Email Marketing Automation: Why & How

What is Email Marketing Automation?

According to Campaign Monitor:

As opposed to newsletters and one-off campaigns that you create and send to a whole list of people in one go, an automatic email campaign is set up once and then automatically sent to a particular individual when that person meets a certain trigger.

What Can I Automate?

Are you using email marketing automation?

If not, you may be passing up an important timesaver. What if you could reach your customers based on their behavior and engagement? Wouldn’t you love to be able to reward your best customers with extra perks like discounts and early access to special sales?

Here are some excellent ways to use email marketing automation:

1. Welcome Sequence

The welcome sequence triggers automatically when someone joins your list. It first delivers your lead magnet — the free content you promised in exchange for the user’s email address.

OptinMonster found that “ … an automated welcome email series instead of a single welcome email can increase revenue by 13%.” A sequence is often a series of five or six emails sent a certain number of days apart. That’s set up when you add your sequence to your account.

For example, you may send the lead magnet link first, with an introduction to who you are and what you do. Your goal is to make the user feel valued and important as you help them understand how you can make their life easier.

Other emails can be focused on success stories, ways your product can be used, or aspirational photos that remind the user why they are interested in your product.

Here’s an excellent example by Peloton, who makes high-end interactive exercise equipment. I like this email because it shows the reader faces of their instructors, which adds a personal component, and the instructors, while they look fit and toned, look as if they could be your physically active co-worker or best friend.