Email marketing is crucial for any business. If you are one of those companies that struggles with keeping up with all the emails, there is a simple solution for you: automation. Automated emails are emails that are created ahead of time. Usually, someone in digital marketing can help create these for you. Automating your email marketing is a great way to take your customers through your complete sales funnel, from the initial stage of awareness all the way through the purchase. While not all of your emails can be automated (for example, customer service responses shouldn’t be automated!), here are six types of emails that you should definitely be automating if you’re sending.
1. Newsletters
You may be asking yourself, “Do I need to send these?” Well, it depends! If it makes sense for your business, then you definitely should be. You see, sending these emails out can be engaging for consumers. You can send blogs you have written, testimonials, something exciting that has happened to the company that can be beneficial to them, or tips and tricks. The more your customer knows you can help them with a problem, the more they will want to buy from you. Keep in mind that your newsletter does not need to be extremely long with only words, you can keep it short and sweet with some nice pictures.
2. New Product or Service
Promoting a new product or service is so important for any business. Most of the time people spend tons of money on advertising their new creations. Although advertising is super important, you should still consider other options to advertise, like email marketing. Here’s another great time to use photos. Having a bold and impactful photo of your new product is going to grab their attention. If you are a business that offers a service, you can make these types of emails, too. It may not be as often as new products, but it is still important. Perhaps you have an upgrade in your services, or what you offer is changing. Either way, this is a great type of email to write, design, automate, and send! That way, everyone on your mailing list is getting updated about your new offerings and you barely had to lift a finger.
3. Welcome
A welcome email is one of the best ways to establish a relationship with someone that has just subscribed to your website or made a new purchase where they had to provide an email on your website. This is not meant to be a long email, but letting the customer know you noticed them, can make a world of difference. In this email, you should first and foremost thank the customer for joining. Something that most companies benefit from is giving them a small discount for joining or reminding them of the benefits they will now be receiving. Making benefits and discounts known ahead of time can be advantageous. Maybe you can mention that in your newsletter…See, it’s all tying together!
4. Promotional
Do remember the 4 Ps of marketing? Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Promotion usually stems from an old product/service in an old market. Using promotion is a great way to get consumers to want to buy something they once forgot about. Plus, who doesn’t love a great deal? Email marketing is a great way to construe the message. All you need is a bold graphic of the discount you are offering. In this graphic, you should have a clickable link that takes the user right to the desired landing page. People usually do not ignore this type of email. This email is also meant to be short; the graphic should say it all. What usually works best is when there is a time limit on the sale. Most often than not, there is one, but businesses fail to mention it in their email campaigns, so don’t forget to do that!
5. Follow Up
When we think of a follow-up email, we think of many different things. A follow-up email is one that usually occurs because of the user’s engagement on your site. Here are two important ones:
- Abandoned Cart Email – This email should be sent when someone has added something to their cart, but they have not gone through with purchasing it. If you offer a service, you can even do this for people who have started to make a booking but have not finalized it yet. Some people choose to offer a discount to get them to finalize, but this is not always necessary.
- Confirmation Emails – This email is just as it sounds. You want to send the user an email when they have completed a purchase or booking. This does not need to be a lengthy email, a few details of what they ordered will suffice. People will most likely feel at ease when they see this email. They know their payment went through and that they have an email to prove it. Their comfort level is important for future purchases.
Neither of these emails should be sent manually, as they can be easily automated!
6. Survey Feedback
A survey feedback email can be such a big benefit for your company. The problem is it seems that feedback is particularly hard to get these days. Email might just be the best platform for getting responses. Social media can help with this too, however, emails are more effective for targeting customers who made a purchase. That is the beauty of automated emails. Sending one of these out after they should have received a product or service will make the feedback more meaningful and accurate.
Email marketing is crucial for every business. It may seem like a lot of information and a lot of different ways to email, but it is not meant to be hard. Digital marketers are skilled in creating automated email templates for you to use. They can create these for each type we went over. Plus, email writing should be fun. This is where you get to grab the consumers’ attention! Interesting subject lines and easy-to-read messages are the bread and butter to a great email. What types of emails do you automate? Do you have any questions about email marketing? Let us know in the comments below!
