Conversion optimization through email marketing automation Email marketing automation is a crucial asset for your business. However, here, I am not just concerned about the highly sophisticated email marketing software and services. The small tweaks and implementation to automate the emails sent by your website can lead you to unthinkable opportunities. In this article, we will see how you can use the email marketing automation to generate leads and more benefits ultimately leading to a conversion. But before that, let's first have a glimpse of some strong words that say "why you must automate your email marketing".
Why automate the emails? With the massive growth of web development technologies and application of artificial intelligence in website development, email marketing automation is a crucial benefit to come out. Expert marketers say, “Best-in-Class companies are 67% more likely to use a marketing automation platform�. This is a huge proportion, and if so many companies are already using it, there would be something of value in it, isn’t it? Yes, off-course, and for that reason only I am applying efforts to write this article. With automated email sending, you are more likely to reach to the customers' inboxes at a right time with a personalized message created to serve their needs. In this whole approach your business benefits in several ways:
1. Reaching to the leads at right time with right pitch With automated emails, you don't have to wait for launching a mass email marketing campaign to reach your leads. Neither you need to personally send messages to each of the prospects. Through triggered emails, you can reach to your leads from the very first point of contact with your business website. Thus, leading your way to the further
steps for fetching the leads into the conversion funnel without even letting them realize it. How? Let's imagine a scene when you can gently guide your newsletter subscribers to the sales funnel: An automated first email to welcome the user on-board, without any sales pitch. Just a simple welcome message. Second email to send a relevant free content or e-book guiding the user on the pain points that you have discovered from what you already know about the user. Still no sales pitch. The third email for sending yet another resource on the relevant pain point may be an infographic or a video. Again, no sales pitch. In the fourth email, now that you have built a relationship by addressing the pain points and solutions, you must use this trust to persuade the user to trust your advice. This email will consist of your sales pitch as a solution to the issue of the user that you have been addressing so far in the previous emails. If your pitch is persuasive, not promotional, and solves the problem, the user will definitely buy it and would be ready to pay for what you are offering.
2. No more fishing but picking The above example explains how you can make your emails smarter and tailored to the specific group of leads and prospects. By smartly picking the right segment of the leads and approaching them accordingly through automated emails, you no longer have to spread your emails everywhere and wait for the fishes to get in. Through right segmentation and automation of the email templates, you can send the right email to the right users at a right time. Thus, following the basic conversion path of capturing the leads, building the relations, and pitching the sales call.
3. It saves your time indeed It is already understandable that through email marketing automation, you no longer have to depend on email campaigns to send the emails. Thus, it will save your precious time. Instead, you can utilize the saved time to create as many email templates and setting up them with the right condition, so that they can
be fired up by themselves when even the condition is met.
Some situations where you can use email automation 1. Welcome emails series We already saw how welcome emails can be used in an automated format. The templates can be customized to include the user's name and the welcome message according to the kind of sign up. The user name is fetched from the information provided by the user while filling up the sign-up form. Different welcome emails can be set for different situations. An example of some situations are: - Welcome email for Newsletter sign-up - Welcome email for Website account sign-up - Welcome email for the seller account registration on marketplace sites - Welcome email for back in stock alert subscription on out-of-stock products - Welcome email for event registration, say a webinar - Welcome email consisting of sensitive information such as passwords
2. Abandoned cart reminder emails I have seen the most interesting application of email marketing automation in the abandoned cart emails. In fact, there Abandoned Cart Solutions also automate the process of capturing and organizing the abandoned carts on the web-store. The second part that we are concerned about here is the sending a series of automated emails to the each abandoning customer, and most important, know when to stop sending the emails. For example, if a customer gets converted after the first email itself, he should not receive the further abandoned cart emails, but the another series of email scheduled for converted customers. Also, the timing and gap between the two subsequent emails should be so that it does not irritate the user. Furthermore, if the customer does not shows any interest after a certain number of emails, then you need to stop. And you need
to do all that in the automated environment; not manually. Next, is the configuration of correct email template with correct email number. The first email should consist a gentle reminder to the customer about the shopping cart and products in it.
The second email may create a sense of urgency with the reminder, like the ending stocks soon.
You may send an offer in the third email which can act as an encouragement for the customer to come back to the store and make a purchase. Discounts and free shipping work effectively in this case.
In this way depending on your policies and condition, you can automate the abandoned cart emails. Again, while doing so, keep a proper gap between the concurrent emails and configure when to stop.
3. After purchase emails For an eCommerce store, a customer making a purchase is a big thing. Not just because it generated some revenue, but also because it gives a trusting customer in your customers list. You can generate more revenue from the same customer if nurtured properly. Moreover, to improve the quality of your product listing, you also need the customer to write a review eventually. Requesting the customers to write a review should be done at a right time, or else it makes no sense. For example, you cannot ask the customer to write a review a day after purchasing the product. You have to give them some time, may be a month or two, so that they have a complete experience of the product and then share the authentic review.
So, you can benefit in two angles by automating the whole process of sending the emails here. First, make some loyal customers by connecting with them even after a purchase, second earn some authentic reviews by reminding the customer at a right time.
Many more possibilities Email marketing is huge, and so is its automation. You have unlimited opportunities to send emails to your customers. You can automate emails for wishing your customers happy birthday on their birthdays, Merry Christmas on Christmas and other wishes on different occasions. Automate your emails as much as possible to reach the specific customers at right times. There are various solutions that can be used to automate the email sending in most of the cases. For example, even your eCommerce platform is already pre-configured to send many automated emails such as customer registrations, sales, email sign up etc. However, you may need special solutions for some advanced implementations such as abandoned cart reminders, sales funnel conversion and much more.