Imagine this: you spend hours crafting the perfect email campaign. You hit “send” with a triumphant flourish, only to be met with…crickets. No clicks. No conversions. Just the deafening silence of an unengaged audience.
Navigating the world of email automation is a common struggle for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). You know the power of email and its ability to nurture leads, build relationships, and ultimately drive sales. But translating that potential into reality can feel impossible.
At Green Apple Strategy, we’ve helped businesses of all shapes and sizes leverage the power of email automation. We’ve collaborated with brands with dedicated marketing teams and bustling sales departments as well as smaller businesses with a single sales representative. Through these experiences, our digital team has identified key best practices that every SMB can utilize to build a customer email journey that fosters engagement and drives results.
How to Build an Effective Automated Email Journey
Chart Your Course Before Setting Sail
It’s always important to map out where you’re going before you invest time and energy building your automated campaigns. Think of your email journey as a roadmap. Where are potential customers in their buying journey, and where do you want to take them? Identify your goals (e.g., brand awareness, lead generation, customer retention) and use them as guideposts. Continually review data to ensure your journey aligns with these goals.
Leverage Automation for Key Customer Journey Milestones
Another helpful tactic as you build your automation roadmap is to take a deep dive into your typical buyer’s journey. Are there specific touchpoints where potential customers seem to stall? Can email automation free up your sales team’s time by providing support during these crucial phases? Identify these opportunities and design targeted email sequences to nurture leads and guide them toward the next step.
Segmentation is Key: Speak to the Right People.
When it comes to email automation best practices, it’s essential to remember that targeted messages resonate better and drive higher engagement. As you consider the automated email campaign you’re building, take the time to understand your audience and segment your emails based on demographics, interests, or past behavior. For example, you may want to start with an automated welcome campaign that introduces your brand to new email subscribers. From there, you can build out more specific campaigns to support your sales process.
Humanize the Interaction: Because Robots Can’t Build Relationships
Personalization is key, especially in automated emails. Wherever possible, use subscriber names and tailor content to their interests. Maintain a conversational tone—imagine you’re having a one-on-one chat with a potential customer, not blasting a generic message to a faceless list.
Don’t Be a Set-It-and-Forget-It Marketer
Email automation shouldn’t be a “set it and forget it” strategy. If you truly want to maximize its potential, it’s important to regularly assess performance metrics and glean insights from subscriber behavior. You want to monitor results and use this data to refine your messages and optimize your email journeys to achieve your intended results.
Test, Learn, and Optimize: Because There’s Always Room for Improvement
One of the most powerful aspects of digital marketing is that it provides the opportunity to constantly learn and improve as you go. Do you consistently send out the same emails and workflows? If so, this is a prime opportunity for A/B testing! Experiment with different subject lines, email structures, and calls to action. This allows you to gather invaluable subscriber data and continuously optimize your email journey for maximum impact.
Bonus: Don’t Forget about People Who’ve Fallen Off the Radar
There’s a reason that email open rates rarely rise above 50%. People are busy. Not everyone will actively engage with every email. Once you build out your initial email campaigns, a bonus tactic is to design re-engagement campaigns to reignite conversations with unengaged subscribers. A well-crafted email sequence might be a powerful tool to win back valuable leads—or it can be an opportunity to invite them to unsubscribe, which would clean up your email list and lead to better results.
Experience The Transformative Power of Email Automation
Email automation offers a powerful tool to connect with potential customers, nurture leads, and cultivate lasting customer relationships. By implementing these best practices, you’ll be well on your way to developing an automated email journey that drives results and fosters brand loyalty.
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