5 benefits of email automation

Marketers are always busy. There are always deadlines, there’s always content to plan and there’s always strategies to execute. Marketers are multitasking masters, and part of the reason why they can get so much done during the week is the rise of marketing automation emails.

Marketing automation has become entrenched in best practice. Adoption surged in the previous decade, and for good reason! The time saved by streamlining complex processes was an absolute Godsend; while the extra free time marketers were given could be used to maximise budgets in other areas.

The whole point of it is to improve the quality of customer interactions, generate leads, smooth the journey from a customer browsing to a customer buying, and turn clicks into clients.

Now we’ve got that little introduction out the way, it’s time for the good stuff. So strap yourself in as we dive head-first into the world of email automation. APSIS presents five benefits of email automation (ta da!)

Keep leads engaged and convert them into sales

Email automation is a crucial part of the journey of turning leads into customers. This is a scenario that we published on an APSIS blog on marketing automation in 2017, but it’s still relevant today.

• You send out an email invitation to a targeted list of contacts and encourage them to download your latest whitepaper.
• You send an email to thank them for the download and expressed interest.
• A few days later, you send an email to the recipients who chose to download your whitepaper, and you offer them a new deal.
• If they accept the second offer, there’s a tremendous likelihood that they’re invested in your products or services. Time to queue the sales team!

We know how important lead generation is for successful businesses. Consider using email automation to set up a campaign that drip feeds a series of emails into your subscribers’ inboxes. 

This type of campaign will keep you in the minds of people who are interested in your goods or services but aren’t willing to commit to purchasing just yet. Get creative with your emails and don’t keep them in the same tired format the whole time. 

Consider:

📧  Crafting an FAQ email that answers customer questions before they have to come to you.

📧  Showing potential customers how your products solve their problems.

📧  Sharing blog posts with a clear call-to-action at the end.

📧  Proving how your products solve industry pain-points.

This course of action will help keep leads engaged until they’re ready to take the plunge and spend money with you!

Automated emails gives your sales team a boost

Email flows that are automated are supposed to nurture those leads, which is a great plus for the sales team as well. For too long sales and marketing have been seen as two separate branches on the tree, when in fact they’re the roots of any organisation.

Just like roots, sales and marketing will intertwine and intermingle as they pursue the same objective: keeping business healthy and full of nutrients. Our nutrients are happy customers, but you get the point.

When the marketing department uses email automation, sales will be able to look at the results from any campaign and identify what content worked and what didn’t.

If a prospective customer has completed a form, sales will be able to see that and they can use the information to approach that individual from a position of strength.

But before any of that can be done, you’ll need to invest in a marketing automation tool. Luckily, we’ve got a really good one that we can recommend… if you’d just like to click here.

Annoy your customers less

There’s nothing worse than an overzealous marketing department that pumps out email after email, flooding your inbox with irrelevant trash. That business isn’t getting much repeat custom; don’t make the same mistakes as them.

But with email automation software, that’s never going to be a risk. Smart organisations use marketing automation emails to segment customers into different groups.

This allows businesses to craft different messages and content based on those different groups, which will usually be segmented based on their demographic, location, or purchase history.

If your business sells a wide range of products, you can create different lists of customers based on what their purchase history was like. You’ll get more traction emailing Person A (who bought a slow cooker and a sandwich press from you last year) about a new range of kettles and toasters than you would emailing Person B (who bought a hedge trimmer).

Email automation can allow you to work smarter while it works harder. That’s a win/win in our book. But don’t just take our word for it, here are some stats that back it up:

• Segmented email campaigns earn 100.95% higher clickthrough rates as compared to non-segmented email campaigns.
• Segmented email marketing campaigns can lead to revenue increases of as much as 760%.

Boost revenue thanks to email automation

Email automation is also a brilliant revenue boosting tool. You can automatically send transactional emails to website visitors who have taken a specific course of action, such as downloading a whitepaper, subscribing to your newsletter or browsing your website.

These emails normally include information such as a download link to that whitepaper or some product information, but they can also contain little breadcrumbs to get customers to spend more money, if they already have, or make that first purchase.

Savvy marketers will include little sections that recommend products, or a little discount code by way of saying thanks for subscribing to a newsletter.

Revenue can also be boosted by leveraging existing customer loyalty, and email automation is a great way to increase customer lifetime spend. You can use these tools to automate feedback requests, or to send personalised offers to your high-rollers or to run re-engagement campaigns to customers who haven’t spent in a while.

Get personal

Everyone wants to be spoken to like they matter, and what’s the best way of doing this? Use names. Email automation software is brilliant at making sure customers are treated like they’re the only ones that matter in the world - which is true, of course!

You would be far more likely to trust and respect someone who knew your name, remembered it and used it in real life conversation than someone who clearly couldn’t be bothered with the whole shebang. The same is true in email marketing.

A companies list might run into the thousands, but thankfully there’s software out there that’ll automatically personalise each email so you don’t have to! Email marketing automation software will have personalised fields that automatically fill with names and company information - just make sure you’ve entered correct data into your CMS.

Taking this approach will have a tangible impact on your marketing efforts - just look at these stats!

• Emails with personalised subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.
• Email personalisation produces 6x higher revenue and transaction rates.

With the advantages of email automation so obvious, why wouldn’t you want to learn more? Have a chat to the friendly experts at APSIS, who can get your started on the path to automated bliss.