What is automated email marketing? Why does it matter? What are the benefits for you and your business? Learn how you can nurture leads without ever lifting a finger – and how you can track results along the way!
There is no doubt that email marketing is incredibly effective, especially if the content is personalized with the reader in mind. Furthermore, with email automation, sales teams can save a significant amount of time – all while continuing to nurture their leads.
In short – an intentional, targeted, personalized, and comprehensive automated email marketing campaign can do wonders for improving your bottom line. We’ve said it before and we will say it again, email marketing is NOT dead.
What Is Automated Email Marketing, Anyway – and Why Should I Do It?
Before we explain why you should automate your email marketing, we’ll explain why you should use email marketing in the first place.
The benefits of email marketing can be summed up in one simple acronym: ROI. Did you know that email marketing has an ROI of approximately 122%? (According to the Direct Marketing Association.) That means for every $1.00 you put in, you’ll get $1.22 back. No other form of marketing – offline or online – has a higher ROI.
That’s just normal email marketing, too, where you manually send email blasts to your lists. Imagine what you could do if you had an automated system that did all the work for you and sent the right email to the right user at the right time!
That’s what automated email marketing does. Automated email marketing involves creating a campaign where a series of emails are sent to individuals in your sales pipeline, nurturing them through your specific sales funnel. These campaigns and the content in each email are customized to your target market – answering frequently asked questions and arming them with information they need to choose you over the competition.
It’s automated, meaning that once you create the campaign, you press the go button and it starts working – and the specific email a target user receives depends on their actions and their stage of the buying process.
For example, if you send an email to your list inviting them to sign up for a newsletter or click to check out products or whatever your primary call to action may be, and a user doesn’t take action, maybe that person wasn’t ready yet. Maybe they’re still researching. That’s okay – the system automatically sends them another email that is more educational and informative.
If they don’t like that email, then they receive another that invites them to watch a video or download a white paper. This process goes on until they fall out of the system or they take action and engage with you.
Automated email marketing sounds really cool – and it is – but for a business owner, it’s all about the benefits. Below are some of the key benefits of automated email marketing:
#1: Build It Once – Use It Forever
Potential customers tend to have the same questions at each stage of the buying cycle. Automated email marketing saves you time by answering those questions – automatically! Once a great automated campaign is setup, you simply turn it on and let the automation process start. As each new lead comes into your system, you simply plug them into these campaigns and they are nurtured along the way.
#2. Save Valuable Time
You can have incredibly effective, tailored, and personalized automated emails, saving your sales force a significant amount of time compared to manual campaigns.
#3: Maximize Your Resources
What if you could get an email notifying you that someone clicked the “learn more” button in your email? Automation means better tracking, which allows you to follow up when you know your target market is ready to buy. The automation process maximizes the resources of your business and each sales person, allowing valued team members to focus on prospecting instead of nurturing.
#4: Remain the Main Contact
Not only does the automation process allow you to choose who the emails come from, but any reply will be directed to that same email address. Therefore, your sales team never has to worry about losing a lead – each contact can be connected to their name from the very beginning.
#5: Save Money
One of the best things about automated email marketing is that it is completely affordable for any business. When you combine this affordability with the detailed analytics and reporting, email marketing is a no-brainer!
5 Automated Email Marketing Tips for 2017
Automated email marketing is definitely the present (and the future!), but what are the major trends for 2017? Check them out:
#1: Personalization
Personalized emails are absolutely essential for increasing open rates and overall email marketing effectiveness. Fortunately, automation tools make addressing individuals on a first name basis incredibly easy!
If you’re still sending out individual emails in today’s automated era, you’re wasting valuable time.
#2: Brevity
With the plethora of information being consumed on a daily basis, emails are getting shorter! Learn to say more with less – quickly captivating the attention of your target audience and pushing them to intentional landing pages where they can learn more.
#3: Mobile-Focus
Are your emails primarily designed to look great on mobile devices? If not, now is the time to make the change! A significant number of people check their email primarily from their mobile devices; therefore, make sure your emails are mobile-friendly.
#4: Videos
2017 will be the year that videos throughout the internet explode like never before. One avenue for sharing videos that are designed to nurture prospects through your sales funnel is via integrating them into your automated drip email campaigns. Put those videos to use more than just on your website!
#5: Better Segmentation
All email lists are not the same – and neither should your messaging be. Companies will start to intentionally segment their email databases, providing more tailored messaging to each stage of the buying cycle. If you’re sending prospects and current customers the same content, you’re doing something wrong.
Save Time and Money – and Boost ROI – by Automating Your Email Marketing
Every business should be taking advantage of lead nurturing via automated email marketing campaigns. Touch every prospect with intentional, personalized content that is designed to gently nudge them to the next step of your sales funnel. And save time and money in the process while dramatically increasing your campaign’s ROI.
Learn how automated email marketing can help grow your business. Connect with the Uptick team today!
