Are You Making the Most of Automated Email Marketing?

So, after seeing the latest numbers, you finally bit the bullet and signed-up for that spiffy new marketing automation software.

The problem now is figuring out what to do with the app. You’re excited to get started, but there’s a lot under the hood and you’re not sure where to start, and where to go after that. Happily, you can use this handy chart from the Email Marketing & Marketing Automation Excellence 2017 Report to make the most of your automated email marketing investment:

Source: Email Marketing & Marketing Automation Excellence 2017 Report

What You Can Do with Automated Email Marketing Software

Before you decide where to start, you should understand what you can do with the marketing automation software.

This is where the chart above comes in handy. Each line represents a type of message you can use in your automated email marketing campaigns. From top to bottom, they go from simple to more complex, both in terms of integration as well as campaign complexity.

Let’s take a closer look at each.

Standard Newsletters

Most small businesses start by sending an email newsletter to their subscribers. This simple email marketing strategy is effective, and, it’s the most simple place to dip your toes into the water. While there’s not a lot of automation involved in this approach, it’s a great way to grow your subscriber list so you can then take advantage of the other types of email.

Promotional Sale-Focused Email Campaigns

This is where you begin to get personal by segmenting your list to target different promotions towards separate audiences. This is especially effective for small retail businesses that sell products but can be use by all small businesses to target higher scoring leads that are more likely to buy.

Again, there’s not a tremendous amount of automation at this stage, but segmenting your lists and lead scoring are two more important steps forward toward automation.

Simple Autoresponders

An autoresponder is the automated email type most businesses use first. Simply put, an autoresponder is a series of one or more emails that run on a pre-determined schedule when triggered by a specific customer action. While almost all automated emails are autoresponders, the term is typically used to describe emails with simple triggers such as the welcome message a customer receives after subscribing to your list. .

Multi-Step Welcome for New Subscribers

As described above, an autoresponder can consist of more than one message. For example, your welcome message can also be a welcome series with multiple emails that provide useful, relevant content and offers to new subscribers.

The welcome series approach has proven to be more effective than the single welcome email tactic (a welcome series generates up to 23 percent more orders than the single welcome email) and is one you should consider for your small business.

Automated and Event-Triggered Email Across the Full Customer Lifecycle

As your leads become customers, and then repeat customers, you can send emails with targeted content and offers. This is where the list segmentation you began when sending promotional sale-focused email campaigns comes in handy.

For example, you can send separate and targeted emails to customers who have not yet made a purchase, have made a purchase in a certain product category, and so on. These messages can be triggered by integrating with your ecommerce system so, let’s say, when a customer buys a perfume, they automatically get an email with a coupon to use when buying that perfume the next time.

This is powerful stuff and very, very effective.

Reactivation Emails

A reactivation campaign aims to reengage those list subscribers who have stopped responding to your automated email marketing by either opening your emails or clicking on one of the links inside. This approach can also be used on past customers who have made one or more purchases and then never returned.

While these emails are not automated, they can reengage subscribers so they enter your automated campaigns once again.

Follow-Up to Cart-Viewing, Content or Product Viewed on Site

Once you integrate your website with your marketing automation software, you can do some fancy automated email marketing campaigns.

First up are cart recovery emails. There are many reasons a customer may abandon your site while viewing their shopping cart, but that doesn’t have to be the end. You can use email campaigns to bring those almost-customers back so you can address their issues and encourage the sale.

Secondly, you can monitor a customer’s behavior on your site. By doing so, you’ll see what content and products they view and that will reveal their interests. Then, you can use that data to send emails that target those interests with content and offers.

Rule-Based Lead Nurturing Programs

Lead nurturing is a marketing methodology that focuses on strengthening your relationship with each customer. You can automate some of that process if your marketing automation system includes a customer relationship management system (CRM) or, if that’s not the case, by integrating your marketing automation system with your customer relationship management system.

In this case, rules are what trigger the automation. One example is a rule that sends an automated email when a lead’s score passes a certain level in your CRM system.

Are You Making the Most of Automated Email Marketing?

If you’re hyperventilating at the thought of implementing each and every type of approach above, never fear. You should only use as many of the tactics needed in order to reach your sales and marketing goals.

Instead, the goal here is to help you understand what your marketing automation system can do so you can make the most of automated email marketing.

Email Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "Are You Making the Most of Automated Email Marketing?" was first published on Small Business Trends