Best practices for a successful email automation strategy

What is email automation?

Email marketing automation is a strategy that sees marketers send triggered or timed promotional emails to subscribers on their mailing list. It enables online marketers to send out personalized messages to both prospects and customers on a schedule or when specific conditions are met.

Some examples of automated emails are onboarding emails sent when a customer signs up for a mailing list, similar product recommendations after a user has bought from your site, or a quick reminder that the customer placed something in their cart but never finished checking out.

Email automation takes repeated tasks off your to-do list to free up your time for other valuable tasks, such as responding to customer questions. It can help customers learn more about your brand, encourage them to keep coming back or remind them of why they bought from you in the first place.

Email automation is a way to create emails that reach the right people with the right message at the right moment—without doing the work every time, sending automated messages leveraging a marketing automation tool.

Email marketing automation best practices

If you are wondering where you should begin to create a successful email automation strategy, here are the best practices to get started.

1.Segmentation

All of your customers or subscribers are not the same. That’s why you should be treating them differently.

It’s not enough to simply send out newsletters anymore, not in this competitive eCommerce environment. If you treat every potential customer the same, dumping them into one giant email track, you’re going to rub people the wrong way, which will undoubtedly leave them with the impression that you don’t understand their needs and won’t be able to help.
Instead, you’ll need to make sure that you can identify and separate your subscribers and customers into different segments.

Use WayMore’s marketing automation software and get customers’ personal data automatically segmented and send personalized messages to them. Show your customers how important they are and increase their loyalty.

2. A/B Testing

A/B testing is very important for your email marketing automation strategy. You can try more than just one idea at a time by setting up your communications so that two versions of the same message go out, each with different things you want to test and find the best results for your subscribers.

Here are some great ideas for A/B testing you can start doing today:

• Test the subject lines with a different discount to see if % or $ signs work better for your subscribers.
• Test the same subject line with and without emojis. You will get valuable insight into how your subscribers react to emojis. If positively, emojis will help you get noticed every time you email your list.
• Test subject lines with the subscriber’s name included and removed. See if using their name works better. Don’t forget to review your list of subscribers to see if all the names that the subscribers have entered are valid.
• Try different versions of subject lines, ones indicating limited-time offers and ones without it. You’ll understand if your subscribers react to this kind of pressure to click on the email and buy.
• Test if sending email campaigns from a person or using your business name generates better open rates.

Read more on how to write email subject lines that sell.

3. Web tracking and customer profiles

Understanding your customers and responding to them is an important part of providing to them. That’s why proper tracking is so important.

With WayMore’s powerful marketing automation software you can get detailed real-time reports on customer behavior including time, location, messages read, conversion rates can all be tracked and analyzed.

4. Targeted signup forms

Email marketing automation is all about the subscriber, particularly after the implementation of the GDPR. It’s well known that when a customer buys from you once, they’ll be much more likely to buy from you again and again. A great way to get them started is to have them sign up through any of the signup forms on your website.

That means you’ll have to use advanced signup tactics in your eCommerce marketing automation strategy. You can gather customer details through forms you can easily create and customize, segment data automatically and personalize your business communications as we already mentioned, fast and securely with Forms by Routee.

Email automation in retail

Email automation rules in the retail business. Automated emails enable retailers to have more than one touch-points with prospective and loyal clients. Automated emails bring in substantial ROI, as they are sent based on a subscriber’s behavior or a period of time.

Retail clients want to receive regular updates about their orders, promotions, and sales, as well as other related offers. Automated emails are used to keep consumers updated on purchases and account activity, and they’re often transactional or “triggered,” which means they’re sent because of something the customer did. From welcome emails to shipping notifications to requests for product reviews, there are plenty of ways that retailers can use email automation.

Some of the most common automated emails in retail are:

• Welcome emails
• Order confirmations
• Shipping confirmations
• Email address confirmations
• Password reset emails
• Support notifications
• Cart abandonment emails
• Purchase receipts
• Registration confirmations
• Related product emails
• Review request emails

What’s next for your business?

With all there is to achieve in email marketing automation, it is important that you have some amazing tools in your arsenal. Try out WayMore’s powerful marketing automation software and let your business thrive! Get started now and don’t forget to use everything you’ve learned here for unbelievable results!