Making the most out of Dynamic Email Marketing

Email marketing is far past being a static channel, real-time dynamic emails are adding the competitive edge today. A lot of companies continue to send static email marketing newsletters, these have their merits, but there is a lot more to be gained with strong dynamic email.

The possibilities that dynamic email marketing offers for 1:1 tailored messages are almost endless.
With the right choice of marketing automation or email marketing software and using the right techniques, everybody is able to send a very dynamic email. These days there are no excuses left for only sending “stale mail”.

Dynamic email marketing as a part of your strategy

Dynamic email marketing can be the gravy of your email marketing program. Before giving it a permanent spot in the email marketing plan and strategy, the practical marketer seeks to know what the (dynamic) email marketing toolkit means to him. Critical topics you need to address to come to a solid deployment:

• Which forms of dynamic email are available to me?
• Which data, marketing systems and integrations need to be in place?
• What are hurdles and incremental gains of introducing dynamic email?

Using real-time data to present the ideal product

If the recipient is already considering to buy a product, the chance that they will purchase it increase dramatically. So a retailer would love to show each subscriber the ideal – ready for the sell product directly in their email marketing messages. It becomes important to know which product the recipient is most likely to buy (now).
Dynamic email marketing adds that email marketing edge. By combining data in the customer profile, previous purchases and customer behaviour the retailer can predict which products are most probable to be the ideal product for that specific customer.

Next Best Offer

This prediction technique is known as Next Best Offer, the intelligence behind it can come from an email recommendation engine. You might have seen it on Amazon as “often bought together” shown on a product page. But recommendation engines also function on the individual level: “others like you also bought” and use other types of combinational scoring and machine learning to come up with the ideal product recommendation.
Do recommendation engines provide an uplift for your email results? Yes, in this article that explains the inner working and how to choose the ideal email recommendation engine, we see 50% to 400% uplift in Click To Open Rates.

By adding extra real-time information, like the number of items in stock, popularity and gross margin, the offer becomes more and more attractive, to both the retailer and the recipient. I highlight products here, but the same can be applied to content and services.

Defining the Ideal product

How do you know your email marketing messages or newsletters are showing the ideal product? The ideal product based on static data will have at least these properties:

• Has a high close rate / is popular
• Fits the customer segment
• Is attractively presented to persuade a purchase
• Is in season

Adding dynamic data:

• Is currently available for purchase
• Is a desirable sell: Product margin, sale cycle, sales targets
• Product is (not) recently purchased by the recipient (time depending on product)
• Fits the recipient purchase profile
• Is considered or searched for: Behavior shows that the category or product been looked at, clicked on or searched for.

Scooping external content and feed it into your email newsletters

Dynamic content is not limited to your own organisation anymore. It is relatively easy to add external content into your email newsletters. With the use of RSS feeds or a technique called content Text, images and other forms of content can be captured from any website or content repository. Using the same methods, maybe combined with API calls, other information can be scooped too.
Think about the weather forecast as an external piece of data / content, this can be automatically retrieved from a source like Yahoo Weather. The next step would be to trigger event driven emails and offers based on it. A simple piece of information like that, combined with dynamic email marketing can muster impressive results. For instance by using the weather report for the town and zipcode of the recipient, you can do a “last minute vacation to the sun” email whenever it rains (or an offer for umbrellas).

Merging an abandoned shopping cart mail into your newsletter?

How event-driven are your newsletters? All customer data can be used to dynamically fill and personalize regular newsletter emails. If you have a shopping cart, why limit yourself to only event-driven emails? It can be very powerful to include a shopping cart message in your regular newsletter.
This is, in fact, merging an abandoned shopping cart mail into your newsletter. There are many variants you could think of. Here is an example by eBags that includes the number of items in the shopping cart in the header of the email.

Live and real-time images

By using dynamic images (also called live-images) you can make the emails even more time aware. The images in an email are requested the moment someone opens that email and can still be changed after the email is sent. You can think about emails based on location and moment (morning, midday, evening) someone opens your email. Last minute messages from social media like tweets about your brand can also be inserted into the mail using dynamic images.

Accelerated use of dynamic emails

The rise of the ranking economy is sure to accelerate the move towards dynamic email marketing. Everything can be reviewed these days. Your toothbrush, your friends, a travel destination, your doctor, they can all be given a 1 to 5 star review. Ranking and popularity tends to influence sales. By using dynamic content the ranking and sales information can be used to dynamically show the right products.
With the renewed attention to marketing automation by ESPs and suppliers, these advanced and dynamic ways of sending emails are put in the hands of the marketer. He designs the rules and how the campaign should work and the ESP works as an intelligent broker between marketing and technology and message and recipient.

Take a break from stale mail

Some companies are even taking all their archives, blogs, social and products to automatically compose the ideal messages on a personal basis, without any human intervention.
As you see, email marketing is way past being a just a static messaging channel and can be used very dynamically. Is dynamic email a part of your email marketing plan?





Source

4 Tips to Automate Your Social Media Efforts

Being active on social media is vital to the success of your business, but, let’s face it: content curation can be tedious and time consuming. If you spend a ton of time focusing on your social media efforts, productivity with other tasks can drop pretty quickly.
Although having a social media presence is a necessity, you need to find a balance if your business is going to be successful.
That is where social media automation comes into play.
You can use automation to be more efficient with social media, and here are a couple of strategies to help maximize your efforts.

1. Connect accounts

Image source
Connecting your accounts across different social media platforms can be a great way to increase productivity, especially if you are just starting out.
This is the most basic type of automation and involves syncing one account with another to seamlessly publish the same content to both.
For example, you can connect your Twitter account to your Facebook page, and have tweets automatically published on Facebook. The same can be done if you want to connect your Instagram account with the Facebook page you manage.
If you’re looking for something with more extensive options, you could check out Zapier, a great tool that lets you automate all sorts of tasks, including social media automation. Some of the automation tasks include:

• Posting from one Facebook page to another
• Posting YouTube videos to Facebook
• Cross-posting tweets to LinkedIn
• Tweeting new RSS feed items

Word to the wise, use this strategy in moderation. It can save a ton of time, but you don’t want to alienate anyone who follows you on multiple platforms. No one wants to see the same image or post over and over and over.

2. Sync your blog

Another easy way to automate your social media activity is to sync your blog. As it turns out, this is actually the first thing you should do to help get the word out about new posts.
Syncing allows you to automatically post updates on social media, once you publish new content. Here are a couple of plug-ins that could help with syncing your blog and social media accounts:

• WP to Twitter – It allows you to automatically send a tweet when you update your WordPress blog.
• WP to Buffer – This plug-in sends updates to your Buffer account for scheduling updates on different social media accounts.
• Social Media Auto Publish – A plug-in that allows publishing on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, using customizable messages and filters.

If you want a tool that will help schedule and plan your blog posts, as well as sync them to social media, you should check out CoSchedule, a paid tool for managing editorial calendars and auto posting.
No matter how you implement it, this strategy is great for saving time, as one click is all you need to publish both on your blog and social media. Keep in mind this tactic can lack a personal touch so make sure to combine it with other automation strategies for the best results.

3. Reshare content

Another useful strategy is to reshare content from others. Resharing is an effective way to build your social media following plus, it also counts as a form of engagement since you’re supporting the efforts of whoever posted the content in the first place!
As you scroll through your newsfeed and engage with followers, you could either click share/retweet on the spot, or load the content into a curation platform such as ScoopIt, Feedly, or Curata.
Or, you could automate the whole process with a tool like Octosuite, which scans trending posts and viral content for you to find the best re-shareable content out there.

Once the system has found the content, you can reshare immediately or schedule the post for later, which makes it really easy to fill up your social media calendar. Octosuite is a super helpful automation tool, especially if you’re a heavy Facebook user.
Being active on social media is very important if you plan on building a reputation and gaining authority, even if you’re too busy to create original content. A lack of original content can also be a drawback, so be sure to use this strategy in moderation.

4. Use a curation tool

Basic tips like connecting and syncing accounts definitely help get the ball rolling, but you’ll need to delve into some higher level stuff if you want to really kick it up a notch.
As the need for efficiency in social media grows, new companies have emerged with more complex functional solutions. There are a ton of curation tools out there now – HootSuite, Buffer, and SproutSocial are some names you might recognize, and an all-in-one tool like SociHub is also a good option.
These tools allow you to create custom, personalized messages and publish them across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and more. Calendars and pre-scheduling help you get ahead of the game while analytics and monitoring allow you to keep track of overall performance.
With different tools offering different options and integrations for marketers, you’ll be able to find one that works with your strategy. Chris Makara surveyed over 100 experts to discover their favorite social media management tools if you’re interested in learning more.

Automate Your Social Media Now

Automation is a very useful tool to implement within your social media accounts and can greatly increase productivity.
Always keep your intended audience in the forefront of your mind and combine different approaches for the best results to be sure your social media doesn’t feel automated. The goal is to be active and increase engagement with social media automation becoming an assistant when you’re swamped with other tasks.
Grab a helpful tool, implement these tips and get started! Once you master these strategies, you’ll be on your way to get the most out of social media in the least amount of time.

Which of these strategies do you use to save time you spend on social media? Please leave a comment if you have some other tricks up your sleeve! And share if you know someone who would enjoy learning about these strategies as well!

Source

The 5 Types of Automated Emails You Need To Be Using

Automation. One simple word that makes a huge impact.

Automation allows us to pass off simple tasks and focus our attention on what is really important. But, you may not realize that the same things that make your daily life easier also help your business function better.

Think about it: What wakes you up on time every morning? Your pre-scheduled alarm, right?

What drives you to get up out of bed? Could it be the aroma of freshly brewed coffee from your programmable Keurig?

Now, think back to the last time you went on vacation. What simple feature helped people know what to expect while you were away? An out-of-office auto-reply.

Automation is everywhere.

But in a study done by Smart Insights, 18% of B2B organizations reported that they were not using marketing automation… at all…

However, according to Epsilon, automated emails have a 152% higher click rate and a 77% higher open rate than other messages.

If you’re not using automation you’re not optimizing your efforts, especially when it comes to email.
Automated emails are personalized and triggered based on a user’s action. They are also super targeted, which is probably why they yield such great results.

With automated emails, the copy, offer, and delivery are all coordinated for that one subscriber at that specific time. If you’re not quite sure how to get started with email automation, you’re in luck!

In this post we’re going to share 5 different types of automated emails in order to drive the point home that you need to start using them in your business!

Let’s get started.

1. Welcome emails

Welcome emails are messages that confirm an opt-in and greet your new subscribers. Sending a welcome email or a series of welcome emails is the simplest form of email marketing automation.

Take this example from Starbucks Rewards, which is pretty simple:

You may be wondering – if they are so simple, do people even read them?

Well, yes! Welcome emails actually get 4 times higher open rates than other promotional emails. Plus, their click-through rates are 5 times that of other emails.

Those stats speak for themselves, but imagine this:

You’ve just arrived for your first day at a new job. When you walk in, do you get a better first impression if everyone keeps their head down and ignores you? Or when people greet you with a warm, “Hello, nice to meet you!” and a smile?

First impressions are crucial. You want to be the person that smiles, introduces themselves and offers to show you around. As it turns out, you can do just that with an automated email!

All you need is a smart email marketing platform like Sendlane.

As soon as someone signs up on your blog or store, the automated messaging you’ve set up will start sending your welcome email series right away.

Expert tip: Don’t wait! Sending welcome emails promptly improves their overall performance.

2. Onboarding emails

Someone buying your product or service is a perfect opportunity to initiate a user onboarding sequence.

Onboarding emails are great for explaining product features to new customers and sharing hidden benefits. You can also utilize them to connect customers with support resources, trainings or how-to posts for best results and more.

You could easily develop an initial “training” series with automated onboarding emails as well, meaning that you have more educated customers who are able to take full advantage of your product or service.

Take a look at this onboarding email from Squarespace. It clearly shows that it is part of a series, includes tons of actionable information, resources, support links and even a little promo right at the end:

Taking the time to acclimate new customers and share worthwhile content elevates the customer experience significantly. This also helps keep your refund rate low, since each new customer has a greater understanding of how your product or service actually works.

3. Follow ups based on opens and clicks

Automated campaigns can also be based on your subscriber’s interactions with your emails.

For example, say you send an email that many of your subscribers didn’t open. With automation, you can prepare for this ahead of time.

Simply set up another version of the same message with a more targeted, more flashy subject line, and your workflow will sends the new version automatically to anyone who didn’t open the first time.
If you send out a promotional email with great open and click through rates, set up another workflow to target these active subscribers. You can even hone in on their enthusiasm with a freebie so they are primed to buy.

Most email marketing platforms allow you to set up workflows with subscriber-activity based trigger, so this type of automation is actually quite simple to set up:

4. Cart abandonment emails

Cart abandonment messages are slightly more complex than the rest of the emails on this list, but are just as important.

Baymard Institute compiled information from 37 different studies and found that the online shopping cart abandonment rate was a staggering 69.23%.

So, almost 70% of potential online purchases are not completed is a huge opportunity for conversion!
Cart abandonment emails are designed to capitalize on this huge potential revenue loss that affects a large amount of businesses.

Whether you offer a discount on shipping, a coupon, or just a quick reminder that they have items still sitting in their cart, there are many opportunities to secure the sale!

In fact, SaleCycle reports that over one third of cart abandonment clicks result in a purchase!

The downside here is that these emails generally require an additional tool or service that integrates with your online store to trigger campaigns. Your email marketing platform might not provide this type of integration option.

5. Special event emails

Sending messages on special occasions, such as birthdays and anniversaries is also a great way to build rapport with your subscribers.  In fact, emails with a personalized message generally have an open rate of up to 18.8%!

If you’re interested in sending messages on personalized events, check to see if your platform supports custom values. If they do, all you need to do is add a few custom fields to your opt-in form and you’re good to go!

If you don’t have the ability to collect custom values, you can still send out personalized holiday greetings, it’ll just a tad bit more work!

Expert tip: Draft your special event email accordingly but incorporate a promotion into it! For subscribers who aren’t interested in the offer, the email itself is just well wishes for a great holiday/birthday/event. But, for anyone that is interested in the offer – you may have just automated a purchase!

Wrapping it up

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of what automated emails are and realize that not all of them require complicated or expensive tools.

As you now know, you can power your email marketing using a highly effective automated campaign with a simple email automation solution such as Sendlane.

So sign up for Sendlane now (There’s a 14-day free trial and paid plans start at just $9/mo). Once you sign up, follow the process in this article to create your first automated campaign!

Your list will love you for it!



Source

3 Welcome Emails to Engage New Subscribers

You’re sending a welcome email to new subscribers, right?

Because if you aren’t, you’re missing a major opportunity to get better results. Welcome emails get just about the highest opens and click-through rates of any other type of emails.

This isn’t just my opinion. The email marketing experts over at Experian did a study of welcome emails awhile back. They turned up some killer info:

• Welcome emails get 86% more clicks than regular promotional emails
• They earn 320% more sales, too.

Want one other juicy takeaway? Sending welcome emails immediately – instead of delaying them a few hours – will get you ten times more transactions than a delayed welcome.

All that just for saying hello to your new subscribers. Cool, huh?

So now you know you gotta send these. Next question is…. what to say in them.

Welcome email tactic 1: “What do you want to know?”

I love this one. Just send a simple, text-based email asking “What’s your most pressing question” about whatever your site is about.

This could not be simpler to set up. It’s a couple of lines of text, and you get the answers just by asking people to reply. Hat tip to Derek Halpern for first sharing this.

So why do it? Because you’ll get great ideas for content in the replies. Even more importantly, you’ll be learning more about your subscribers and how you can help them.

Here’s business coach George Kao’s welcome email with this question-based approach:

If you want, there’s a way to kick this tactic up a notch. It’ll get you way more responses than if you just asked people to reply to the welcome email.

Interested? I thought so.

Here’s all you do:

• Give them a valuable free gift – aka a “lead magnet” in exchange for them answering your “what do you most want to know” question.

• Send them to a landing page to give their reply, so you can “gate” that free gift until they’ve filled out a text box with their answer.

Of course, some people may just type in “blah blah blah” for their answer – they may not give you the detailed reply you want. But it doesn’t really matter. Most people are honest and will give you at least a decent answer.

For the ones that don’t give you a real answer? Let it go. You haven’t given away the farm in the free ebook or gift you gave them. And besides, every additional piece of content you can get your subscribers to engage with, the better.

Welcome email tactic 2: Show them your best stuff

This one’s maybe even easier than the question email. All you have to do here is just give them a thumbnail introduction to your work.

This can be as simple as one to two sentences that basically say “Thanks for joining my list!”, followed by a few hyperlinked bullet points pointing them to your all-time best-performing content. Consider adding one or two good resources for newbies in there, too.

Here’s an example of this from the content curation tool Crate. I got this email right after I signed up:

They’re giving me a push to start using the tool, along with a guide for how to do that. They’re also offering a “how-to” guide to show me what’s possible with content curation. All in all, this is pretty good.

Want to kick this tactic up a notch, though? Use a welcome video.

You don’t have to even embed the video in the email message if you don’t want to. Just create an image of the first frame of the video. Put a small triangle inside a circle at the center of the image. It’s the universal sign for “this is a video”. Then link that image to a landing page where the video automatically plays.

Kinda like this:

The experience makes the user feel like the video is embedded, but you won’t have to worry about getting the video to play on different email clients or any of the other hassles that can arise.

Welcome email tactic 3: Send a series of welcome emails

Got so much to say, you think you can’t fit it all in one email? No problem. Send more than one.

This often works better than just one welcome email. To know if it works best for you, you’ll have to test it (we recommend you test everything).

With multiple welcome emails, the first question is when to send them. I’d start with one a day. That way you aren’t sending too many, but you’re not frustrating the people who really want to hear from you, either.

Here’s a sketch of what the emails in a 3-part welcome series might do:

• First email: Thanks for signing up and what to expect.
• Second email: Guide for newcomers and “what’s your biggest challenge” question.
• Third email: Follow us on social media, plus an extra intro video (great way to get people to subscribe to you on YouTube, too)… with a call to action to buy an entry-level product – like for $7.

That’s a great start, but some email marketers decide to do one better. They use their welcome series as a way to learn more about their subscribers, and in turn, send them more targeted emails.

It’s actually really easy to do this. Just direct people to click one link or another. Then use your email marketing automation software to move the people who clicked one link or another to a separate list.
You could do this for clothing – men’s versus women’s. Or for online training – total newbies versus intermediates. Or to let people choose how frequently they hear from you, like Klaviyo has done here:

Think hard before you set something like this up. If you could only know two or three things about your subscribers, what would those things be?

The Perfect Welcome Email

It’s simple: Welcome emails rock. If you’re not using them, change that – today.

Start crafting your messages. They’re really easy to set up AND get major results. It’s time extremely well spent.

Are you using a single welcome email, or a welcome email series? Which one do you think works best?

Let us know in the comments below – and, while you’re at it, like and share on social media to help spread the Word!



Source

10 email marketing tools to help build, send, automate and optimize your campaigns

Email isn’t the easiest channel to master, but luckily there is a wide range of email marketing tools to help nail every step of a campaign.
This article covers everything from building an email template to post-campaign optimization. So what can these email marketing tools help with?

Building email templates

There are several levels of complexity when it comes to building emails. At the simplest end of the spectrum is purchasing a pre-built email template. Some email marketing tools will even provide their own database of templates for you to choose from. If you’re looking for a simple, easy-to-manage solution, this is a safe bet.
If you need a custom email template (or simply don’t like any of the existing templates), then an email builder should be your next port of call. These come in two flavors – a ‘WYSIWYG’ (What You See Is What You Get) drag-and-drop builder, or actual HTML code.
Most major email service providers (ESPs) will provide a template builder (with varying degrees of success), and all will allow you to input straight HTML. However, HTML requires you to code the email from scratch, or adapt an existing one. Both of these options are time- and resource-intensive, even if you have the skills to do it. However, it does allow you to access more advanced functionality, like dynamic content in emails.
Below are three good examples of email marketing tools that can be used to build emails. And if you’re in the market for a new ESP, here are seven things you mustn’t forget to ask your email marketing vendor.

• Litmus offer a collection of free, high-quality email templates. They even have a tool to help you see how they’ll look in different email clients.
• Benchmark offer a simple drag-and-drop editor and allow you to create branded signup forms.
• Campaign Monitor offer a template builder with the ability to add dynamic content. For each element in the email, there is a drop-down menu labelled ‘who should see this’ from which you can select segments of your audience.

Segmenting and sending emails

Now you’ve built your email template and it’s polished to a high shine, the next step is to work out which part of your audience to send it to – and, of course, to actually send it.
A recent study by Mailchimp found that segmented campaigns delivered an average of 14% higher open rates, a 9% lower bounce and a whopping 101% increase in click-through rate. So it’s worth investing the time into properly segmenting your audience before sending your emails. Tailoring the messaging, subject line and body content of your emails to each segment is a great strategy to improve engagement.
Of course, any time spent segmenting your audience is ultimately wasted if those messages aren’t delivered. So it’s also a good idea to invest in tools that ensure deliverability. Tools like Sendforensics let you test your emails before your campaign goes out, giving you a sense of whether your emails will land in inboxes or junk folders.
When it comes to actually sending your emails, below is a selection of email marketing tools that allow you to do so in bulk:

• Mailchimp is the market leader in terms of number of users, primarily because of the sheer simplicity of its interface. It also has a bunch of free email marketing tools which are great for small businesses – such as an HTML to text email converter that ensures your recipients can always see the content, regardless of their email client.
• Sendpulse offers a range of features like forms, mobile-optimization and a scheduler. It can also handle high volumes of emails (good for large mailing lists).
• Fospha is a ‘Customer Data Platform’, designed to track behaviour and customer profiles, using that data to create smart segments based on specific interests and behaviours. It also uses machine learning for clustering and personalization.

Automating email campaigns

Automation is one of the best email marketing tools available. Simple rules-based automation is offered by most providers, allowing you to set up entire campaigns based on user behavior, demographics and stage in the funnel.
One common application of email marketing automation is sending abandonment emails. This is a simple remarketing strategy used by ecommerce retailers to target customers who either add items to their basket but fail to complete the checkout, or simply browse items before leaving.
On average, 69% of customers leave their order behind before purchase. Using email marketing automation, a simple rule can be set up to trigger an email send to these customers, encouraging them to return to the site and complete their purchase. One shoe retailer was able to recover 24% of abandoned carts and drive an additional 5% revenue per month using this method.
Below are a few email marketing tools that can help automate elements of your campaigns. For more on marketing automation, check out our guide on How to choose the right marketing automation vendor.

• HubSpot is one of the biggest and most versatile players in the market, offering an intuitive interface to set up triggers and responses, along with lead scoring capabilities to help make your automated campaigns more intelligent and targeted.
• GetResponse offer time-based email triggers, which are effective for campaigns that require multiple touchpoints, such as welcome emails. GetResponse call these ‘autoresponders’ and list a few examples here.
• Marketo is another big player in the automation space, with a diverse range of features including automated push notifications, in-app messaging, and real-time location-based marketing.

Tracking, testing and optimizing your emails

As with any high-volume marketing channel, optimization is essential. Small changes to things like send time, subject lines and sender address can have a significant impact on open and click-through rates.
The first step is to track these metrics. Every ESP on the market has analytics in some form or another. Keep an eye on any spikes in bounce rate and other delivery metrics to ensure you aren’t penalized for spam, and on open and click-through rates to assess performance.
Once a baseline is established, it’s time to test the performance of regular emails against experimental ones. Make sure to only test one thing at a time, and for a period of at least a few weeks, to ensure changes cannot be attributed to other factors.
By continuing to test and track results, regular emails will be optimized over time. Here are a few email marketing tools that can help speed up that process:

• Salesforces’ Pardot offers A/B email testing, lets you view test data in real time and automatically selects the best-performing email to send to the rest of your recipients once the test is over.
• Phrasee applies its machine learning tool to every aspect of an emails, including subject lines, body copy and calls to action and triggers.
• The Hemingway App is, honestly, just great fun to use. It analyzes text and grades it based on boldness and clearness, highlighting hard-to-read phrases, clichés and use of the passive voice. For marketers who struggle with copywriting (come on, don’t be shy), this is a great little tool.

For more on making sure that your email marketing technology is ready for the future, don’t miss ClickZ Intelligence’s report, Email and the Age of First-Person Marketing: Is your email technology ready for the future?

Source

The Complete Guide to Email Automation for Beginners

If you’re a marketer, you’ve probably heard of email marketing automation.

Email marketing automation is an essential part of building a profitable email list for any online business.

In this article I’ll try to cover some important points:

1. How does email automation work? 
2. What type of events trigger automation? 
3. The main terms you need to know before getting started 
4. Email marketing automation tools 

If you are unsure of everything email automation can do for you, then read on…

How does email automation work?

With email automation, when an event happens, an email is triggered (automatically sent). The email is sent from your email marketing tool or from your marketing automation tool.

The relevance of the email, and its timing is important. With a bit of smart automation, you can send the right email at the right time and to the right person, with information that is relevant to them, based on the actions they take on your website.

Another important thing is cleaning your email list. By doing so, you know that the email addresses are real and still active. Read more about how to clean your email list here.

What type of events trigger an automation

Below are some simple examples to understand what I am talking about:

• Email after someone signs up to your email list 
• Email when a website visitor is a previous subscriber – When someone is an email subscriber and visits your website, some email marketing tools can track which pages they have visited on your website and then trigger an email based on this. 
• Survey response – You sent an email to your subscribers and asked them if they were interested in a product. Based on their answer, a different email (or series of emails) is automatically sent. 
• Cart abandonment email – If you collect the email address of the person during the sales process – or if you already have the email address as the customer is an existing subscriber – you can follow up via email to encourage them to come back. 

Did you know that the average cart abandonment rate for e-commerce providers is over 60%. More than half of shoppers abandon their purchase after adding products to their cart.

What are the main terms you need to know before you start with email automation?

Before you get started with email automation, you need to get familiar with some of the most used terms of email marketing:

• Opt-in/Subscribe – when someone opts in to receive emails from you 
• Double opt-in – when someone opts in to receive emails from you and they need to confirm their opt-in 
• Spam – when someone doesn’t opt-in and you send them emails, or when someone does optin and you overdo it 
• Unsubscribe – when someone unsubscribes from your email list 
• Trigger – describes an event that causes something to happen (an email is sent) 
• Sequence – the sequence of emails that are sent after an event happens 
• Email campaign/Autoresponder – a series of emails that are sent for a specific event 
• Bounce rate – the rate at which emails are not delivered. A soft bounce is temporary, but a hard bounce is permanent and means that your message can never be delivered to that email address. 
• CTR – stands for Click-Through-Rate and is the number of times people click on links within an email 

Email marketing automation tools

The main difference between an email automation tool and a basic email marketing tool, is the functionality and the price. An email marketing tool is used for sending regular emails such as newsletters. With a marketing automation tool you can build automation around those emails.

Some features of a marketing automation tool are:

• email sequence builder 
• landing page builder 
• analytics 
• program management – manage marketing campaigns across multiple channels 
• online behavior tracking – email subscribers visiting your website 
• and more. 

If you’re looking for a marketing automation tool, you have a large variety to choose from.

Here are some popular examples: 

• ConvertKit – designed specifically for bloggers 
• GetResponse – growing functionality, but not as powerful as some of the other tools below 
• InfusionSoft – complex to use but very powerful 
• Ontraport – doesn’t integrate with as many products as InfusionSoft does 
• HubSpot – very useful and comprehensive tool, but the price will be higher compared to the other two 

What are the steps for building an email automation sequence

For any sequence that you want to build, the required steps will be similar.

1. Find out who you want to attract

Start by analyzing the customers who have bought from you in the past and try to figure out what are the characteristics and interests of your customers.

2. Do some research about the issues of your existing customers/audience

The next step is to do some research and find out the issues your customers/audience encounter while using your services/product. Doing that will help you come up with an incentive for people to subscribe to your services/product.

3. Use the info collected and create your incentive

Use the information from the above steps to create a buzz around that topic. You could also create a guide as a solution or use the info in your opt-in message. This will get people to sign up and then all you have to do is to offer them a free trial of your product.

4. Direct people to make the action you want them to make

You need to create some sort of a “map”, to think in advance. First you have a welcome email, then some follow-up emails with links to the guide created in the step above. After that, what should they do?
They could become a customer, so you must move them to a customer list
If they don’t become customers, you can move them to a newsletter list

A tool you can use for that is Lucidcharts.

5. Create your emails

When you’re creating the emails, think about the relationship you want to build with the subscriber. Make them feel welcome, as part of the community, tell them about yourself and deliver your promises (free trial, a guide, etc.).

With every email you send, make sure that you are building a relationship as well as providing quality content.

6. Create the sequence in the email automation tool

You will need to create a sequence, add emails to that sequence and then specify when the emails will be sent.

An example:
Welcome email – send immediately
Email no.2 – 2 days later
Email no.3 – 4 days later
Free trial/discount offer – 5 days later
Offer reminder – 6 days later
Add them to a customer list if they bought, or to a newsletter list if they didn’t

*days are counted after the welcome email is sent

Note: Your series of emails will be different depending on the type of service you provide and who you are targeting.

7. Deploy your opt-ins and segment your audience

Now you can setup the opt-ins on your site. Depending on the marketing tool you use, you might have the functionality and opt-ins required, but it’s always better to use a specialized tool.

OptinMonster has some smart functionalities and it also provides multiple ways to collect opt-ins.

Some examples of OptinMonster functionalities:
opt-ins based on your blog categories; this means that you can segment people based on where they opted in.
different opt-ins based on the page they visit
different opt-in based on their location
different opt-in based on their actions (abandon the cart or product purchase)
A/B testing for different opt-ins

8. Drive traffic to the opt-ins

Now that everything is in place, it’s time to drive some traffic to the opt-ins. This could be organic traffic, referrals from other sites, paid traffic from Google, Bing, Facebook Ads, etc.

9. Analyze and optimize your results

Measure what works and optimize it. To improve your opt-in rate you can change the words, the opt-in style or the incentive.

The same thing is available for your email sequence: if you notice that people are not opening your emails, you can test different subject lines. Keep in mind that the way you communicate with your new email subscribers needs to be completely different to the way you communicate with existing customers. You will need to split these two out.
Wrap

Successfully segmenting your email list guarantees that messages are landing in the right inbox at the right time.

You can educate. You can connect. You can sell.

Remember, the number one rule of email marketing automation is to keep your users’ experience as your top priority, so think outside of the (in)box!

Source

105 ways to build your email list | Tips, tactics, and best practices

 One of the first steps in any email marketing campaign is pulling together a list of addresses from people likely to be interested in what you have to say or promote.

That said, building a list from scratch can seem a little overwhelming at first. After all, newbies are in a bit of a catch-22 situation: They can’t start a campaign without addresses, but they’re often so dependent on email that they don’t know how to ask customers to opt in without emailing them. So how do you build an email list without email addresses? Once you have addresses, what do you do with them? How often should your send emails? What can you do to ensure your emails are delivered and not lost in spam or junk filters?

Find the answers to these questions and more in our free eBook, Guide to Email List Management. Download it today to learn the tricks and tools to managing a successful email list.

Still need to gather more email addresses for your contact list? Fear not! With diligence and a little creativity, you can build a solid list of interested addressees through a variety of methods. Here we’ve compiled by category 105 strategies, tips, tools, and ideas to help you find viable, interested consumers to add to your email subscriber list.

General tips to keep in mind

1. Only use email addresses you have gathered with permission. Buying a list of consumer names is a bad idea since it heightens the risk of complaints, bounced addresses, unsubscribes, or accusations of spam. 
2. Experiment with new methods – ranging from pen and paper to online forms – and maximize the most effective ones.
3. Methods borrowed from others may not work for you, depending on your industry or business.
4. Once your list grows, segment audiences to increase strategy effectiveness.
5. Avoid being pushy; if you offer value, loyalty will follow.
6. Consider automation tools that can handle your busywork.

Fine-tune your opt-in form

7. Make signups less invasive by initially requesting only addresses.
8. Offer subscription options addressing content and intervals.
9. Leverage testimonials from satisfied recipients.
10. Mention subscriber numbers if they’re substantial.
11. Promote exclusivity by offering subscribers something only they can get.
12. Give away something valuable to all subscribers.

Optimize email addresses you already have

13. Gather your addresses from transactional business communications.
14. Share email lists with complementary businesses (with permission from your subscribers).
15. Include a signup link in all your personal emails.
16. Place forward-to-a-friend links in all emails.

Use your website as a portal

17. Promote your email by social media, website, and blog. There is no limit to where you can include a signup form for your email list.
18. Design a separate landing page specifically for signups.
19. Treat your blog home page like an email capture form.
20. Use Leadboxes from Leadpages in author bylines used on your site.
21. Conduct a heat map test to identify best places for opt-in buttons.
22. Test-drive CTA locations including your 404 page, sidebars, headers, footers, pop-up boxes, slide-ins that appear halfway down a page, or “sticky” forms that move down with scrolling.
23. Require commenters on your own blog to provide addresses.
24. Offer opt-ins to anyone “liking” comments on your blog.
25. Exchange opt-in links with other businesses’ newsletters.
26. Incorporate opt-ins within online forums your prospects might visit.
27. Buy paid ads on websites your customers are likely to frequent.
28. Offer subscribers free downloads of your business app.
29. Offer subscribers a free eBook or informational guide.
30. Establish a riveting blog that ends in an opt-in request.
31. Post limited content on your site; offer upgrades upon subscription.
32. Launch a viral competition in which subscribers benefit by recruiting others.
33. The SumoMe List Builder app launches opt-in ads toward visitors about to leave your site.
34. The SumoMe Scroll Box app launches ads toward visitors who scroll down.
35. Custom poll creator Qualaroo can ask visitors about subscribing.
36. Establish a highly visible confirmation page on your site that reiterates subscription benefits.

Promote signups on social media

37. Incorporate opt-in links to your promotional YouTube videos.
38. On Pinterest, attract subscribers via Pins leading to your signup form.
39. Add opt-ins to your business and personal social media profile sections.
40. Email opt-ins to anyone mentioning your business on social media.
41. Publish opt-ins on your LinkedIn company page and within LinkedIn discussions.
42. Create compelling images to post on Instagram; include opt-ins.
43. Stage sweepstakes and require entrants to provide addresses; Rafflecopter runs Facebook giveaways.
44. Create a contest inviting minute-long videos on why customers like your product. Post results on social media, asking voters to submit addresses in order to vote.
45. Run paid Facebook ads touting you email newsletter.
46. Online tool Woobox sets up quizzes related to your brand; participants share results on social media and provide addresses.
47. Online tool Binkd gathers addresses from participants who tweet about your brand in exchange for entry in a prize drawing.

Capture in-store customers

48. Print opt-in information on your receipts.
49. Gather business cards/addresses for a weekly or monthly prize drawing.
50. Place signs and signup sheets in highly visible places.
51. Make opt-in by smartphone effortless by displaying your QR code.
52. Ask all callers if they’ll opt in.
53. Use a sandwich board to request emails.
54. Ask for email addresses as customers sign receipts or business agreements.
55. Add opt-in invitations to shopping bags.
56. Gather addresses during in-store promotional events.
57. Offer customers discounts or free products for referrals.
58. Gather emails from customers responding to your Groupon, LivingSocial, or similar promotions.

Don’t forget snail mail

59. Mail postcards offering incentives for subscribing.
60. Include opt-in invitations with invoices.
61. Include inbox requests inside every shipped package.

Look for other opportunities

62. Use your smartphone to log addresses at business networking events.
63. Feature opt-in offers on your business cards.
64. Bring signup forms to trade shows, chamber of commerce events, and other business gatherings.
65. Text customers about your pending newsletter and invite them to opt in.
66. Place ads in local publications that prospects are likely to read.
67. Solicit addresses when your business appears at fundraisers, festivals, artisan markets, etc.
68. Tout the benefits of your subscriber birthday or anniversary club.
69. Pay employees commission for securing viable addresses.
70. Offer discounts to customers providing others’ addresses.
71. Stage daily deals at your business, requiring participants to opt in.
72. Book speaking engagements; offer subscribers free consultations.
73. Gather addresses of those who mention your business on Foursquare.
74. Justuno can automatically provide subscribers a relevant coupon code.
75. Set up a WordPress community for your business, then post opt-ins.
76. Use BuiltWith.com to discover tools competitors use to build their lists.

Build repeat business through credibility

77. Create a comprehensive year-long email marketing plan.
78. Optimize personalization tools to customize your campaign.
79. Keep subject lines creative, clear, and urgent.   
80. Develop a voice likely to appeal to your key audience.
81. Keep messages brief and highly digestible.
82. Create a not-to-be-missed email newsletter.
83. Use variety, interspersing promotional messages with helpful information.
84. Create emails informing customers of your latest and greatest inventory.
85. Create emails explaining how to get the most from your business or product.
86. Consider emails that share your company’s successes.
87. Repurpose popular blog posts, videos, or other marketing messages into email.
88. Ensure all visuals are crisp, high quality, and engaging.
89. Use humor when appropriate.
90. Optimize messaging opportunities centered around holidays and other events.
91. Create and tout clever special events related to your business.
92. Incorporate effective calls to action (CTAs) that are easy to respond to via link or button.
93. Offer visually appealing, easy-to-digest layouts.
94. Ensure all messages are mobile-friendly and easy to open on any device.
95. Sign up for and evaluate competitors’ email campaigns and newsletters.
96. Study industry trends and how they might work for you.
97. Resist giving away valuable longer-form content without subscriptions.
98. Use creative videos within emails to grab viewer attention.
99. Tease recipients with hints about your next email(s).

Gauge your effectiveness

100. Frequently employ A/B split testing to fine-tune audience preferences.
101. Use surveys to ask audiences how you’re doing. Free services like SurveyMonkey, KwikSurveys, and SurveyPlanet can help.
102. Measure your conversion rates, bounce rates, open rates, and unsubscribe rates relative to industry standards.  
103. Constantly cull your list by deleting subscribers that haven’t interacted with your emails or brand.
104. Include unsubscribe links allowing users to indicate why they’re unsubscribing.
105. Listen closely to customer feedback and adjust accordingly.

Want to learn more about the nuts and bolts of using and implementing your email marketing list?

Source