How to Leverage Email Marketing Automation

Email marketing offers marketers direct access to one of the most personal places left in the world these days: their customers’ inboxes. There are 4 billion daily email users. That’s a whole lot of audience that’s just waiting to hear from you, the diligent marketer. If you’re more interested in the bottom line, the average ROI for email marketing is 36:1, making it one of the most cost-effective ways to connect and engage with your target audience.

That said, great results come to those who work for them. Reaching those kinds of numbers takes time, strategy, branding, and above all, a fully-designed automated email marketing process.

Email marketing automation is built by strategically mapping out your customers’ journey and determining how best to engage them at each stage. It requires you to learn everything you can about your lead so you can provide them with the right experience exactly when they want and need it. When they’re ready to act, you’ll be right there in their inbox, with your product or service just a click away.

Let’s dive deeper into how email marketing automation works and how you can leverage this strategy for your business.

What is email marketing automation?

A quick Google of this question may result in a million different definitions from just as many email marketing companies. Without getting too technical, the simplest answer is this: Email marketing automation describes a series of automated communications sent to a customer at different stages of their journey with the intention of moving them down the sales funnel. Each email is triggered by a specific action the lead takes and is personalized to meet the customer where they’re at in their journey.

Email marketing automation aims to make the process of nurturing leads more manageable, scaleable, and cost-efficient. Yeah, it can do all that.

Benefits of email marketing automation

There was a time when companies relied on direct mailers and out-of-home marketing to get their message across. Then, there was one-size-fits-all email marketing. Now, we have email marketing automation.

This useful tool gives you more control over the what, how, and when behind your email marketing strategy while simultaneously simplifying your workflow. There are seemingly endless advantages to implementing email automation into your marketing strategy, but let’s take a look at some of our favorites.

1. Save time and resources

Automate necessary tasks like audience segmentation and scheduling so your team can focus on other aspects of the lead nurturing process.

2. Personalize customer experiences

Brands can no longer get away with a spray-and-pray approach. Consumers want and expect marketing messages to be curated to their needs. Luckily, brands that can respond to this expectation are rewarded. Companies that use personalized marketing actions or tactics experience 40% more revenue.

Email marketing automation can help you achieve personalization at scale with dynamic content tailored to each customer.

3. Improve customer retention

Converting new customers is great, but existing customers are often the best source of revenue. Remind your audience your business cares with engaging communications sent at strategic intervals–all from an automated process.

Example of email marketing automation

Let’s take a look at a common example of email marketing automation–the dreaded abandoned cart flow.

We’ve all gotten that email from our favorite online retailer. You know the one. It features that item you were this close to buying, so close you even had it in your cart, then at the last minute you decided against it. Only this time, there’s an email in your inbox that will take you straight back to checkout. And maybe now you won’t be able to resist it.

Of course, this email isn’t a coincidence, and the brand isn’t staffed with mind readers. This experience is carefully planned, programmed, built, and tested before making its way to your inbox.

The goal of the abandoned cart email automation is fairly straightforward. It aims to reengage a customer so they complete a purchase. The “how” is the tricky part. In this example, data is captured during the initial shopping experience. Using the proper integrations and APIs, that data is leveraged to build an automated campaign that targets users who have started and abandoned the purchase process.

3 ways to start using email marketing automation

Automated email marketing campaigns aren’t just for abandoned carts and online sellers. There are numerous ways to use the tool, and we encourage you to get started right now. Check out three simple ways you can begin leveraging this tool.

1. Thank you emails

Thank you emails are one of the easiest ways to use automated emails to begin building a relationship with your customer. Oftentimes, you can also include next steps, additional resources, or other pertinent information that can help the lead take further action.

2. Follow-up emails

This type of automated marketing email is generated when a lead requests information, such as on a contact form via your website. It notifies the lead you’ve received their inquiry and you’re on it.

3. Nurture campaign

This automated email will require a little more legwork up front, but can pay off in big ways. Nurture email campaigns are vital to building connections with new prospects and fostering relationships with existing customers.

These campaigns can start off as one of the email types above, and continue throughout the customer journey. Each time a recipient completes an action, it’ll trigger the appropriate next steps in your automated email campaign.

For example, let’s say a prospect downloads a whitepaper on sustainable building materials for commercial construction. In the following automated emails, you may offer more content on related topics, such as a case study focused on the cost savings of efficient materials.

Kick off your email marketing automation strategy now–thank us later

There are opportunities for simplifying and streamlining your email marketing almost everywhere. Automated email marketing campaigns can be configured to have multiple paths and journeys based on any number of factors. Using the right personalization and connections, you can even deliver messages to users right where they left off, making seamless conversions as easy as a couple of clicks.

However, we’ll admit that having an expert on your side is always a plus. To learn about Rhythm’s approach to email marketing, get in touch with us. We combine email automation with smart communication strategies to build genuine relationships with your customers for years to come.