The complete guideto email marketing

automation

The complete guide to email marketing automation2

Before social media, before PPC, before content marketing – there was email. Email isn’t just any,

old marketing tool, it’s the marketing tool. And it’s been that way for years!

The reason email marketing is so successful is because it is loved by marketers and consumers alike.

And because of this, email marketing can boast an incredible ROI of 4,300%!

So, we know what email marketing is and why it’s so great.

But what about automation?

Email marketing automation allows marketers to utilise the right messaging at the right time.

Marketers have more data, resources, and behavioural signals to work with than ever before,

allowing them to enhance value and save time.

Automation is still a rising trend. Monthly searches for ‘marketing automation’ have grown by 22%,

from 12,100 in Feb 2014 to 14,800 in January 2015.

The rise of email marketing

automation

The complete guide to email marketing automation3

And, it’s no wonder that the trend is on the rise when you consider companies using marketing

automation generate twice as many leads as those just using email software.

Automation can be a very powerful tool, but actually very easy to use! In this complete guide, we’re

going to take a look at the what, why, and how of email marketing automation. This eBook will

give a comprehensive overview of automation that will explain exactly what it is, how to use it, and

more specifically, how to go about putting it in place within your business.

The complete guide to email marketing automation4

There are almost limitless use cases for email automation, but for the purposes of this eBook, we

will discuss five of the most common.

1. Workflows

A workflow is, quite simply, a series of automated actions triggered by a customer’s behaviour.

Workflows allow you to take lead nurturing to the next level.

For example, if a customer signs up to your newsletter, then they will automatically enter into a

workflow. Typically, this workflow will ensure a welcome email is sent to the customer, then maybe

a follow-up email a week or so later. Presumably, the data you have about your customers will grow

and grow within your workflow, so you will be able to send more and more relevant, automated

emails.

Market2Lead found that leads that go through automated workflows have a 23% shorter sales

cycle.

Use cases

1

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2. Birthdays

Automation isn’t a substitute for personalisation, but the two can work hand in hand. And what’s

more personal than a birthday message?

Showing you’ve taken the time to remember a customer’s birthday with a targeted offer will

strengthen their relationship with your brand whilst encouraging them to spend more money with

you.

This birthday email from Subway is thoughtful and also gives the customer a generous window in

which they can redeem the offer.

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Automation presents you with such a wealth of data that you can use it to ‘think outside of the box’

when it comes to birthday offers. The email below is a perfect example:

With the engaging copy, great offer, and perfect timing, this email is difficult to ignore. This

probably explains why automated birthday emails can result in a 30% lift in opens and a 60%

increase in clicks.

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3. Anniversaries

Birthdays are not the only anniversaries worth remembering. Holiday and travel companies have

recently started using the data they have on their customers to send out automated emails. These

can be emails that entice the customer back to their previous holiday destination, or that remind

customers that they went on holiday this time last year: Here’s an example of a workflow for this

kind of email:

The complete guide to email marketing automation8

However, this trend is not just for travel companies. Any product that customer’s buy regularly can

become the basis for an automated email campaign. For example, the protein powder below:

By simply calculating the estimated date that the product was due to run out, this company was

able to send a tailored, targeted, and timely campaign that will no doubt be very much appreciated

by the customer.

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4. Booking confirmations

It’s essential to automate booking confirmations as they are very time sensitive. Booking

confirmations need to be sent immediately after a transaction to give the customer peace of mind.

This email is a good example:

It only includes the necessary information, no more, no less. Sometimes this can be used as an up-

selling or cross-selling opportunity. For example, if there is a product that will improve the usage of

the item a customer has just bought, you could link to this in the booking confirmation. A workflow

for this would look like so:

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Booking confirmations can also be followed up by a customer satisfaction survey that will help you

improve services based on customer feedback.

If you have lots of regular customers then they may not appreciate getting multiple booking

confirmations – fortunately, Instiller can control this for you!

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5. Drip feed or welcome programme

If email is the best way to contact customers, then content is the best way to nurture them!

In this ‘age of content marketing’, it’s increasingly popular to send out content to help people get

the most out of your product or service. These drip feeds or welcome programmes are best started

with a ‘soft-sell’ email sent no longer than 2 days after the customer has shown interest in your

service – like this:

Dear Mr Smith,

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the Club and thank you for joining us.

You are now part of Xercise4less.

We hope that you make the most all of our amazing facilities and if there’s anything we

can do to make your membership more pleasurable, please do not hesitate to let myself or

one of the team know . We are dedicated in working with you towards a fitter, healthier and

happier lifestyle!

You can find lots of information on all our Xercise4less gyms at our website

www.xercise4less.co.uk, or if you have any further queries or suggestions then please give us

a call or email the club directly.

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After this initial email, more automated emails should be sent out at a steady pace. This is

designed to nurture leads into becoming loyal customers. Here is the next email that this customer

received from the same company:

This was sent one week after the original welcome email. Each email within a drip feed should be

more focussed on selling to the customer – and it works! Retailers that send a series of welcome

emails see 13% more revenue than those that just send one.

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Personalisation is incredible for businesses, in fact, it’s essential. A study by ExactTarget and

Forrester revealed that 84% of digital marketers reported personalisation as having a direct impact

on customer retention and loyalty.

However, this impact can be both good and bad. For example, if you send out an email addressed:

‘Dear Customer’, this will most likely have a bad impact on customer retention. Emails need to be

personalised in order to capture the attention of users and increase their engagement with your

emails.

Personalisation is key to creating successful automated marketing emails – the more personalised,

the better. But, before personalising anything, make sure you know your audience and that the

data you have is correct. When personalisation goes wrong, it can go really wrong...

A good example of this (or shall we say a bad example) is when Pinterest sent a congratulatory

email to female users that had ‘pinned’ various wedding-related items. The subject of the email

was: ‘You’re getting married!’

Problems & limitations

2

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Unfortunately, many of these women were single, and they were quick to take to social media to

roast Pinterest for the mistake:

Pinterest managing to pull it back with a witty apology:

“We’re sorry we came off like an overbearing mother who is always asking when you’ll find a

nice boy or girl”.

However, some problems caused by inaccurate personalisation are more damaging. Photo service,

Shutterfly, made a similar mistake, except they sent the following email to the wrong people:

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This email caused offence among childless people that were sent the email:

To prevent personalisation from going wrong you need to remember 3 things:

1. Know your audience

Before setting up any automated email, you need to ensure that you have analysed your data

completely and understand your audience. It’s important to know exactly who your users are and

what makes them tick in order to serve up relevant content through your automated emails.

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2. Understand user intent

Use the signals you have available to you to help you understand what a user is looking for. This

will give you the best chance of satisfying that need.

3. Build trust

Trust is a vital element in building positive relationships with your customers. To build trust with

your customers, be transparent about the data you are able to access about them. You can do this

by asking users to read a privacy policy when they sign up to your email newsletter.

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Before you set up an automated email campaign, you need to ask yourself three questions:

When? - When will you send the email?

What? - What will the content be?

Who? - Who will receive it?

A good starting point for your campaign would be to collect basic information about your customer

and place them into a workflow that is necessary for their stage in the buyer’s journey. For example,

when a customer signs up to your site they should be place in your ‘welcome programme’, and

when they purchase an item (or do something similar but relevant to your brand – i.e. sign up for

the service) they can be moved from the ‘welcome programme’ to the ‘customer workflow’.

Sending emails

With automation, each part of your workflows can be controlled by data. This means that you can

control which emails you send to who, and when – making your email campaigns a whole lot more

targeted.

Setting up anautomated email

campaign

3

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For example:

A user is added to workflow A when they fill in field B.

When they fill in field B, send an email immediately and then wait for C days, unless they click D, in

which case send email E.

Don’t worry, it’s not as complicated as it sounds when you use Instiller’s Automation tool – but

more on that later!

Delay

Similarly, you can delay emails and send them at a certain time period, instead of sending emails

based on certain triggers by the customer.

A good example of this is when a customer books a holiday with a travel company. The company

could put a delay in their campaign until one day before the customer is due to go on holiday,

then they could send an automated ‘Don’t forget to pack’ email. They could also send a customer

satisfaction survey three days after the customer has returned from their holiday.

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Decision point

Decision points act like forks within workflows so users can be directed one way or the other

based on certain conditions. For example: send dormant users to one workflow, and active ones to

another. You can add multiple conditions to make your workflows as detailed as possible.

End point

When a user reaches an end point, this should not mean that your communication with them

should stop. Instead, you should evaluate what path the user took to get to that end point and

then use the data to calculate what to do next. For example: send the customer into another

workflow or set up a trigger for a year’s time.

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We are the world’s only email marketing solution that’s dedicated solely to agencies.

Instiller is a powerful and easy to use solution that provides all of the tools needed for agencies to

deliver a complete email marketing service to clients.

With our simple drag and drop design and our new automation tool, it’s easy to create focussed

workflows and deliver timely, relevant, and highly personalised emails.

Get in touch to find out more!

Call: 0333 939 0013

hello@instiller.co.uk

instiller.co.uk

@InstillerESP

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