I’m convinced you’ll agree with me if I told you that we all spend too much time with our emails. Especially manually responding to messages from our prospects and customers.
It only takes 2 minutes!
After all, we tell ourselves “it only takes two minutes!” Again and again, the minutes add up… and the result is that you have lost a large number of hours of your precious time.
What if I told you that it is possible to reclaim those lost hours to act differently, communicate more often, and with even more consistency? With a little organization, email automation makes this possible.
I know that many of you already automate some of your emails, but perhaps I will give you other examples and tips to once again save those precious “two minutes.” And thus add a little time to your already busy days!
Types of campaigns for automated email
Re-engagement emails
These emails target prospects who have shown partial interest in your business, but not to the stage you would have liked. They have looked at how things work with you, but have not yet walked through the door.
They were curious enough for you to hope they would come back, download more of your content, watch your videos, and convince themselves of your relevance and expertise. But that is unfortunately not reality; your prospects generally need you to push them a little, a small reminder to have a chance of getting them to definitively step through to the other side of the door.
This is where automation comes in handy. For visitors who opened your email about a video but did not watch it, send them an email reminding them to watch that video.
For those who watched it, send a thank-you email directing them to another of your videos! And do the same for all your content.
Reminder emails for your events
It is the essential action for success. In the final days of preparing for any type of event or webinar, whatever its size, you neither want nor have time to send a manual reminder to your participants. Spare yourself this effort and set up an automated reminder email where you decide how frequently it makes sense to send those reminders.
Do not hesitate to send several, several weeks apart, with unique content to inform participants, competitions if there are any, or activities. Remember to include the date, time, place, what to bring, or what to prepare in advance…
One simple campaign and I reduced no-shows dramatically!
Here is an example of what I do when I organize a breakfast conference with our partners.
I send an invitation email, I confirm the registration by thanking my contact and reminding them of my event program. One week before the key date, a reminder of what is “not to be missed” along with the date. Finally, a last reminder the day before with directions to the venue and the start time. Just that, this simple campaign, and we reduced no-shows dramatically.
Thank-you emails
Automate all your thank-you emails to make your customer and/or prospect feel appreciated. While thanking them is sincerely the first message you want to deliver, it is also an opportunity to share additional information with them or, on the contrary, ask them for information that will be useful to you. For example, you can suggest that they register for an upcoming event, write a review of your products, or rate them. Once the discussion has started, you might as well make the most of it!
Seasonal emails
Another good excuse to remind your contacts that you exist is to use recurring and predictable events. Birthdays are a good place to start. Set up an automatic email that should go out on a specific date, such as your contacts’ birthday! It is also an opportunity to offer them a small gift, reconnect with them if they reply, or give them access to a special discount if you work in B2C. Do not hesitate to use your customer’s second birthday as well, the date since which they have been one of your customers!
Decide what type of recurring event is appropriate for your business and can boost your sales while ensuring you maintain a lasting relationship with your customers and prospects. Do not hesitate to create a small map of the recurring events you want to use in order to avoid overlapping the same periods at the same time and risk having overly oppressive communication toward your contacts.
Of course, you still have the content left to write…
Best practices for an effective email
Once you have determined which automation process is appropriate for your strategy, you still need to be careful not to make major mistakes. Be sure to follow these important steps when building an automated email:
- Avoid looking like a spammer; make it as close as possible to a human email. Limit different formats, colors, tables, and shortened emails.
- Above all, do not even think about using subject lines begging people to open the email by offering something in return or promising unique content that simply must not be missed.
- If you include one or more images, they should not exceed 20 to 30% of the size of the email. Reach 80% high-quality content in your email and thus ensure good deliverability.
- Personalize your email by using the data you have in your database. Personalized values in your email will humanize it even more and therefore bring you closer to your customer/prospect.
Automating the emails that can be automated will save you countless hours in your workday.
Some email software will allow you to create some of these emails. Some event management software as well. These best practices are the basis of Marketing Automation and are of course features that you can find in software of this type.
