5 Automated Email Marketing Messages

Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing tactics available to businesses today. But the power of email marketing grows exponentially when you automatically send targeted messages based on specific customer behaviors rather than manually.

In reality, no small business owner has time to write individual messages and send them to people at the correct times. Even if you have the budget to hire a staff or agency to help you, there aren’t enough daily hours to manually leverage every email marketing opportunity.

That’s where automation changes the game.

Here are five email marketing messages that you can set up to go out to customers and subscribers automatically based on behavioral triggers, practically guaranteed to increase your sales.

Why? Because someone can build these automated messages and that can create to convert your contacts.

Email marketing automation drives more conversions and a higher ROI.

Here are five easy ways to do it:

1. Customer Support Follow-up

Do you follow up with customers and prospects after communicating with your customer support team? Whether someone contacts your business by phone, email, or online chat, you should have a follow-up message ready to go out immediately after the communication and documented in your customer support software.

You can automate the entire process using a customer support tool that integrates with your email marketing tool. Just write your follow-up message and set it to be sent automatically when a contact in your email marketing list completes a communication with a customer service representative.

This message could tell the customer or your prospect how to get additional help if they need it. Or it could include a survey to track the quality of their experience and overall satisfaction. You could even have a discount or other special offer they can use on a future purchase to convert a customer service issue into a sale.

Related: 5 Ways You Can Earn a Better ROI with Your Email Marketing Campaigns

2. Sales Trigger

Your email marketing software should automatically send a follow-up message when someone purchases from you. This message should thank the person for their investment and offer a cross-sell or upsell item. You can even include a discount to boost conversions.

To do this, you must first determine what products or services to cross-sell or upsell for every product or service offered on your website. Your automated message triggered by a purchase could say, “Since you loved [insert the item purchased here}, we thought you’d like [insert a related product here] too!” Include details about why the customer would like the suggested product or service and a link where they can purchase it immediately. You can also include a discount or special offer in your message if you’d like.

Remember, automated messages based on sales behaviors don’t have to be limited to completed purchases. Send them when someone moves to the next stage of your sales pipeline.

So, this is particularly important for businesses that sell products or services with long sales cycles. The goal automatically sends email messages that help push people through your sales funnel. Therefore, consider sending messages when a prospect makes the first contact with you, completes a sales call, completes a demo, nears the end of a free trial period, and so on.

3. Form Submission

Every time someone submits a form on your website — whether it’s your contact form, a subscription form, a form to download a free resource, or any form, you should have an email marketing message queued to go out immediately.

For this to work, you need to make sure you’re using a form tool that integrates with your email marketing software so that the process is automated and you can access reports to see which forms are working and which should be improved or replaced.

Related: 10 Tips for Writing Emails That Will Get You Tangible Results

4. Abandoned Cart

Abandoned cart messages are a critical part of your email marketing strategy. When someone takes the time to find a product they like on your website, puts that item in their online shopping cart, but leaves your site without completing their purchase, an obstacle likely got in their way, which prevented them from completing the transaction.

First, you’ll want to find out what that obstacle was and remove it for two reasons. First, you want to save the sale, and second, you don’t want other people to abandon their carts for the same reasons.

Therefore, when someone abandons their shopping cart on your website, your email marketing tool should be set up to automatically send a message asking them what went wrong and reminding them to return to complete their transaction. You can even include a discount in the letter to encourage a complete purchase. Of course, you must have the proper tracking configured in your email marketing tool and website. You will need to have an abandoned cart set up as a behavioral trigger that kicks off this message.

5. Thank You

Sending thank you messages to your customers based on various behavioral triggers such as making a purchase, attending a webinar, writing a review, and so on. The key is ensuring your thank you messages sound authentic and make the recipients feel valued.

Saying thank you shows consumers that your brand is human and helps deepen your brand’s relationship with them. You’re also acknowledging consumers and helping them develop trust in your brand.

Keep it simple and sincere, and the perception of your brand – and the likelihood that people will buy from you again and tell others about you – improves significantly.

Related: 10 Laws of Social Media Marketing

Key Takeaways About Email Marketing Automation

Automation works because it saves you a lot of time. Undoubtedly, when you can automate tasks, your productivity and efficiency will improve, and your costs will decrease.

However, you need to invest some time and effort upfront in writing the messages, setting them up in your email marketing software, and integrating your email marketing tool with the other devices you use to track customer behaviors.

It’s well worth the time, though, because these automated messages will improve your overall ROI.