5 Successful Email Automation Workflows
Email marketing automation eliminates small but time-consuming tasks like:
- Preparing emailing lists
- Sending canned messages
- Manually scheduling events
Isn’t there another way to tackle these tasks without dedicating so much time to them? Marketers and salespeople agree that they would like more time to work on more productive projects and or bigger deals.
Well, automated email workflows to the rescue!
Automated email workflows operate on their own, so that you can focus on higher-value work. Just name the scenario, set up marketing automation with one or more email workflows, and let automation do the rest.
In this article, we’ll look at five of the best automated email workflows you can set up, so that you can get more out of your contacts database and marketing automation tools.
Welcome Series (For Subscribers)
“It’s good to have subscribers for your blog or newsletter,” says Elijah Andersen, a marketer at Bestbritishessays and Academized, “since they allow you to engage with them, and persuade them to become a customer. Therefore, this workflow is meant to give your subscribers that first impression.”
To do this, you have to set up a trigger that automatically sends out the first email, once users submit the subscribe form. But before you do this, think about how to activate this email workflow.
“First, you shouldn’t try to sell subscribers anything in the first email in the series,” adds Andersen. “Instead, the first email should simply welcome them, and maybe offer a one-time discount or promotion. Next, wait a few days before sending an email telling them where to look for information, and how to contact you for any questions. Then, send one last email asking them for their information, so you can better serve them.”
Onboarding Drip (For New Customers)
So, now that someone has signed on as a customer, and wants you to show them that you care about how they’re using your product or service. Once someone signs up, the system will recognize them as a new customer, trigger an email welcoming them, and let them know how to get in touch with you if they have any inquiries.
But why stop there?
You can follow up with an automated email within the next week to provide recipients user guides, online training videos, or other content that you have to offer to show your appreciation for them. You can offer educational resources like:
- A blog (and or website)
- White papers
- eBooks
By showing your new customers that you care about their loyalty, it creates an exceptional customer experience.
Lead Nurturing
It’s important to nurture your leads through the sales funnel. Therefore, you’ll need to develop a workflow that’s designed to nurture leads through the funnel, all the way to a sale.
The best way to kickstart your campaign is by targeting a segmented list of existing leads. Then, using automation, you can drop newly-generated leads into the beginning of the campaign. By doing that, your leads will be sure to receive the entire series of nurture emails.
Here is the lead nurturing email workflow step-by-step:
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- The first few emails persuade leads that they have a problem that needs solving.
- The next few emails must provide a solution to that problem (i.e. the type of product you’re selling).
- Then, you send a few emails that demonstrate your brand personality, and how you’re a leader in your space. These emails should help build recipients’ confidence in you as a provider.
- Follow-up emails offer a way to interact one-on-one with your company (i.e. a live demo).
Customer Retention
Sometimes, customers may grow bored, and be tempted to leave your site. So, whenever there are signs that customers are wanting to leave, that’s where the customer retention email workflow comes in – it triggers an email to convince user to stick around.
These emails can be triggered by one of the following user behaviors:
- Not opening your emails for a long period of time
- Choosing to unsubscribe from your newsletter or blog
- Not paying their invoice
Now, if any of these behaviors stem from being unsatisfied with your product or service, try to show empathy and maintain a delicate tone.
Why not send them something simple and less intrusive like a survey? With surveys, you can ask users how you can improve to better serve them. Not only does this show them that you’re listening to them, but are also genuinely concerned with how you can better satisfy them.
Although you can offer them a discount or promotion, do so sparingly, so that you don’t come off as bothersome.
Re-engagement
Have prospects stuck in the funnel, and wait to help them through it? Or, do you have any previous customers that you’d like to re-engage? Then look to creating a re-engagement email workflow.
“A re-engagement email workflow helps bring prospects back into the fold,” says Cameron Chifley, a business writer at Dissertation writer and Write my essay. “For example, if you’re looking to re-engage with a previous customer, you can trigger this workflow based on time elapsed since their last purchase.”
The best way to enact this workflow is to send one of your high-value content pieces—something eye-catching. If they have forgotten about you already, try to give them something that will solve a persistent problem for them, such as a useful article.
The point of this workflow is to keep your customers and prospects engaged. Sending a re-engagement email will be sure to grab their attention once again.
Conclusion
So, now that you know five of the best email workflows to use for your online business, it’s important to know that you can leverage them to where they’re more effective, as you tend to your customers. Regardless of how you use these automated email workflows, remember that timing is everything, as you try to engage prospects and customers. Don’t communicate too soon, and don’t wait until it’s too late to do so. And although not all of these may work for you, you can experiment with each one at a time, and then see which one is a good fit for your business.
