11 december 2024, 14:59
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Email workflow automation is a cornerstone of any successful business. Email marketing is no stranger to repetitive and routine tasks that take precious time from email marketers. That’s where workflow automation comes into play. By setting up automated sequences and delegating them to the right automation tools, marketers can free their time to allocate to strategic tasks and creative endeavors. This is what we will talk about today. What is workflow automation, how to set them up, and what tools are a perfect choice for this task.
What is email workflow?
Before diving into email marketing automation and helping tools, it’s important to understand the subject, namely the essence of email workflows (a. k. a. scenarios). An email workflow is a series of automated actions triggered by specific events or conditions that guide email communication with subscribers or customers. It involves setting up a sequence of emails that are automatically sent based on user behaviors, preferences, or predefined schedules.
What is email workflow automation?
So, we’ve figured out what email workflows are, but what about their automation? Email workflow automation uses dedicated tools (or software, if you will) to send emails automatically, with minimum email marketer involvement. All these automated newsletters are based on predefined criteria, behaviors, or triggers.
The easiest examples of automation are verification emails when someone subscribes, welcome emails, follow-ups after a purchase, re-engagement newsletters, or personalized offers based on user behavior.
(Source: Really Good Emails)
Analytics plays a significant role in workflow automation because marketers need a transparent view of how their email campaigns perform. Analyzing performance allows for strategy tweaks, finding new ways to improve existing automated workflows, and establishing new ones. Most email workflow automation software (which we will discuss later) provides marketers with performance dashboards with a better view of their marketing efforts.
Email workflow automation templates and examples
To make things even clearer, we’ll quickly discuss the most common email workflows using intuitive examples.
Opt-in workflow
Trigger: Form submission, content download
A new lead triggers an opt-in workflow by providing contact details in exchange for a valuable resource or lead magnet. If leads are stalling at the initial step, this might be due to the amount of information requested. Testing different variations of required fields or types of information can help you understand what might be deterring potential prospects and improve conversion rates.
Welcome email workflow
Trigger: Form submission, content download, contact added to a list
Welcome emails are a great starting point for thinking about automating your email workflow. Since new subscribers are eager to learn about your business, you should seize this opportunity to make a memorable first impression and highlight your brand’s essence at the beginning of their customer journey. Once a new customer verifies their email address with a verification email, you can automatically send a welcome email (or several welcome emails, depending on your approach to service introduction).
Special occasion workflow
Trigger: Milestone achieved, special date
You can build a stronger connection with your subscribers by reaching out on significant dates. Sending personalized emails on birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, or other important occasions noted in their profiles or tagged to their lead information can effectively engage your contacts on a more personal level.
Subscription renewal workflow
Trigger: Subscription renewal date
For businesses with a recurring revenue model, a subscription renewal workflow is crucial. You can show your existing customers they matter by intentionally crafting proactive messages within your renewal workflow. This approach can help retain customers and show them that you value their business.
Post-purchase workflow
Trigger: Purchase done
After a purchase, it’s crucial to engage your customers with a post-purchase workflow. This process should begin with an order confirmation and a heartfelt “thank you for your purchase.” The workflow can also offer referral rewards and prompt customers to provide feedback on their customer experiences. You can encourage them to share their purchases on social media to further promote your brand.
Abandoned cart workflow
Trigger: Abandoned cart
Abandoned cart email is a cornerstone of any online selling business. Statistics show that 70% of online shoppers leave items in their shopping carts without completing a purchase. Common causes of this behavior include doubts about a website’s trustworthiness and a complicated checkout process. The shopper may also just be browsing and comparing prices. Accordingly, automated emails that remind customers about shopping cart abandonment items in the cart are a must-have for any business engaged in selling.
Re-engagement workflow
Trigger: Engagement conditions not met in a specific time
You can revitalize interest in your brand with a re-engagement workflow designed for inactive contacts. This workflow is triggered when leads meet specific criteria or fail to engage over a set period. Custom entry conditions can include the time elapsed since a contact last filled out a form, visited your site, opened an email, or interacted with your content after their free trial ended.
How do you create an automated workflow?
Now that you understand basic automation templates, it’s time to prepare for automation. We’ve prepared an easy-to-follow guide with several steps leading you from the idea to full-fledged automated email workflows.
Step 1. Identify your goals
Effective email marketing begins with a clear strategy and an understanding of the purpose behind each contact. Are you aiming for a sale, educating your audience, or encouraging an action?
Once you have clarified your objective, you can craft messages that guide recipients from their current state to your desired outcome. It’s equally important to anticipate success and plan accordingly.
Step 2. Pick your automation tool
Choosing the right tool for email workflow automation is vital to achieving the best results. The automation platform for your case must comply with all of your requirements, both functional and monetary. We’ll discuss the best tools for email workflow automation in a separate article block.
Step 3. Determine your audience
Identify your target audience for your email marketing campaigns. Consider segmenting your recipients according to lifecycle stages. For instance, an upsell campaign could focus on current leads who haven’t bought from you. Your email marketing platform should facilitate this segmentation, allowing you to organize your audience efficiently based on chosen criteria.
Step 4. Set enrollment criteria
Enrollment criteria are the conditions that must be satisfied for a contact to enter a workflow. These criteria (or triggers, if you don’t mind) can include actions such as adding a contact to a list, submitting a website form, clicking a link in an email, viewing a blog page, interacting with an ad, or becoming a marketing-qualified lead. You can also initiate email workflows based on any available data about your contacts. These data could encompass page views, email or social media interactions, content downloads, contact attributes, or a mix of these and other factors.
Step 5. Make a list of processes you want to automate
Imagine you were sending these emails by hand — what steps would you follow? Your email marketing workflows act as detailed plans for each task your automation tool will execute.
You can expand these workflows to achieve additional business goals by automating tasks, such as the following:
- Setting or cleaning contact property values
- Updating a contact’s lifecycle stage
- Adding or removing contacts from lists
- Performing various administrative tasks to enable more precise, effective marketing for your prospects and customers
Step 6. Conduct a pre-launch test
Before going live with your automated email workflow, it’s crucial to run a test to ensure everything functions correctly. Here are some steps to incorporate into your workflow launch process:
- Review your list of enrolled contacts to identify any errors.
- Verify that the number of enrolled contacts matches your expectations.
- Evaluate your workflow diagram and scenarios to ensure they align with your intended outcomes.
Step 7. Launch and monitor the performance
After finalizing your workflow, you are ready to activate it.
You must be vigilant of any errors or irregularities and be prepared to make adjustments to enhance your email automation’s performance.
Like other marketing strategies, this process should be continuously refined.
Email workflow automation best practices
Understanding the process step-by-step is good, but awareness of powerful practices on top of that is better. To make your email marketing automation adoption even more effective, consider sticking to practices that have proven effectiveness.
Tweak the number of emails
Maintaining the number of emails you send is a must (for both triggered and promo) because sending too few may have no effect, while sending too many will lead to lost subscribers. Most ESPs and automation software allow for setting up a maximum number of automated sends per day (usually three or four emails per mailbox). Pick an optimal number that does not bombard your subscribers with emails (which can be annoying, to say the least).
When setting the optimal number of emails you can send to a customer, it is important to remember that critical transactional emails are to be sent promptly. For example, when customers make a purchase, they should receive order confirmation, order status updates, and delivery confirmation. However, avoid sending a survey invitation on the same day; it’s better to postpone it until the next day.
Use automation in pairs with several channels
Email workflow automation is a great tool for increasing email marketing efficiency, but it works well when combined with multiple channels. For example, automated email campaigns can be combined with social media marketing, PR activities, and other approaches that drive your brand awareness and generate an audience.
Opt-out is a must-have
Even though you want your subscribers to stay with you forever, you have to respect their choice to leave or refuse to receive certain emails. Give them a straightforward opt-out option and email preference settings, so they can choose what exactly they want to see in their inboxes.
Email workflow automation software
So, we’ve talked about email workflow automation ways and tips that help make them flawless. What about tools that will be a cornerstone of your automation? We’ve gathered several examples and quickly overviewed them to make your choosing process easier.
Hubspot
Pricing:
- Free plan
- Marketing Hub Starter for $15 per month per seat
- Starter Customer Platform for $15 per month per seat
- Marketing Hub Professional for $800 per month
- Marketing Hub Enterprise for $3,600 per month
HubSpot platform provides marketers with a full-fledged automation platform to streamline their email marketing efforts by automating tasks such as email scheduling, personalized workflows, and automated responses based on user behavior.
Setting up automation is easy thanks to intuitive design, so marketers of any level can use it right away. With robust integration options and the ability to scale the platform depending on business needs, HubSpot is a great choice if there is an automation task on the horizon.
Distinguishing feature
AI base duplication tool. Hubspot has a feature that can merge duplicate contacts using an AI base duplication tool, making your list more organized and neat.
(Source: Hubspot)
Brevo
Pricing:
- Free plan
- Starter for $9 per month
- Business for $18 per month
- Enterprise custom pricing plan
Brevo, previously known as Sendinblue, is a flexible CRM that can become a great pillar of your email marketing. With user-friendly features, Brevo automates a significant portion of your email marketing endeavors. Welcome emails, personalized offers, re-engagement emails and much more: all of this you can set within Brevo. And a small but a good thing to mention — it has a drag-and-drop email editor for quick and easy-to-handle email design.
Distinguishing feature
Advanced custom automation capabilities. Brevo allows marketers to easily create their own automation, triggering actions on various apps across the platform and beyond with their built-in tools.
(Source: Medium)
Mailchimp
Pricing:
- Free plan
- $13 monthly
- $20 monthly
- $350 monthly
Mailchimp is a true pioneer when it comes to automation. All the features you need for workflow automation are packed within this platform: data segmentation, templates, personalization options and more. But if you want the top-tier experience, paid plans provide extra features like email scheduling, customer branding, and A/B testing. As a result, businesses of any size can find something that fits their needs within Mailchimp.
Distinguishing feature
Landing page builder. Mailchimp has a unique landing page builder that allows users with no technical skills to create beautiful landing pages in no time.
(Source: Pageflows)
EngageBay
Pricing:
- Free plan
- Basic for $14.99 per user/per month
- Growth for $64.99 per user/per month
- Pro for $119.99 per user/per month
EngageBay is a combination of marketing and sales tools in one package. You can find must-have automation features like email sequences, template builders, autoresponder uses for personalized responses and much more. Moreover, the platform has a built-in drag-and-drop editor, providing marketers with an easy-to-use marketing tool for creating email templates for all occasions.
Distinguishing feature
Deal pipelines. EngageBay allows marketers to organize lead tracking with multiple deal pipelines for various product categories, regions, or any criteria they choose, allowing them to manage sales activities more effectively.
(Source: EngageBay)
UniOne
Pricing:
- Free trial with 6,000 monthly emails
- Standard plan with flexible pricing depending on the number of emails sent per month from $6 monthly to $850 monthly (for 10,000 and 3 million emails accordingly)
- Individual pricing plan starting from 5 million emails per month
UniOne is an API service for setting up and managing automated emails that makes the life of email marketers easier. This tool has a fast integration process and a straightforward API for smooth bulk sending. UniOne is flexible and scalable enough, which makes this tool a great choice for both small businesses and large enterprises which send millions of emails monthly. Detailed statistics and finely customizable tracking will not let the smallest details slip through the cracks, giving transparent insights for future email campaigns.
Distinguishing feature
Custom tracking domains. UniOne users can brand tracking links for free which helps to establish full transparency over their email marketing campaigns performance.
(Source: UniOne)
Wrapping up
Email workflow automation is essential for businesses to streamline their communication processes and enhance customer engagement. Automating repetitive tasks can save businesses valuable time and resources, allowing them to focus on more strategic initiatives. Whether nurturing leads, re-engaging inactive customers, or driving conversions, email workflow automation provides a powerful solution for delivering timely, personalized, and relevant content to emails. Embracing this technology can improve efficiency, higher customer retention, and, ultimately, greater business success.
