How and Why Should You Use Email Marketing Automation?

The word “automation” brings in front visions of machines, cyborgs, robots and AI, which is the exact opposite of human or organic.

The concept of using automation in this day and age of email marketing seems counterintuitive considering it is a must to ensure customer-centric and personalized messaging. However, surprisingly email marketing automation enables people to create campaigns that could communicate with leads or customers on an even more personal level.

What Does Email Marketing Automation Mean?

Email marketing automation is the term used for the process or strategy of making messages more personalized and sent out in a timely fashion. Both these steps are extremely vital to make an email marketing campaign a success. Email automation could also be described as a process where email messages are sent automatically rather than manually.

How Does Email Marketing Automation Work?

Within email marketing automation, certain workflows are created by marketers who are sent out as emails to subscribers automatically as soon as the triggers are activated.

These workflows take into account the behavior causing the trigger and the data of the user while creating personalized and the most relevant email message.

For a B2B the triggers could be something as follows:

• Visitor viewing a landing page but is not submitting the form.
• A lead downloaded a good amount of content but not contacting the company directly.
• A potential customer started to follow the social media accounts of the company.

For a B2C brand, triggers could be:

• When a visitor checks out several items but does not add anything to his cart.
• When a prospective customer adds products to his cart but does not purchase it.
• When a customer actually makes a purchase.

Marketing automation workflows are not meant for prospective customers only. Companies can make use of workflows to a better relationship with existing customers as well so that they can purchase more products or services. Certain workflows are there that work for both B2C and B2B businesses. Some of the examples of such workflows are:

• Welcome Emails: When somebody signs up to become a subscriber, for instance, after registering an account or making a purchase from your website, it is then they are open to hearing from you. Take this opportunity to create a great first impression but sending out a personalized welcome email. B2C companies can offer first-time users a promo code or an exclusive offer and B2B companies can include a relevant content piece in the automated email.
  
• Feedback Request Emails: Feedback request emails can be of two different types. The first one could be triggered by a negative response like unsubscribing or app uninstallation. Another kind is when a certain amount of time has passed after a purchase or anything else when feedback about the product or service is expected. The messages could be different depending on what triggered the workflow. However, the emails are extremely important as they show how concerned you are about your customer’s opinion and how you can improve upon based on the feedback.
  
• Re-Engagement Emails: Re-engagement emails are meant for those subscribers or customers who have gone dormant and need a boost to be active again. You can schedule emails to be sent to them after a certain period of inactivity, for instance, 90 days. This email should contain an incentive in the form of a coupon code or special discount for the long-lost customers to get back to business with you.

With marketing automation, you can track and utilize any action taken by an individual in regards to your company. Accordingly, brands can create triggers that would deliver relevant and meaningful messages to customers increasing the chance at success. It is important to keep in mind that the triggers should be set up based on user behavior. It is useless to have a trigger for a certain action that nobody in your database would ever consider.

Who Should Use Email Marketing Automation?

Each business has an online presence should automate their promotions with personalized offers to match customer profiles individually. This is an absolute necessity to be successful in online sales. The only way leading up to sales potential is by means of sending the right offer at the right time to the right person. Email marketing helps you personalize your offer in your message to a considerable high degree. However, by using behavioral data of the users based on their activities on your website makes it easier to get precise customer profiles, which enables higher conversion rates.

Why Should You Use Email Marketing Automation?

There are as many as five main reasons for email marketers to consider the use of email marketing automation. These are:

• To be able to create highly segmented email lists which would be updated automatically based on user data.
• It becomes easier to continue engaging with existing and potential customers.
• It is much easier to convert potential leads to actual customers with email marketing automation.
• A company is able to deliver more personalized, relevant and timely messages to subscribers to increase engagement.
• Businesses can increase efficiency with automation of repetitive tasks connected with customer relationship management.

It is common for brands to be afraid of using email marketing automation since they think by doing this their messages will become less effective as they are less personalized. But in reality, email automation software can actually help you collect more information about prospective leads and make messaging more personalized and thereby more effective. The only criterion is to use data in the right way.