The open, click-through and conversion rates of standard email marketing are notoriously low, which is why some people are skeptical about email marketing and sales. But email sending does pay off, especially if automated, personalized, and applied on a big prospect list.
Boost Your Open, Click-Through and Conversion Rates
Email automation allows you to send more emails than you ever could manually, while it also delivers your message at the right time, whether we’re talking time zone or stage of the customer life cycle. It also allows you to personalize the content of your emails so your messaging is always relevant to your prospect or customer.
All of this will boost your open, click-through and conversion rates, while also helping you combine your marketing, sales and customer retention efforts.
How? You can automate a cold emailing campaign to a set of new leads, send a different set of emails intended to convert warm leads, or revitalize warm leads that went cold by periodically sending them informative content.
You can thank your new customers for the closed sale, retain them with personalized transactional emails, or maximize conversions by sending emails focused on cross-selling and upselling.
These are just some of the ways you can leverage email automation. Let’s look at the basics of how it is done:
Personalization – Make It Relevant
Personalizing the subject line by including the recipient’s name boosts open rates by nearly 30%, which is the first step towards increased conversions. It is then surprising to note that only 35% of marketers personalize their subject lines, especially considering how simple it is to do using most email automation tools. We will review different email automation tools in a blog post coming soon.
You can also include the recipient’s first name within the body of your email, which ups the personalization even more. As long as you’ve collected first names from your leads and customers, this type of personalization takes seconds.
Segmented emails, however, are the ones truly boosting open rates and driving conversions. Companies have reported increased open rates, greater email relevance and lower opt-out/unsubscribe rates as a result of using email segmentation.
When developing your segmentation strategy, think about how you use email messaging now and how you would ideally like to use it in the future. Think about segmenting your contacts according to their stage in the customer life cycle, vertical, or according to their job title, type of product or service they might need, or their general interests, then send them customized emails. This will create messaging that feels tailor-made for each recipient, dramatically increasing the quality of communication. You can create as few or as many segments as you like, just make sure each set of segmented emails has a conversion-oriented purpose, without sounding too salesy.
Automation – Send It at the Right Moment
Automated emails allow you to get the right message to the right person at the right time, and they’re proven to be a great tool for boosting conversions. It is no wonder automation is used by 82% of B2B and B2C companies.
Automated emails can act as workflows that auto-send on a schedule, or when certain actions have been completed. You can have multiple workflows operating at the same time, so you should define different objectives you can accomplish with different series of emails.
The first thing you will do when setting up automation on your email platform will be to set up your triggers. A workflow can be triggered when a person subscribes to your mailing list, or when a certain time passes from the last time they visited your website, or you can just set up your workflow according to predetermined time intervals.
Next, launch an email thread of 3-8 messages, depending on whether the thread is marketing, sales or retention focused, that keeps the conversation with your contact going. In your workflow, you can showcase your products or services, offer a demo, or promote helpful resources such as tutorials, white papers or blog posts. The goal of these on-going email threads is to keep reminding your customer of the value you can provide. These messages help you stay in touch with your lead while encouraging them to take further action. The thread should take your recipient through a series of emails that all operate together to lead him toward a conversion.
Space out the timing of your emails so that they are not overwhelming, but don’t drag them out too much – you want the recipient to still remember you when he receives your next email.
Metrics – Measure Your Success and Keep It Going
Once your automated emails go live, keep looking at your open, click-through and conversion rates and measure the effectiveness of your automated emails. Just keep in mind that the fact you set up your email automation doesn’t mean you don’t need to work on it any more. It is highly recommended you perform A/B tests on your email threads to determine which version and what factors work best with your lead pool. You also need to keep improving your messaging based on your metrics and feedback from your customers.
One of the most effective strategies in marketing is to create personalized experiences for your potential or existing customers. Regardless of the size of your company or the industry you operate in, automation and personalization are the key to boosting digital marketing returns without sacrificing customer experience. You just need to focus on optimizing your email sending strategy.
Do It Right – Here Is a Complete Checklist
To sum up, you should perform the following steps to make sure you’re doing the right thing:
• Segment your contacts
• Create custom emails for each segment
• Personalize the subject line and body of your email by including the recipient’s name
• Set up your workflow and triggers
• Launch your email threads
• Measure the effectiveness – perform A/B testing and track your metrics
• Keep improving
Email automation and personalization make it easier for you to combine your marketing and sales efforts and let you focus on the customer life cycle from lead to close and beyond, also helping you boost your customer service and retention.
It can take a while to master all the intricacies of email automation and personalization, but it is something well worth dedicating time to. However, if you want to make sure you are doing the right thing, or just don’t have that time and you need someone you can rely on, check out our creative services program, or contact us for a free consultation.
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