Emails result in sales. In fact, 72% of shoppers say they prefer email as their means of communication with companies they like to do business with.
This means they want to see your emails.
With more than 4.35 billion email accounts worldwide, it’s safe to say email is alive and well. Which is exactly why you should be using email marketing to drive customers and sales to your website.
If you’re currently sending promotions and newsletters to your customers through email, it’s time to uncover the benefits of automated email marketing.
In this article, we’re going to look at 7 tools to make automated email marketing incredibly easy. First, let’s discuss the process of automated email marketing.
Defining Email Automation
Automated emails are super effective because they are timely (usually sent in response to an action taken on your website), and they are incredibly relevant to your customer.
Automated emails usually have higher open and click-thru rates because you’ve given your customer something they value.
Your automated emails are set up to send to individual customers in response to a trigger they have met. For example, someone signs up for your email list and tells you they are interested in the grills you sell. Here’s a list of potential automated emails you might send them:
- Their first automated email is a welcome to our list email.
- The second email could include a 10% off coupon.
- The third email might be filled with grilling tips.
- The fourth email might be filled with recipes.
- The fifth email might explain the value of cooking outside.
- The sixth email could remind them of their 10% off coupon and its expiration date.
The best part of email automation is the system does the heavy lifting for you. Just imagine if you personally attended to each one of these customers.
With automated email marketing, you automate the system to meet an individual customer’s needs. Now, let’s look at 7 tools to make automated email marketing incredibly easy.
1. MailChimp
You’ve probably heard of MailChimp. They are a popular email service. Their system is great for people new to automated email marketing as well as seasoned experts.
With MailChimp, you can use one of their well-designed templates or code your own email. You can send promotional emails and newsletters as well as set up a robust automated drip marketing campaign.
When it comes to automated emails, you can set specific triggers based on actions your website visitors take.
In addition, MailChimp integrates with many third-party applications including Facebook, Twitter, Hootsuite, Pinterest, Instagram, SurveyMonkey, Eventbrite, Etsy, Salesforce, WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Drupal and Google Analytics.
2. HubSpot
This is a system that can handle your automated email marketing and a lot of other pieces of your digital marketing as well.
HubSpot is nice for small business owners because of its easy functionality.
With HubSpot, you can choose from dozens of triggers and actions for your automated emails and lead nurturing campaigns.
3. Drip
Drip is a step up from MailChimp when it comes to automation. It’s in line with the big guys of email automation such as Marketo and Infusionsoft, yet it comes with 10% of the sticker price.
A lighter-weight alternative to the thousand-dollar price tags of the automated email giants, Drip gives you the ability to trigger an email or campaign based on any action a user takes. For example, they can simply express interest in a topic, or download a whitepaper, buy a product through PayPal or view a web page.
Their entire goal is to make email automation easy for you.
4. Litmus
When you’re in the business of creating emails, Litmus is a versatile, handy tool to help you test and track your emails.
Imagine having the ability to see what your email will look like in numerous email clients, on different browsers and on various mobile devices such as Android, Apple and Windows.
You can test more than 40 email clients and devices in one click. This is an incredibly helpful tool and can ensure your email is readable by anyone, anywhere.
It also allows you to insert a tracking pixel to see how and where the email was opened, how much time your user spent reading it and whether it was forwarded or printed.
5. Infusionsoft
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Infusionsoft as a superb tool to make automated email marketing incredibly easy. It does come with a hefty price tag, though.
Infusionsoft isn’t too hard to set up once you get familiar with the interface. You can literally set up any trigger you can think of to start your automated marketing campaigns.
They use a flowchart of sorts to help you see the emails and triggers you set up. Infusionsoft also has a lead scoring feature that helps you validate your leads and see which ones have the most potential.
6. Campaign Monitor
You know that with emails it’s important to target the right person at the right time. Campaign Monitor’s automated features help you do just that.
Using their services, you can set up workflows that trigger the right emails with the most relevant information at the right time.
You can set up drip campaigns to nurture new customers, and you can send reminder emails to let your customers know about renewal dates or events. You can also send birthday emails and automatically email subscribers after blog updates.
Like MailChimp, this system works well for small businesses.
7. Contactually
Not simply an email service provider, Contactually is a CRM that’s contact-focused. It helps you gather info from your inbox and your social media networks.
Contactually lets you see at a glance who you need to follow up with, and it’s got a great automation feature.
Because it is contact-focused, Contactually makes sending automated emails easy. Drip campaigns are a cinch to create.
A bit different than the others we’ve discussed, it’s worth checking out.
Final Thoughts
To conclude, we’re going to provide you with some tips for creating effective automated emails. Use these tips as you plan your flow and craft your emails. Don’t forget to test your emails and make adjustments as necessary.
- Remember that well-crafted, authentic subject lines work best. You still have to grab their attention to garner the open.
- Use images to break up the text. Virtually no one reads your email word for word, so use pictures that reinforce the text.
- When writing your copy, use it to lead your subscribers to your desired action. When you meet their needs, you’re more likely to increase your conversion rates.
- Use a call to action button. They are easier to click on than text links when your email subscribers are reading their emails on a mobile phone. This again helps increase your conversion rates.
- Be sure to track your results. You can find this in your email marketing software. Look at opens, clicks, bounces and unsubscribes.
Lastly, the most important measurement stands with your website. You’ll gauge the success of your email marketing campaigns by your website visits. Use your Google Analytics to view how many visits were made to your website, the demographics of your customers, and your landing page conversion rates.
Using Google Analytics with your email marketing, you can see how your visitors interact with your website after they click through your emails.
This will help you put a value on the success of your automated email marketing and give you insight so you can make necessary improvements.
Are you ready to squeeze more profit out of your website by using automated email marketing? If you are ready to optimize your landing pages to increase conversions from your email marketing, we can promise you we’ll do just that. With our guarantee, you can rest assured we will increase your profits through landing page optimization.
If you’re ready to work with the leader in landing pages and conversion rate optimization, contact us today.
We’ll provide you with our FREE site performance analysis so we can work on your landing page conversion rates.
Image: LoboStudio Hamburg
