To scale up your business, you’ll need to start delegating tasks. You won’t find a restaurant owner behind the grill, because they have their own responsibilities, right? The same goes for your email marketing. Except, instead of hiring waiters and cooks, you’re letting email marketing automation do most of the legwork. So, fix your hair, put on a smile, and get ready to discover the incredible power of automation.
Harnessing The Power Of Automated Email Marketing
Don’t let the name fool you - email marketing automation is anything but a one-size-fits-all. Maintaining that personal touch is especially important when communicating at scale.
Imagine, if you will, running a restaurant by yourself. Business is booming and hordes of customers come through the door, expecting your famous personal service and great food. But how do you deal with each customer in a friendly, personal manner? You can…
- Climb on the counter and try to call out your specials of the day, hoping everyone hears you. Boo!
- Deal with each customer personally as they ask you why their order is taking too long. Hiss!
- Make infinite clones of yourself to deal with each customer individually. Yay!
Obviously, the last option is best, and that’s exactly what you’re doing with email marketing automation. By setting up automated flows to address your customers at various points in their buying journey, you’re saving a lot of time while opening the door to a lot more potential revenue.
Of course, monthly campaigns are paramount, but automated flows (when done right) form the foundation of any great e-commerce marketing program.
Ding-ding! Order up!
The Most Beneficial Email Marketing Automations
If you did have an infinite number of clones at your disposal, you could assign them various duties in your imaginary restaurant. Some would wait at the door, others would take orders, etc.
It’s the same with email marketing, only we build very specific automated flows for the following five main touchpoints:
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Welcome Flow: Not only does this establish your brand and introduce your products and services, but it’s also an effective way to get subscribers to make their first purchase by offering an incentive.
“Table for three?”
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Browse Abandonment Flow: According to Klaviyo’s data, browse abandonment emails have a 9.6x higher conversion rate than the average monthly email campaign. It’s an incredible opportunity to turn curious bystanders into customers and it shouldn’t be overlooked.
“Can I start you off with an entrée?”
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Cart Abandonment Flow: Baymard Institute reports that the average cart abandonment rate is currently over 70%. Creating an effective cart abandonment series will help you recover plenty of potentially lost revenue.
“Just want to confirm your booking for tonight.”
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Post-Purchase Flow: Not to be confused with shipping and delivery confirmation emails, a post-purchase flow is something that can be sent to subscribers a few weeks - or months - after their last purchase. This is an effective way to cross-sell additional products, increase CLV, request reviews, or encourage recipients to refer friends and family.
“Your usual table?”
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Winback Flow: According to Forbes, it can cost up to five times more to gain new customers than it does to retain existing ones. Plus, this helps with cleaning your list as well, as any unengaged subscribers can be removed.
“We had to give away your table.”
Once you have your basic areas taken care of, it’s time to focus on taking care of your caretakers.
How To Keep Your Automated Email Flows Running Smoothly
Of course, you can’t just leave your restaurant clones to it and head home to watch the game (although, it is tempting). Nope, you need to ensure that each one is performing well and make adjustments as needed - which means all the time.
When it comes to your automated marketing emails, you should be tweaking, polishing, and adjusting constantly. Here’s how we do it:
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A/B Testing: We constantly tweak aspects of our automated emails to see if that change yields a better response. If, for example, we find that shorter subject lines do better, we’ll start implementing them and move on to our next test. Slowly but surely we’ll hone in on the audience’s preferences.
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Subject Lines: These one-liners can make or break your open rates, so it’s crucial that you keep them fresh and punchy! Especially in flows like cart abandonment, where subscribers might receive them more than once.
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Regular Audits: To improve, you must first measure. Regular audits give you a clear overview of what works and what needs to be tweaked. Remember: The less you audit, the less you know.
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Content Updates: Replace old offers with new ones, jazz up the copy, and let your designers have a go at a fresh new layout. And don’t forget to regularly update your flows with new content, pricing, and offers.
The key is to continually monitor and adjust your automated flows to avoid monotony and incorrect content.
What Automated Email Marketing Looks Like With CodeCrew
While automated email marketing might seem like a “set it and forget it” solution for busy business owners, it’s anything but. To get the ROI you’re looking for, you still need to be hands-on and ensure you retain that personal touch.
But, you don’t have the time, right? That’s why you enlisted the help of automated emails in the first place. So, what do you do?
You partner with an email marketing agency to help you build the juiciest, data-driven automated email program in town.
Now, who’s up for dessert?
