Many professionals view digital marketing as a cheap, quick way to increase their ROI. While it’s true some platforms are cost-efficient or even free, maintaining them is hardly efficient. Marketers spend hours planning an online marketing campaign, making the content, and cross-posting it.
Those hours mean money that the company has to spend.
For that reason, professionals are now looking for automation where available. One major area of automation-based marketing is automated email systems.
What Are Automated Email Systems?
Automated email systems automatically send out emails to everyone on an email list that you set up.
Automated email systems cut back on the time it takes to manually email your entire list. They also send select emails to certain lists at a time of your choosing. Like other automated marketing tools, their purpose is to save you money while helping you avoid errors.
There are two types of automated emails that these systems send out. The first is trigger emails. The second is drip-feed emails.
Trigger Emails
When someone “triggers” an event, one of these emails ends up in their inbox.
The triggering event can range from commenting on one of your posts to signing up for your newsletter. The event can also be a date specific to the person, such as a birthday or milestone.
Trigger emails are a key part of digital marketing because they show the person that you acknowledge their interaction. Nothing says, “I care about you and what you have to say” like a trigger e-mail.
Drip-Feed Emails
Drip-feed emails require little to no customization. They go out according to a timeline you set.
Drip-feed emails need much less attention and effort than trigger emails. Because of this, they can potentially increase your ROI more. But that only applies if you use them correctly.
Thanks to the fact that marketers pay little attention to them, drip-feed emails can come off sounding too generic. Leads prefer emails that sound customized to them.
Common, effective drip-feed email uses include monthly reporting and following up.
What To Look For In An Automated Email System
Managers might write your paycheck, but converted leads are the ones who really pay you. You need to make sure you’re taking every opportunity to engage them.
When you shop for an automated email system, you’ll want a system that offers a high level of customization. You want to be able to send trigger and drop-feed emails because they work for different situations. You also want to be able to make multiple email lists.
Additionally, you want a system that manages lead information. Not just leads’ names and e-mail addresses, but where they live, their gender, and their age. A record of their interactions and engagements is highly useful as well.
Having all of this information allows you to analyze your audience as well as your strategy. When you can analyze your strategy, you can gauge its effectiveness and efficiency.
Specific Emails To Send Out
Regardless of the automated email system you choose, there are certain marketing emails you definitely want to send out. Those emails are as follows.
Welcome Emails
Welcome emails confirm that your new followers have successfully signed up for your email service.
Many marketers don’t bother with welcome emails because they themselves don’t bother reading welcome emails. After all, if you know the email just says, “Hi, and thanks for subscribing!” why would you read it?
Actually, welcome emails have a higher engagement rate than you think. In fact, they garner some of the highest levels of engagement of automated emails.
This could be in part because the welcome email is the first email. Many likely check to see if there are additional steps to take.
Besides, people appreciate a prompt “Hi, and thanks.” It makes them feel like they’re more than a number. A welcome email also lets them know their sign-up was successful.
Onboarding Emails
After shooting leads a welcome email, you should send them an onboarding email.
Onboarding emails are an opportunity to send leads resources and additional information. The content that you send should be linked to the corresponding content on your website. That way, you can easily increase engagement.
Common resources and information include past blog entries, webinars, and guides. The more relevant content you share, the more you showcase why you’re a worthwhile organization to subscribe to.
Additionally, onboarding emails present an opportunity to gather more information about your leads. Many people don’t fill out the full form when signing up for email lists. Once you’ve shown leads you’re worth following, you can hit them up for more info.
Follow-Up Emails
When you can see who is going to what content on your site, you can customize a trigger email for them. That trigger email should contain links to additional, similar content.
Another type of follow-up email that you can send is a duplicate email. If you notice some leads aren’t clicking on previous emails, you can resend them the same emails. They might open the emails this time.
Cart Reminder Emails
Cart abandonment is a side effect of the busy world in which we live. Leads get wrapped up in other tabs on their browser and forget that they added an item to their cart. They might also want to sit on a purchase for a bit before they make a decision.
Sending leads cart reminder emails makes them think about their almost-purchase. They’ll suddenly remember it or decide to go ahead and buy it since they’ve had time to think about it.
Cart reminder emails are a great opportunity to sneak in a coupon or two as well!
Event Emails
The main type of event email you should send out is notifications of sales and new content. Those emails encourage engagement as well as purchases on your site.
The other type of event email you should send out is lead-specific emails. When their birthday rolls around, shoot them a birthday email. When they comment on one of your posts, send them a thank you email and then respond to their comment.
Little touches go a long way in the world of marketing.
Want To Know More About Automated Email Systems? Reach Out!
At News@Me, we understand that developing a successful digital marketing strategy can be tedious. We offer multiple resources and support options for marketers of all experience levels. If you need additional information about automated email systems or other marketing tools, feel free to contact us!
Do you know of a great automated email system currently on the market? Tell us in the comments!