Marketing is an important part of any business. If you are a business owner, you might already be aware of how a proper marketing strategy could change your business for the better. But investing all your time in it and keeping sending out emails every hour is a mammoth task and no one has that much time left in their day even if they know how important it is. That is where email marketing automation comes into the picture. You can now schedule and send out personalised emails to your customers and subscribers on your email list when certain conditions are met. This saves a lot of time for you and you can look after other important aspects of your business. Let’s keep reading and find out 10 email marketing automation tips that will help you take your business forward.
All your customers aren’t the same
Do you think all your customers like similar things? You can’t possibly think so. You know each individual has different interests. Same way, each one of your customers has different preferences. And they would like to get different kinds of information delivered to their inboxes. How would you like to get irrelevant information delivered to you? Not a fan right? Your customers would feel the same when you send out the same content to all your customers on your email list. That’s why you first need to understand they are all not the same. Second, you act on it. How? Divide your customers based on their interests. For this segmentation to happen, you need to identify your customers’ interests and segment them into groups based on their interests. Then send out the emails tailored to each group of customers.
Your segmentation can also be based on how long the customer has been inactive, when did they join, what emails they have opened etc., and maybe send out an email saying things like “ Hey, we miss you 😞” to the segment of customers that have been inactive for a while.
Timing is Important
Sending out a mass email at the right time could turn around your business sales. The timing of your email is very important if you want your customers to act on the emails they received. Pick out the right times to send out emails, when your customer is free to act on them or the timing when the email is most likely to be opened. Keep testing, decide which timing is perfect for your customers to respond to. Is it in the morning? During Lunchtime? Coffee break? Post dinner? Odd days of the week? At the weekend? Take your pick and test which time works best for your customers and send the emails accordingly.
Choose the right solution for your business
Just because you find their advertisements appealing, doesn’t mean they are the right email automation solution for your business. Before you start looking for email marketing solutions, make a list of what all you need for your business. Know your budget. Look for the software solutions that are providing the features you need within your budget. Don’t fall prey to advertisements that try to sell you more than what you need and the things you will never use. Be cautious and choose the solution that works best for your business.
Text emails
Yes!! Text emails are the key. The main motto behind email automation is saving time. You might want your emails to look colourful and appealing to your customers but the sad thing is that most customers use an email program that blocks out the emails with additional photos. Now all that extra time and effort that you put into inserting images and other things simply go to waste as your emails are directed to the spam folder of your customer.
Break up with the customers that are no good for you
Having thousands of people on your email list doesn’t mean that your business is blooming. It is the few active responders that are gonna make your business successful. So, whittle down your list. Best approach? Send all your inactive customers a break-up email. If they respond, good. If not, you can cut them out of your list. Also, keep the unsubscribe option available at the end of each email so that people who want out can leave. You don’t want to keep the ones who want to leave, they won’t bring you in any business on top of that, keeping them on the list would just be a waste of your time and efforts
Let the subscribers choose what they want
Having trouble with the segmentation of the email list? You can let your subscribers help you in that regard. Send out a mass email to all of your subscribers. Let them choose what kind of information and offers they want to be delivered to them. Let them choose the timings they would like to receive their emails at, or how often they would like you to contact them. Update your email lists based on their preferences. This becomes a win-win solution as you can accurately segment the lists with their help and the subscribers would also receive that content they want to be delivered to their inboxes at the time of their comfort.
Interact with your subscribers
Just like letting them choose what they want you can also send out emails to the customers who just signed up for your newsletter asking them about their interests. For example, in the first email you send to your subscribers after they sign up you can include questions asking them why they signed up to your brand and what they expect from you. You can ask them about their interests, preferences and more and use this information to personalise the emails for them.
A/B Testing
A/B testing can improve your marketing strategies and help you to take things forward by acting on the test findings at the same time getting a better understanding of your customers and marketing strategies. Testing out the emails is more important for your email marketing strategy than you might imagine. You can send out different emails testing out different things related to the same idea and checking which one works better for you. For example, you can try inserting and deleting emojis in the subject line and check which email is clicked on more by your customers. The good thing about this testing is that you can benefit from both the test emails and find out the one that brings you more click on or response rates.
Birthday Series
You can start out an email series for your customers’ birthdays. For that, you first need to collect their birthdays. While they sign up for your newsletter, make sure you put the D.O.B section in there to collect their birthdays and use that data to bring them special offers on their birthdays. You can set for an email to be delivered to their inbox a few days before their birthday notifying them of the deals offered especially to them on the occasion of their birthday. You can also wish them on their birthday, and send out an email giving them a discount and/or more offers along with it as a gift. Include a call to action option in the email for them to respond immediately.
Abandoned Cart Series
Almost all of us have added items to wish lists and carts and forgot about them a lot of times. There might be plenty of reasons for us to leave a cart unattended for days at a time. Your customers might also be doing the same thing. If they added those items to their cart, that means they are actually interested in buying those items. You can make use of the information and use it to speed up the sale. You can send out abandoned cart emails to all the customers who have added items to their cart and remind them of their abandoned carts. This could make most of them act on their carts and speed up the sale.
Wrapping Up
Now that you have reached the end of the article, you might already be aware of the important tips that could work wonders for your business. Along with the above-mentioned tips, also keep in mind that personalising the emails could more likely make your subscribers act on the emails. Gather as much data as you can from your customers and use it to personalize their email. Keep an eye on the email statistics, track and analyse the Click rates, response rates etc and use them to design your next emails.
