Marketing is full of repetitive but important tasks like posting on social media and sending out email newsletters. These tasks can be really time-consuming, but they’re also a big part of any marketing strategy.
Email workflows are a particularly effective way to automate your marketing efforts. Email workflows are a series of automated emails that are triggered with subscriber behavior or data, like when a contact submits a form on your website, clicks one of your email links or ads, or views a page on your blog.
Ready to get started with automation? Here are 5 email workflows to start with:
1. Welcome Email
Triggered by: subscription to email newsletter or registering on the website
The most basic of your automated emails: a welcome email that is triggered when someone creates an account on your site or subscribes to your newsletter. Welcome and thank your contacts for subscribing, and then you can let them know about the following:
- Popular, relevant, and/or top-performing content that might interest them
- More information about your business or product, as well as new products and promotions
- Where they can find you on social media
- How they can send questions, contact support, and/or find your FAQ
- Where new customers can find helpful training guides
You should launch a separate series of welcome emails for contacts who have converted into paying customers. HubSpot triggers these emails when the contact’s lifecycle status transitions to “customer”. This is a chance to nurture a positive customer relationship and encourage continued engagement.
2. Download Workflow
Triggered by: offer download
When you create industry-related content like an ebook or white paper that visitors sign up to download, you can create a series of follow-up emails that promote related content.
For example, if a contact downloads your ebook called How to Survive Thanksgiving with Relatives, that download will trigger your “Thanksgiving” workflow. This will send other helpful content to that person, like your blog post on how to travel with children or an infographic on safe discussion topics for dinner with difficult people.
3. Lead Nurturing Workflow
Triggered by: top-of-the-funnel conversion events
When visitors download marketing offers (ebooks, webinars, etc), customized workflows can nurture these potential customers by sending them content for the next step in the funnel. This encourages them to move further down the sales funnel and is a big factor in digital marketing.
4. Re-Engagement Workflow
Triggered by: inactive account
If it’s been a while since a customer has engaged with your business, it might be time to reconnect with an automated re-engagement email. Set this up to email contacts when they meet certain criteria, such as length of time since their last website visit, email activity, or form submission.
This contact list can be populated based on customers who:
- Have made purchases and haven’t returned for some time
- Created accounts or registered their emails with your website
- Signed up for free trials with little or no follow-up engagement
5. Abandoned Cart Workflow
Triggered by: shopping cart abandonment
If you own an ecommerce shop, (or even just shop online yourself), you know that people often place products in their cart and then leave the site without buying anything. If you’ve done this yourself, you may have received an email 10-12 hours later with a subject line like, “It looks like you forgot something!” This is an abandoned cart email.
These emails are highly effective. Approximately 45% of abandoned cart emails are opened, 21% click through to the site, and 50% of those that click through end up purchasing. That means out of 100 abandoned cart emails, you’ll probably get around 5 sales. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but those are 5 sales you would have otherwise lost! And with the email automation, you didn’t have to lift a finger to make those sales.
I hope these 5 email marketing automation workflows help you save time and increase lead conversion rates.
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