Email automation is one of the most successful forms of digital marketing. According to lead generation giant, OptinMonster, the ROI for email marketing is a whopping 4400%!
Yes, you read that right…Email marketing can yield a 4400% ROI. For every $1 you spend, you have the potential to get $44 returned.
But ROI depends greatly on the strength of your marketing campaigns. Email automation can quickly crash & burn without a smart strategy, plan, and proper mapping of your customer journey.
If you are interested in stepping up your email strategy, check out these tips to learn the dos & don’ts of email automation…
DO – Set Goals for your Automation
The average email open rate is 20.94% (about 20%).
Hubspot
Before you begin to map out an email marketing strategy, think about your automation goals.
What do you wish to accomplish? Mapping out customer journeys can help you visualize where you want customers to go & how you want them to get there. Create sample workflows to lay out exactly what you want to happen for your leads.
How will you measure success? The average email open rate is around 20%, but this varies depending on industry. Make a point to look up both open rates and click-through rates for your specific industry to determine what can be considered a success for your business.
DON’T – Neglect Sales & Marketing Alignment
When crafting your strategy the worst mistake you can make is to overlook sales & marketing alignment. Emails should always be in-line with campaigns, landing pages, etc. & your sales team should understand at a high level how this works.
Marketing automation should help elevate and advance the sales process – not hinder it. So you need to be sure that both your sales & marketing teams are on the same page.
DO – Segment Your Email List
Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue.
HubSpot
Audience segments are small portions of your subscribers’ list divided into targeted groups. By segmenting your email list, you can ensure that the right messages go to the right audiences and there are several different ways to split them.
- Age
- Location
- Interests
- By Lead Magnet or Campaign
- Clients
The number of segments is completely up to you. If you’re unsure where to start, ask your customers! When opting in, ask new subscribers how what type(s) of emails they wish to receive & at what frequency. Always include a link to update & manage preferences in emails as well.
Be sure to use tags in your email platform to help you with the segmentation process.
DON’T – Spam Subscribers
You almost never want to batch & blast the same message to everyone, of course. But segmentation isn’t enough. Don’t forget to manage the timing & cadence of your emails as well.
49% of consumers said that they would like to receive promotional emails from their favorite brands on a weekly basis.
Oberlo
Remember the workflow mentioned above? When you’re mapping out your strategy, be mindful of just how often you plan to send emails out. This includes considering campaigns, promotional emails, and weekly (or monthly) newsletters. Your customers want to hear from you, yes. But they don’t want their inbox to be overwhelmed.
DO – Personalize Emails for Subscribers
There are many ways to personalize emails for your subscribers. The easiest, of course, is by using their name but to really be successful, take it a step further & personalize…
- By purchase history
- Based on product interest
- Based on their customer journey
And don’t just personalize in the body of the email, consider personalizing subject lines helps increase your open rates as well!
DON’T – Be Afraid to Show Your Own Personality
Marketing messaging doesn’t need to be stiff. If you’re a fun, personable brand, the tone of your emails should reflect that! Ultimately, it’s adding that human touch to marketing automation that sets you apart from every other business vying for your customer’s attention so don’t neglect it.
Think about your current brand voice and ask yourself…
Are my emails inline with my voice? Vision? Tone?
If not, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
DO – Track Results
To accurately measure the effectiveness of your email automation, you need to first understand common email marketing KPIs and determine which are important to you. Here are a few metrics you can track:
- Open Rate – The percentage of subscribers that opened emails sent.
- Clickthrough Rate (CTR) – The percentage of those who clicked the links in your emails.
- Conversion Rate – The percentage of subs who not only clicked a link but performed a desired action.
- List Growth Rate – The rate at which your list has grown in a specific time.
- ROI – The overall return on your email marketing investment.
- Unsubscribe Rate – The percentage of your users who unsubscribe from your email list after opening an email.
DON’T – Skip the Testing Phase
Testing (and then adjusting) your email automation campaigns is essential for finding what works for your audience(s).
Test the Time or Day to find when subscribers are most likely to open your emails and most likely to engage with your CTAs.
Check your email Content to track how your audience responds to your brand voice. Test length, layout, topic, tone, and even CTA placement to see which types of content perform better.
Vary your Subject Lines & Preview Text to test what captures your subscriber’s attention. Don’t forget personalization here, either!
Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.
Campaign Monitor
DO – Audit Regularly
Tracking KPIs and testing regularly is great but that is just the first piece of the puzzle. Auditing your email automation strategy helps put those metrics in perspective & keep you & your team on track with your goals.
DON’T – Hesitate to Get Help
Working with a smart digital partner can take the guesswork out of email automation. If you’re ready to move forward with your marketing strategy book a discovery call with SGD. In it, we discuss where you are in your business & the exact steps you need to move forward & find, attract, covert, & retain more clients & customers.
