successful email automation

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Successful Email Automation


Table of Contents 31. Intro Slide 4 What is Email Automation?2. Basics Slides 17

Why should you use email automation?3. Getting Started Slide 21 How Does Email Automation Work?4. Optimizing Slide 37

How to use A/B Testing and Analytics5. Tactics to TrySlide 42

Great examples6. Useful Tools Slide 47

Marketing Automation and Email tools

History of Email 4

When was the first email sent?

• In 1971 by Raymond Tomlinson who was working on ARPANET, the US government precursor to publicly available Internet.

History of Email 5

• It was a test email that only contained “QWERTYUIOP.”• In 1978, the first unsolicited mass advertising was sent.• Today, we call this spam. So, it took marketers 7 years from the first email to invent spam.

History of Email 6

• In 1982, the word email was first used and the first emoji was invented. :)• In 1989, AOL’s iconic voice recording of “You’ve Got Mail,” was heard.• In the 1990’s the popularity of email rose and marketers began to send more correspondence to consumers.

Marketing Automation Stats 7

• Email automation is part of a group of marketing technology tools called marketing automation.• It is available in these platforms, but sometimes also as a stand alone tool.• Here are some interesting facts about marketing automation in general.


• 60% of companies making $500m are using marketing automation.• Industries with highest marketing automation use:• Software/Internet• Telecom• Computers/Electronics• Health and Pharmaceuticals


• 85% of B2B marketers are not using marketing automation to its full potential.• In addition, only 8% of companies surveyed were using marketing automation for existing customers. • There are untapped opportunities.

85% of B2B marketers are not using marketing automation to its full potential.

What is Email Automation? 10

• Email automation is one of the most efficient and effective ways to engage subscribers in digital marketing. • They are also called drip campaigns because the communications are released “drop by drop” to develop the full relationship over time.


• Timed, relevant email is one of the best ways to nurture relationships with subscribers.•Gives marketers the capability to schedule emails and ensure precise delivery times. • Provides the data needed for customized, personalized messages to different types of leads.


• Personalized, timed emails involve two features called lead nurturing and lead scoring.• Nurturing is how and what you communicate to your leads.• Scoring can be set against many factors you choose to determine how valuable they are to your sales team.

Trend: Predictive Automation 13

• Predictive intelligence is revolutionizing B2B marketing and sales.• Also called predictive analytics, predictive recommendations and predictive marketing.• These are all essentially the same tools and tactics.


• Predictive intelligence is a process of data collection and testing that predicts the probability of an outcome using algorithms.•Marketers use it to predict customer behavior.


• First they take data from every customer action and build a customer profile preference file.•With enough data on the outcomes of every customer journey, marketer’s can begin to predict how certain leads will behave.• This enables marketers to deliver more relevant communications to each subscriber based on the algorithms.


• Predictive automation combined with marketing automation enhances customer relationships and loyalty.•Marketers use it to tailor emails precisely to the interests and needs of their customers and subscribers.

E-commerce

Complex Biz

Onboarding

Personalized Growth Funnels

• Cart abandonment

• Upsell• Upcoming

product• Feedback email

• Long sales cycle• Content rich

education• Multi-channel

marketing

• Training emails• Post signup

emails• Event workflow

• Birthday Triggers

• Suggestions and recommendations

• Prospecting outreach

• Hack followups

Who Should Use Email Automation?17

Email Automation should be used by all business: B2B, B2C, small, medium and large.

• End of trial conversion up 10%

• 3 sets of expired email automation converted by 2%

Source: groovehq.com

• Remarketing within 12 hours shows best return• 26% among those who were remarketed

converted 8%. • Emails within 1hr generates 105% more

revenue then after 24hrSource: Selligent.com

• End of trial conversion up 10%• 3 sets of expired email automation converted by

2% Source: groovehq.com

http://www.groovehq.com/blog/email-onboarding-optimization

http://www.selligent.com/en/blogs/inspiration/conversion-marketing/en-remarketing-shopping-cart-abandoners-pays/

http://www.groovehq.com/blog/email-onboarding-optimization

Top 7 Benefits of Email Automation 18

1. Companies that excel at drip marketing campaigns lower their lead generation costs by 33%.

2. Event triggered automated emails can save 80% of a direct mail budget.


3. Enables marketers to spend more time crafting engaging messages to reach their customers.

4. Increases sales pipeline by 80%.

5. Better segmentation and messaging to customer groups. Can segment by gender, age, location, etc.


6. Personalized, regular emails increase customer loyalty and repeat purchases.

7. Provides analytics to improve your emails and meet your goals. You choose the metrics to measure for KPIs such as: open rates, click through rates (CTR) and conversions.

How Does Email Automation Work? 21

•Main controls are: triggers, filters and actions. You set up how it will execute.• Different lists can get a different series of emails tailored to their needs.• You can set it up so that for every action taken, an appropriate automated email will follow.• This allows greater personlization.

22How to Setup Drip Campaigns?

Setting up drip campaigns in a marketing automation platform is simple.

First, determine what triggers to use.

23How to Setup Drip Campaigns?

• Here are 5 of the most popular trigger uses:1. Awareness / Educational 2. Blog Subscribers3. New Customer/ Welcome

Email4. Lead Nurturing5. Re-Engagement

In the next slides, we’ll explain how each of these is a trigger.

Awareness / Educational Trigger 24

1.Awareness / Educational

• Choose a subject for which you have produced content, for example email automation.• Main subjects could include: why email automation is important, how to automate email, and how to create a drip campaign.

Awareness / Educational Triggers 25

•Organize the content you are offering, such as: blogs, eBooks, webinars, whitepapers, etc.•When a subscriber downloads or clicks on the link for this content, a follow up email is triggered to go out to the subscriber offering additional related content.

Blog Subscriber Triggers 26

2. Blog Subscriber

•When a new subscriber signs up to receive your blog, they should receive a welcome email.• In the welcome email, thank them for subscribing and highlight the great things they can expect from your blog.


• Review the subscription settings and allow them to make changes.• If they are not customers, occasionally email them with updates on your product.• Relate your products to their pain points, and offer free trials.


Promote your top performing blogs through email by:• Sending emails to subscribers at the optimum times: M-F ~10 am.• Also research and test the best times for your followers.• Sending emails to launch new posts.• Sending email newsletters.

Audrey Dotson

New Customer Triggers 29

3. New Customer

• The first email to a new customer should be a simple welcome email that gets them excited to use your product.• If the new customer has opted for a free trial, or a free package, offer incentives to opt-in to a paying package.


• Highlight certain features with an email of tips and handy “how to’s.”• Explain how certain items will solve their challenges.• Personalize further by checking their engagement with features during a 30-day free trial. •Offer tips or help with less used items or favorites, and mention capabilities with paid packages.


• Setup a series for when contacts become paid subscribers, when a new product or service is announced, etc.•Make sure the content is not all self-promoting or self serving.• Have you heard of the 4-1-1 rule?

New Customers Triggers 32

• Popularized by the Content Marketing Institute for tweets, but good for email marketing.• States: For every 1 self-serving tweet, you should re-tweet 1 relevant tweet and share 4 pieces of relevant content written by others.• You don’t have to follow this perfectly, but here’s how we might:

“soft promotion

Educational infographic

Education video

“hard promotion”

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

Lead Nurturing Triggers 33

4. Lead Nurturing

•When a lead downloads your content, such as an eBook or whitepaper, it’s a sign they may be interested in more.• Set up a series of triggers to help them to the next stages of the funnel.

Lead Nurturing Triggers 34

• Send subscriber middle of the funnel content.• This is when the lead is aware of your product and brand, has a need and is maybe evaluating when / if to buy.• Content is less educational and more focused on comparing your brand to others, or reasons to sign up now.

Re-Engagement Triggers 35

5. Re-Engagement

• This wakes up inactive contacts. •When people sign up for your content or service and no other action is taken, you’ll have to understand why and re-engage with them.

Re-Engagement Triggers 36

• Setup a trigger to engage with the contact after xx amount of days of inactivity.• Introduce an “exclusive offer” to entice them or a discount for a service/product.

Optimizing Email with A/B Testing 37

You can test different variations of an email campaign to determine what your subscribers like best.This is done with A/B testing which is available with most marketing automation platforms.


With A/B testing you can test:• Subject lines• Content• CTA• Offers• Headlines

Accurate A/B testing can increase engagement by understanding what tactics are working with your audience.


Make a list of the variables you want to test.Be clear and realistic on the results you’re expecting. Determine your KPIs.Make sure you have a large enough sample size and that you have reached 95% or higher response rate to accurately determine a winner in your test.

40Analytics & Metrics

It is always important to check your results after each campaign.Vbout has an analytics section to help marketers monitor the results of each marketing campaign.

41Analytics & Metrics

• Tracking results will enable marketer’s to determine the next course of action.• You can track things like: open rate, sequence progress, engagement, clicks and much more

• Every week, InVision sends their best blog content, favorite design links and a chance to win a free t-shirt. (seriously!)• Sometimes they have fun survey questions they use to create new content as well.• It’s a great mix and is balanced with text and great design.

Our Favorite: InVision 42

• It’s really easy to read, and mobile-friendly.• Since they are an app used by designers, this speaks perfectly to their target audience.• The importance of being mobile friendly in general cannot be understated.•Gold stars everywhere! And we’re just a big fan of this app in general.

Our Favorite: InVision 43

Trends: GIFs 44

•GIFs are becoming very popular in emails! Like in this successful campaign from Postmates.• It’s delightful, and makes you crave some delicious Chipotle.• You can use animated GIFs in your marketing to show a fun header, to draw people's eye to a certain part of the email, or to display your products and services in action.

•We love to use this site when we need some inspiration on great copy for an email.• It let’s you look up emails by topic and gives you great examples of companies who have done well.

Good Copy Examples 45

• Don’t copy them word for word, but it’s useful to get a sense of different tones and ways of presenting an idea you can have.

Good Copy Examples 46

Email Automation Tools 47

Here are a few companies that offer email automation tools as part of their overall platform:

1. Hubspot2. Getdrip3. Autopilot4. ActiveCampaigns5. Mailchimp6. Vbout! (hey, that’s us)

Conclusion 48

• Always start with a good plan.• Do your research on Marketing

Automation Tools.• Identify the tools you need

today and what you may need tomorrow.

• Work with your team to develop a strong content strategy.

• Implement the tracking tools and metrics so you know what is working effectively.

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