When you’re looking to improve your business, look no further than your inbox. How many of the emails that you receive each day were personalized? How many of those were written by the sender? Chances are, at least some of those emails were automatic emails in response to an action you may have taken on the company’s Web site. More and more, companies large and small are finding that email automation has re-shaped their business, their marketing, and their sales.
What is Email Automation?
Email automation is a method of tailoring your communication with your audience in response to a specific action taken by an individual.
For example, someone who visits your Web site and appreciates your content may sign up to continue receiving your emails. If you were to send an email welcoming each person to your email subscriber list, you could be spending countless hours each day writing and sending emails. Through email automation, however, you can set up a series of triggers and conditions, or rules, that will personalize a pre-written email and send it to your prospect or customer.
Automating emails can revolutionize your business, allowing you to make the most of your time and finances and providing you with an efficient option to enhance your marketing and sales plans.
Optimize your Resources
Incorporating email automation into your business operations can optimize your efforts and resources to bring better results. Rather than spending your time analyzing your email data and manually responding to leads, setting up rules allows your email automation provider to generate and send personalized emails at any time of the day. By automating those tasks, you are freed up for more face-to-face or in-person communication.
Another tool to make the most of your time: 15 Outstanding Headline Resources to Get You Started. This guide will help you master the tools to create headlines – and subject lines – that your customers want to open and read.
Maximize Your Marketing
Email automation is a key player in a successful marketing plan. Rather than concentrating your work efforts on one-time campaigns, automating your marketing can cut down on the number of emails you design and send, and can integrate all of your marketing efforts and channels by collecting, analyzing and responding to data through a central email provider.
Visitors aren’t always ready to purchase the first time they visit your Web site. They are, however, interested in learning more and staying in touch. Providing these new potential customers with personalized emails tailored to their interests can improve the chances of conversion for a few reasons:
- You are opening the lines of communication by giving prospects another touchpoint;
- Prospects are receiving a timely response to the information they are seeking;
- Triggered emails have a better engagement and interaction rate than traditional emails, with higher open and click rates.
Launch Your Leads
Automating your emails can make a significant impact on your sales. You can create rules and pre-written emails for many different triggers, all customized to the wants and needs of your leads and customers.
Obvious examples are emails sent when someone is added to or removed from a mailing list, but there are many other automated emails that can encourage someone to move down the sales pipeline.
- Get Started: If you offer a service, you can create a rule to send step-by-step starting instructions to prospects who may have opened an account but have not yet taken action.
- Reminders: You can develop a rule that reminds customers of a soon-to-end sale, to take the next step in finishing their account, or to update their contact information.
- Free Feedback: Get to know your customers and prospects by asking for their opinions on your product, your method and timeliness of communication, and more. The responses you receive can help you prioritize your messages and tailor them to what your leads want.
- A Change in their Status: Automated emails can be sent to customers who haven’t taken any action in a set period, who have shifted from a marketing lead to a sales lead, or who have reached a new level in a rewards program. Anytime your leads make a change, sending an automated email can be an effective tool for improving your sales.
Additionally, automated emails provide you with better data on your leads. You’ll see which emails your customers are opening, what they are clicking on, and why. In many cases, a solid subject line can increase the odds of your customers opening their email. If you’re stuck on subject lines, check out this guide, 15 Outstanding Headline Resources to Get Your Started.