what they receive from you throughout their journey with your brand!
Email automation goes even further by allowing marketers to set up personal triggers. Hence, specific actions lead to a response being automatically triggered where new emails depend on who signed up for them, what they did/didn't do during their last visit, etc. But again, there are no limitations on how often these automated emails can be sent or to whom - all you need is CRM data and marketing automation to get started!
This distinction between the two terms may seem subtle, but it's imperative when you're trying to figure out which email marketing strategy will work best for your brand and customers. If you have any questions about how Pulse can help with both of these approaches (and more!), feel free to contact our team at any time. We look forward to hearing from you soon!
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Conclusion
Email marketing automation is a crucial aspect of your email strategy. An automated system can help you save time, increase the effectiveness of your emails, and personalize messages based on customer profiles. If you want to learn more about how it works or if adding an automated process would benefit your business, we're happy to meet with you and answer any questions!
