We're sure that you've heard about email marketing before. And that's because the tool can be very beneficial for brands. When implementing an email marketing strategy in your company, it's a good idea to think about automating the process to optimise your results. In this post, we're going to tell you everything you need to know about email marketing automation so that you can start making your database work for you. Keep reading.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing involves mailing commercial messages - that the recipient has previously given permission for - to an email address stored in a database. Although the goal of these emails can vary, a popular one is to guide potential clients through what is known as the “conversion funnel”, increasing their contact with and loyalty to the brand. As such, email marketing is not only a sales channel, it is also a very effective way of building an image around your brand.
Why use email marketing?
Email marketing can help you achieve three types of goals:
- Visibility: showcase your company, products, services, offers and more
- Image: email marketing can help position you as an expert in a specific area and associate your brand with certain values
- Action: when well-executed, email marketing can help increase sales
Email marketing automation, your best friend
As its name suggests, email marketing automation automates the process of sending out emails to your subscribers. There are online programmes and applications available to help you do this. These not only email your mailing list automatically, they also give you the opportunity to edit the email.
Before automating your email marketing, it's important to identify the goals you want to achieve and set out a strategy to reach them. You should also be thinking about the purpose of the automated email and the content the subscriber will receive. Lastly, it is essential to test run the automation to make sure everything is correct before sending it out to all your recipients.
There are two categories of automated emails:
- Activation emails: these types of emails are sent out when the subscriber behaves in a certain way. It is the most common type of email marketing automation, and comes in different forms: welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, “recommend a friend” emails (in which the subscriber gets a benefit for doing so), emails marking events such as birthdays, anniversaries, etc.
- Drip emails: this is a series of messages that are sent out over a predetermined period of time. They tend to be used to send information to subscribers who signed up to get something for free, such as an ebook or a masterclass. Their purpose is to get the subscriber to take the next step, whether that be to sign up, make a purchase or anything else.
Tips to help you put together your first email marketing automation campaign
1. Segment your subscribers
Most email marketing platforms give you the option to segment your subscribers, which essentially means grouping them into categories so you can send personalised emails to each segment. The groups are based on the action you would like recipients to take or other factors. Segmentation considerably increases the likelihood of your users clicking through and doing whatever it is you would like them to do.
2. Personalise your messages
Sending out non-personalised messages to all the subscribers on your database is a sure-fire way to get your email into the spam folder. Personalising your messages, including simple things like using the receiver’s name, mentioning their location or listing the product they are interested in, goes a long way in building a good relationship.
3. Create personalised landing pages
Make sure that your landing page and your email campaign are well aligned. This means making sure there is continuity between the design, content and call to action on both the landing page and in the email, creating familiarity between your brand and your product.
4. Do A/B testing
Testing is not only for landing pages and call to actions. Email marketing platforms give you the opportunity to do A/B testing to determine which email generates the best results.
5.Measure the results
Once you have A/B tested your emails, take your time to check and carefully analyse certain KPIs that will give you an insight into how to improve your results. You want to be checking open rates, clicks, conversions and more.
It sounds simple, right? And for the most part it is. But as with any other tool, the more time you spend learning, testing and improving your email marketing campaigns, the better campaigns you will create.
From social media to programmatic buying, there are countless communication channels that you can implement into your digital marketing strategy nowadays. As we mentioned at the start of this post, email marketing automation is a low investment option, making it one of the most profitable tools out there. Whether you are mailing order confirmations or newsletters, emails are essential in the growth and management of your business. So now you know how to automate your email marketing strategy, it's time to put everything you have learnt into practice.
