It is said that the goal of any marketing effort is to get the right message to the right person at the right time. It is also argued that making your email marketing personal is super important.

But as your lists grow, it becomes more difficult to give your subscribers the one-on-one attention they deserve. That is where email automation comes in.

With automations, you can set up and send out customised, relevant, and personalised communication and send it to the right subscribers at the right time.

What is email automation?

Automated emails are different from regular email campaigns. With a regular campaign, you set it up and send it to a whole database in one go. With automations, you set up a workflow of emails that will automatically target and send to individuals when a person (or people) meet certain criteria or triggers.

So, instead of having to sit and manually make and send a welcome email to every person that joins your list, an automated welcome email would be set up once. Then, whenever the criteria of “just joined the list” is met, your welcome email is automatically sent. How simple is that? Why is email automation important?

Making yourself stand out in your subscribers’ crowded inboxes is key, but how do you do that? By staying relevant. Generic emails just do not cut it anymore. The best way to become and remain relevant is by personalising your emails based on your subscribers’ interactions with you, which is exactly what automations will do.

The proof is in the pudding though. According to a study done by MarketingSherpa, automated emails have some of the highest engagement rates of all.

What kinds of automations can I set up?

Welcome

This kind of email (or series of emails, if you prefer) are great for onboarding new customers. Say thank you for signing up and offer some discounts or incentives while you are top of mind.

Specific Date

Using dates, you can set up and send customised reminders for your customers for, or leading up to, a specific date. This is a great way to get in touch with your customers about things like upcoming membership renewals, or an upcoming event.

Date Anniversary

Send your customers some love on their special day. Whether it is a birthday or an annual event, you can get in touch with your customers on the anniversary of a date. But remember to personalise this content, so that it does not feel like just another marketing message.

Content Updates

You can push an email update every time you post a blog or an update on your website, or you can collate all your updates and send them once a day, week, or month. Whichever you would prefer, it is flexible like that.

How should I plan my automations?

While setting up your automations is super simple, we recommend that you get your ducks in a row before you dive in.

Here are how to set it up your automations in four simple steps:

Step 1: Plan your Strategy

As with anything, having a proper strategy in place is the only way to make sure your email marketing accomplishes what you intended it to. So, before you jump in, put pencil to paper and do some planning.

A few questions to help guide your planning:

What do you want from automation emails? Are you trying rewarding customers, incentivising them, educating them or moving them through a sales cycle?

Are you only going to send one email or a series of emails? If it is a series, how often are you going to send?

These are the kinds of questions that need answering before you begin. Once you’ve, answered these questions, draw a map of the automation emails you’ll you will be sending.

You can always add more emails or interactions as you go, but in the beginning, less is more and simple is king.

Step 2: Get the Right Data

Once you know what you are sending to your customers, and why, you will need to make sure you get enough information about your subscribers to support your emails. If you are going to use certain customer details (like birthdays) or certain customer activities or interests, you must make sure you capture those details when people sign up.

Luckily, TouchBasePro makes it very simple to get new subscribers with 5 different types of integrations you can use to get people signing up. Whatever extra information you want, have them set up as custom fields on your database. It’s that simple.

Step 3: Set up your Journey

Now that you have got your strategy in place, and the customer data to support it, go ahead and set up your new automation journey. Log in to your account (if you do not have one yet, sign up for free today) and head to the Automations tab. From there, follow the steps in our simple visual journey designer to create your automation series. You can use our prebuilt email templates, create your own in our drag-and-drop editor or import your own template.

Step 4: Track your success

As nice as it is to set up automations and just let them run, do not forget about them! Check-in on your reports regularly to make sure that your hard work is paying off and pick up any issues. If you are seeing a drop off in open or click-through rates, you know it might be time to tweak your content or sending frequency.

Getting your message across

Email automations are often overlooked, but they can be a powerful tool for marketers who want to make sure they are getting the right messages across at the right time. Build relationships, drive business, and increase engagements, all with a couple of clicks.

If you need assistance setting-up your email automation, get in touch with our team of experts today by emailing solutions@touchbasepro.com. We would love to help!