Essential Emails You Need in an Automation Series

Essential Emails You Need in an Automation Series

Ever forgot to welcome the new subscriber for your emails? Did you ever feel that you could have tried reaching out to that subscriber who is lying dormant using emails that are relevant to them?

Allocating essential resources in repetitive tasks such as sending emails and ensuring that your brand reaches out to the audience at the right time, can be a massive waste of your time and resources. Instead, you can opt for email automation, which triggers the emails according to the behavior showcased by the audience.

How does email automation work? You set up the email series and define the behaviour that will trigger these emails. Whenever a person from the target audience shows this behaviour, the respective email is sent, thus making your campaigns more effective and your business efficient.

If you are planning automation campaigns for your business, here are the email series that you should add in your email marketing strategy.  

Welcome Email Series

It is important to welcome the new subscriber, to let them know they are important to you. A welcome email helps you make the onboarding for the subscriber smooth and easy.

Welcome emails generate 4x times more opens and 5x more clicks than regular emails.

The emails in the series include:

• The first email is all about welcoming the new subscriber to your business. Thank them for opting-in to your subscription service. Here, you will tell them about your business, introduce the different products/services, and help them.

See how Barnes and Noble introduces their brand in the welcome email.

• The second email is when you offer them discounts or deals that make them want to convert. Your email should have a definite CTA that helps them redeem the voucher you have given them. In case you are a service-based industry, your incentive would be in the form of a tool or a resource that would help them further their business.

Here’s an example from Banfield Hospital that promotes a coupon to drive conversions.

• The third email will tell the subscriber the frequency at which they will receive the emails. They are also given the option of setting the email frequency and opting out of marketing emails.  
• The final email in the series will help the audience stay connected with you on social media channels. You can send them the links using which they can follow you on these channels. You can also share the link for downloading the Android or iOS App.

Lead Nurture Series

Understanding the buying behaviour, when you nurture your subscribers through the entire sales cycle, thus making them complete the purchase, is what lead nurturing series does.

Companies that excel at lead nurturing tend to generate 50% more sales ready leads at a 33% lower cost than the companies that don’t include lead nurturing.

The idea behind sending lead nurturing emails is to make it relevant and promise to offer some value to the customer.

• The first email should focus on being informative and helpful. Tell the audience something new and useful about the products you have. Tell them what is good about the product that you have on display and how to choose the products, if there is a range you are offering. You can tell them about the new updates you have made to the product and how you think about them continuously.

Freelancer sends out a nice email to entice the reader to start their project.

• The second email is all about branding and helping them know in detail about what you offer. You can share your brand’s story and even sell your USP as part of the email series.
• A good story never fails. The rags to riches story of the brand can also compel the audience to take action. If there has been a recent story involving your brand’s success, don’t refrain from sharing it.
• You can follow up on the conversations that you had with the audience on the various platforms such as on-site chat, the social media channels etc.

Airbnb sets the perfect example of how to drive conversions through relevant emails. The html in this email is such that the copy and CTA are written as plain text so that the message is conveyed even with images turned off.

Abandoned Cart Series

If you are an e-commerce store, then this email series is very critical for you. You don’t want people to abandon the cart and go away. This series will help get back the potential customer, understand their woes and help them complete the shopping.

• The first email is sent within the first 24 hours of cart abandonment. This email contains the details of the cart and tells the audience to get back to their cart immediately. The email should contain a link to the checkout page to fasten the process.

Check out the example by Beardbrand below.

• The second email will be sent after 48 hours. Here, you will ask the person if they faced any issues while purchasing online from your website. You can even ask if they are confused about the products. The basic idea is to know the reason behind abandonment. Peel shares their email address in the cart abandonment email to resolve any concerns.

• Final email should contain a discount voucher or a deal that will make them want to complete the purchase.

Re-engagement Email Series

The re-engagement series helps you engage with the dormant subscribers and get them active. The other reason behind sending these emails is to make Gmail and other email service providers realize that people are really looking forward to your emails.

Include the following emails in your re-engagement campaign:

• The first email in the series is all about sending a reminder to the subscribers. Include a meaningful message combined with a discount voucher to get them back on your website. The idea is to push the customers to make a purchase on your website.
• The second email will inform the subscribers that they will be automatically removed from the mailing list if they fail to respond to the email sent. You can remind them about the offers you had sent them in the earlier email. You may also ask them about the reason for not responding to the emails.
• The final email is the unsubscription email, where you will remove the subscriber from the list. You should ideally send a link for resubscription in the same email.

Here’s an example from Jack Wills to inspire you.

Summing up

Having automated the different email campaigns will help you understand your subscribers better and improve the effectiveness of your email campaigns. You will need to follow through the email marketing best practices if you want to achieve the best results with automated email series.

From design to content, make sure you have incorporated the best practices for all the elements involved in making the email campaign successful.

Author Bio

Kevin George is the head of marketing at EmailMonks, one of the fastest-growing email design & coding companies. EmailMonks specializes in crafting email newsletter design templates, PSD to HTML email conversion, and free responsive email templates. Kevin loves gadgets, bikes, jazz, and he breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on the EmailMonks blog.