What is email automation?
Automated email, also referred to as triggered email or behaviour-driven email, is any message automatically sent from your email service provider (ESP) in direct response to an individual user’s specific actions made (or not made) on your website or web app.
Transactional emails are highly valuable to consumers because they provide crucial information like receipts or password resets, but because of CAN-SPAM and CASL rules and guidelines, these emails can’t provide or contain much promotional content. Traditional marketing email is critical for sending announcements to large segments of your customer base, like promotions or newsletters, but they don’t offer the one-to-one communication customers have come to expect.
Email automation provides benefits from both transactional and marketing email because it allows you to follow up with individual customers automatically, like transactional email, but also allows for more robust messaging opportunities like you get from marketing email. By bridging the gap between transactional and marketing email, automated email provides a scalable and efficient method for marketers to send extremely user-specific messages in a responsive way.
Automated email achieves the best of both worlds between timing and content to provide marketers with messages that have:
Relevance – When a user receives an automated email, it’s because they’ve taken an action which triggered a workflow. As a result, the message they receive is highly relevant to them and they’re more likely to open and engage with the email.
Engaging content – Automated email content is designed to increase user engagement with your app or website. This could mean teaching new customers how to use your product, encouraging users to give feedback, or providing a lapsed customer with an incentive to return. For example, you might want to set up an automated “how-to” email trigger if certain people have signed up for your service but have yet to start using it.
Brand building – As a highly personal communication channel, automated email serves as an extension of your brand. It gives you the opportunity to strengthen the connection between you and your customers by communicating thought leadership, assisting with cross-sells, or by sharing timely updates about features they haven’t used yet. Simply put, email automation drives user engagement. Customers are much more likely to open, read, and take action with an automated email.
Email automation helps you drive real and meaningful business results including:
Loyalty – Customers who’ve been helped through the onboarding process or who have received timely cues to follow through on desired actions are more likely to feel successful and recommend your brand to others.
Retention – Customers feel more valued when they receive personalised assistance and real-time communication, which translates to sticky users who you can count on as consistent, long-term users.
Revenue – Customers are more likely to finish entering their billing information, upgrade their account, or return as an active user when they’re messaged at the perfect time with just the right prompt.
Action – One of the reasons automated email is so powerful is that it targets people who have already engaged with your brand’s website or app. This means they are further down the sales funnel and more likely to take the steps you want them to as customers.
Why use email automation?
Despite the value of automated email, many companies haven’t started implementing it. The good news is that it’s easy to get a smart, focused automated email campaign started and begin driving meaningful results.
Here are some examples of automated email messages you could be sending:
– Welcome series emails to help new customers begin using your product
– Nurture series emails that help guide customers to the next step in the sales funnel
– Happy birthday or anniversary emails to help increase customer loyalty
– User verification emails to make sure new users are legitimate
Read and watch how to get started on Klaviyo here