If you can automate a task, then you can free up more time to do things. Multi-tasking is indeed overrated. Companies hire employees because they need someone else capable to handle the responsibility. However, machines are reliable compared to humans (to a point) if their workflows are set up properly.
Marketers once believed that email marketing was truly dead in the last five years. However, with the increasing use of email push notifications (and because both Google and Apple are requiring users to register emails before using their device), the practice has become more efficient. According to MainstreetROI, emails were actually the driving force behind record-breaking 2016 Black Friday sales.
Automation saves time — if done properly. Many businesses use automation for obvious reasons. According to OptInMonster’s compiled email marketing automation statistics, automated email messages generate a 70.5% higher open rate and 152% higher click through rate (CTR) than usual marketing messages.
Notable Automation Software
Of course, before you can begin optimizing your email marketing automation workflow, you’ll need to use the right kind of software. Luckily, you have plenty to choose from. Here are three notable platforms:
SendLoop: You can cluster contacts together and track their movements when they visit your site. This allows you to create custom or middle-funnel content to urge them to take the next step as conversions.
Drip: The simplest interface ever for an automated email marketing tool. It gathers your best content and lets you make emails on the fly with its pre-made templates. You can then cluster them according to your workflow
InfusionSoft: A bit pricey but email automation is just one part of its service (and it does it so splendidly). Not only can you segment your website visitors but also gather email content and send them messages relevant to their position in the sales pipeline.
Now that you’ve got the right tool to succeed, it’s time to optimize your workflow to ensure your automated campaigns perform in the best possible way. There’s no guarantee they will succeed instantly. However, if you continue monitoring their performance through the use of proper tracking and optimization, then you can improve your workflows even more.
Five Email Marketing Workflow Hacks through Automation
Create a Workflow for Every Possible Topic
If your site handles plenty of topics, then automate your email marketing based on these topics. Even if it sounds simple, you’ll need to identify the subtopics of your business’ focal point or what it tries to resolve for customers.
For example, if you’re all about Chinese sausages and a visitor downloads your basic how-to guide about Chinese spices, then you can trigger your “Chinese ingredients” email automation workflow. The emails can contain useful content, such as the history of Chinese ingredients, nutrition facts, festivals surrounding Chinese food, and others.
The trigger here is the download of an e-Book. You can use newsletter opt-ins to trigger your email automation. In this light, you can even use analytic data to trigger events on your website. For example, a long-time return reader focusing on a single topic is clearly in need of advanced content.
Specialized Content for Frequent Visitors or Subscribers
Analytic data are excellent triggers for automating email marketing campaigns. You can set your triggers to activate emails to users with high numbers of visits to your website. In fact, you can even send more content to those who click particular emails or download e-Books and other content through subscription.
Frequent visitors or subscribers return to your site because they have found something useful with the content. You may not know if they’re only researching or actually considering making a purchase, but pushing forward more content urges them to show their true intent. Indeed, you lose nothing by sending them more content that you can reuse in the near future.
Identifying High and Low-Value Visitors
Once again, analytic data helps us know more about conversion events. As mentioned earlier, those who consume more content and frequently revisit your site are in need of deeper-level content. You might want to send them webinars or new e-Books on occasion and turn them into loyal customers or advocates. These are your high value visitors.
Your middle value visitors are leads; individuals who need a little more content to help clarify certain details they wish to know about.
Meanwhile, at your sales funnel’s entry point are visitors who look at your product pricing page, spend less time reading content on other pages, and other details. While they give you the lowest chances of conversions, you can automate your emails to provide them content that will pique their curiosity about the product. This content might highlight the value for money the product has (if it is quite above their budget) or specifications that set it apart from the market.
Abandoned Shopping Cart Content
Abandoned shopping carts in e-commerce websites are helpful tools for retargeting. Not only can you use them through Adwords and other PPC campaigns but also in email marketing automation. In fact, it gives accurate data about your potential conversions’ preferences. Finding a suitable collation of content to email your customer should be easy.
Using the abandoned shopping cart tracker, you can send an email reminding the consumer about their forgotten potential purchases. You can use this opportunity to send additional relevant items as well. For example, you can introduce an add-on to the item they were supposed to buy. To create more conversion potential, you can discount these add-on items if they purchase it along with their main cart products.
Consider Customer Happiness/Satisfaction
Data from trackers reveal every aspect of your consumer’s journey through your website. By knowing areas where they spent the most time reading through content, then you have knowledge of which email content will be suitable to urge them to make a purchase.
But when it comes to resolving consumer issues, you’ll need to determine their net promoter scores (NPS). By identifying the ideal customer’s happiness score based on parameters that you can set on your own (more on this here), you can then automate your email content lists to send varying content for both “happy” and “unhappy” customers.
