In today's fast-paced digital world, businesses are constantly looking for ways to streamline their marketing processes and maximize their revenue. One powerful tool that can help achieve these goals is email automation flows. By automating certain tasks and following up with contacts, businesses can ensure consistent engagement, personalized communication, and increased conversions. In this podcast episode, Mari-Liis and Laura from Powerful Marketers will dive into the world of email automation flows, exploring their benefits, common use cases, and best practices.
The Power of Email Automation Flows
Do you find it challenging to remember all the tasks and details required for consistent follow-ups? You're not alone. Email automation flows offer a simple yet effective solution. With an email automation flow, you can set up a sequence once and let it handle the task of sending personalized emails to new contacts. This not only saves time and effort but also ensures that contacts receive timely and relevant information.
Exploring Common Email Automation Flows
There are six common email automation flows that can be applied to any business, regardless of its industry or size. Let's explore each flow and how it can benefit your marketing strategy.
- Birthday Emails: Birthday emails allow you to send personalized birthday wishes to your contacts on their special day. By gathering the contact's birthday details and adding them to your CRM system, you can trigger automated birthday emails. Consider offering a special coupon code or gift to the contact to celebrate their birthday.
- Feedback Emails: Feedback emails are a practical way for businesses to gather feedback from customers. After a purchase, customers receive a thank you email with a request for feedback. Make it easy for customers to provide feedback by keeping the process short and simple. Utilize the feedback received to improve your products or services.
- Abandoned Cart Emails: Abandoned cart emails are sent to customers who have added items to their online shopping cart but have not completed the purchase. These emails serve as reminders and can include a discount coupon to incentivize the purchase. Utilize segmentation to determine which customers receive the discount coupon.
- Lead Magnets: If you provide a free tool, resource, or download in exchange for contact information, it's crucial to have an automated flow to nurture these leads. Continue providing relevant information and include a call to action to convert them into paying customers.
- Event and Webinar Sign-Ups: Automating event and webinar sign-ups can save time and ensure a smooth registration process for your attendees. Utilize scheduling tools that already have built-in email automation templates for event reminders.
- Newsletter Sign-Up Welcome Emails: The welcome email is the first email a person receives after signing up or becoming a customer. Its purpose is to introduce the person to the brand, set expectations, and provide necessary information or resources. Including a call to action in the welcome email can encourage further engagement.
Best Practices and Considerations
While email automation flows offer numerous benefits, it's essential to approach their implementation with caution and strategic thinking. Here are some best practices and considerations to keep in mind:
- Choose the right email marketing software for your needs before diving into building email automations. Consider options like ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, HubSpot, Constant Contact, GetResponse, and Keap.
- Start small and scale gradually. It's important to check the accuracy of branding, website links, and other information in the automation emails before implementing complex flows.
- Use decision diamonds or branching sequences to provide relevant content based on contact actions.
- Regularly review and optimize your email automations. While they only need to be checked and adjusted once every few quarters or years, it's crucial to ensure they remain effective and aligned with your business goals.
- Avoid overwhelming contacts with too many flows. Use an initial flow with a set duration, tagging contacts before allowing them to enter subsequent flows.
Quotes:
- "Email automations are trigger based emails that you set up once. And every time a new contact meets the condition that you have set for that flow, they will receive the email or a series of emails." (00:01:31)
- “If you are gathering feedback, do not forget about adding good feedback on your website and to your other channels because you can show that to your potential customers also.” (00:06:08)
- “So just think of ways that you can make your customers' lives easier by just popping up right before they need you.” (00:11:22)
- “Make sure that you send them to the appropriate next step and not just spam them, because that's the potential danger with those email automations that they become irrelevant and or too frequent if, you know, the customer is in multiple flows at the same time.” (00:13:56)
- “If you are already gathering those contact details for giving them access to a tool or a download or a template or a book, then make sure to keep nurturing that contact because if you are only sending them one email like here's your download, then the relationship goes cold very quickly.” (00:17:14)
Timestamps:
(00:02:53) Birthday Emails
(00:04:25) Feedback Emails
(00:11:51) Event/Webinar Emails
(00:08:11) Abandoned Cart Emails
(00:17:11) Lead Magnet Download Emails
(00:18:26) Newsletter/Membership Welcome Emails