The never-ending daily hustle to get leads, nurture them and make sales can be nothing short of a long, hard slog. But what if we said it doesn’t have to be like that? Would you believe us if we told you there was an easier way? 

By putting together email marketing automations, you can help to eliminate some of the burdens of gathering leads and making those all-important sales. In fact, automated email messages boast 70.5% higher open rates and 152% higher click-through rates than standard email messages. Businesses that utilise automated messaging send more relevant messages that reflect the client’s current position in the purchasing funnel 133% of the time. 

Why bother with email marketing automation?

• Save your valuable time

Email marketing automation will save you significant time when nurturing leads and encouraging potential customers to buy from you, as it’s all done for you automatically. For example, automations could pick up browse abandonment and abandoned carts on your website that can then be nurtured to purchase on auto-pilot in the background, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your business. 

• Make your business more efficient

Sending targeted emails with purpose is far more effective than generalised campaigns, as it increases your chances of converting potential buyers into customers, retaining existing ones and much more!

So what exactly is email marketing automation?

Email automation allows you to send emails automatically bsaed on user behaviour by setting up a series of emails over a specific timeframe. Typically, an email automation is triggered when a user fulfils specific criteria, for example, when they’ve signed-up via a pop-up form on your website or downloaded a piece of gated content in exchange for their email address.

One of the main reasons email automations are created is to persuade a potential customer to buy from you. Using automation will work with the majority of sectors. Whether you’re selling a product or looking to generate leads to warm up, email automation will take a lot of the hard work of selling away from you.

Where do I start?

As with any marketing activity, before kicking things off it’s absolutely essential to understand your audience and know what makes them tick. To entice potential buyers into your automation, you may want to consider using one of the following:

• Pop-up incentive form on your website. This is perfect for eCommerce or product-based brands when they’re attached to an incentive to share an email in exchange for a discount code. 
• Time-based pop-up for exclusive access to something on your website. This works well for festivals and events where you’re looking to drive email subscribers with the incentive of them having first access to headliner announcements or when ticket sales go live.
• Value-driven content download. You can make this available on your website in exchange for an email address. It could take the form of a brochure, white paper, or advisory piece of content that would be super useful to the prospect.

Depending on your industry, there are many ways to get prospects into your email marketing automation (and therefore your sales funnel!). Just think about what would be most attractive to them and make them want to give you their email/contact details.

Once you have their details, you can go ahead and work your magic with email marketing automation and sit back and start reaping the rewards!

What types of automation are there?

Email marketing automations are a drip feed series of emails. The content of each email in an automation should be put together based on a business’s objectives.

Email automations are trigger-based. So, for example, if someone adds a product or event ticket to their cart on your website, it could trigger an Abandoned Cart automation which the customer will receive if they have shared their email details with you previously. A series of emails will then be sent to them, reminding them that their item is still there and ready to purchase. Further emails could then be sent as additional reminders or a final email with a discount code to tip them over the edge into buying.

If someone downloads a PDF from your website, this could trigger an automation containing more information from your company, such as social proof or testimonials from other customers, in a drip feed series ending in a CTA to book an appointment or give you a call.

Again, depending on your industry, there are various automations you can consider. What’s essential when creating them is that you do so with the customer in mind and the end goal. If you’re selling a product and you want them to purchase within a particular time frame, make that super clear in the emails within your automation and imply urgency to buy.

If you’re nurturing a lead to book an appointment with you, make sure you’re giving the lead as much information, value and social proof as you possibly can within each stage of your automation.

Is email marketing automation right for me and my business?

To get to the answer to this question, you first need to ask yourself this:

• Do I need to find a way to improve conversion rates on my website?
• Should my email marketing strategy be more thought-out to increase conversion rates and customer retention too?
• Do I need to save time on selling so I can focus on other areas of my business?

If you answered yes to the above, email marketing automation could well be for you. Book a call with Sophie to see how 3twelve can help you make the most of your time with email marketing automations.