Email marketing is an important part of a marketing strategy. You don’t own your Facebook or Instagram followers. But your email list — that’s all yours. Facebook or Instagram could shut down tomorrow, but I can promise you email isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s critical you grow your email list, but more importantly, is how you nurture those on your list.
Automations are a great way to build a relationship with your audience, support them, deliver value and time-sensitive information, and guide them to your next offer. Having automations set up in your business will build that know, like and trust factor and help you gain more of your ideal clients. Another benefit? It saves you TIME. Once you have an automation set up, it runs on its own. You aren’t wasting time writing, setting up and sending the same emails manually. This gives you more time back to work on other projects -- I’m all about the increase in productivity.
Here are 5 ways to use email marketing automation in your business:
1. Welcome sequence (new subscribers)
Setting up a short little welcome sequence for your new subscribers is a must. It helps them get to know you, what you offer, how you can help them and build that relationship (aka the Know, Like and Trust factor). This also keeps you top of mind for the service or product they’re clearly interested in as they go through the decision making process.
I recommend a brief introductory email highlighting your main offer, giving them a little bit of a “what to expect” from you and where they can connect with you more. I suggest following that email with a value add email - maybe it’s a blog post you’ve previously written that you can share, or a freebie you offer, etc. Make sure it’s something that your target audience struggles with that you can help solve. The third email I suggest is a vulnerable story. Something that will allow you to CONNECT with them and their struggles. Finally, that fourth email in the chain will direct them to the offer you’d like them to book with you. You can optionally follow up with a 5th email reminding them of that offer and/or including a “downsell offer”. But just remember the goal of this welcome sequence is to help your audience get to know you and deliver them value.
2. Freebie
Freebie emails are one of the BEST ways to grow your email list. What I mean by a freebie is an offer / downloadable that you can give your audience in exchange for their email address. Nowadays, people are very sensitive to giving up their email address because of how much “spam” they get on a daily basis, so this freebie has to be something worth them sharing this with you. I want this to be your BEST SHIT. It needs to be transformative - something to truly help them solve a problem they have. Something that will leave them wanting MORE from you.
Set this automation up so that when they sign up for your list to get that download it’s the first thing that comes to their inbox. Tell them how to use it or what it will do for them and keep it short and sweet. They truly probably just want that download and may not read much else you say. It’s here that your follow up emails are important in the automation. Some people download the freebie but don’t actually do the workbook, or watch the video or whatever it is that you’re offering. Providing reminders, helpful tips, next steps, incentives, etc. in those follow-up emails is key. You can also segment your audience and follow-ups based on people who opened your email, downloaded something or clicked a link. This will help you send specific CTAs to those who have downloaded and may need a next step, or to remind those who haven’t. In one of the final follow up emails I like to provide an incentive - such as if they fill out their workbook and send it back to me I’ll do a free 30-minute call with them, or you can offer them a discount on your services.
3. Launches
Setting up your emails for launches will make your life infinitely easier. You deserve an easy, stress-free launch. This is done by planning ahead and getting organized. Think about your launch phases - pre-launch/early bird, launch and post-launch… or the excite, educate and close phases. What types of emails need to be sent to excite your audience and get them on a wait-list for your program or offer? Do this for each phase - think through your pricing structure, when you want to offer discounts, incentives, pricing plans, bonuses, etc. to your audience. How will you build that feeling of “I have to have this now, time is running out”? Map all this out ahead of time - I love to do this through the program Airtable. It’s so easy to keep each launch organized. Then set all these up in an automation! That way when you run this program again it’s all RIGHT THERE and you don’t have to recreate the wheel. I promise this will save you so much time, energy and frustration. That way during launch time you can be engaging with your potential clients, answering questions they have, building relationships and closing the sale.
4. Abandoned Cart (eCommerce Biz)
If you’re an eCommerce business one of the most common (and necessary automations) is an abandoned cart automation/sequence. You want this to be sent out to your potential customers within a 3-6 hr window of them abandoning their cart. You can simply first offer a reminder, and maybe second you follow it up with a discount code or coupon. Or if you want to close the sale quicker, a discount code (still with money off vs. a percentage off) in the first email would work as well. It’s been proven that 2-3 emails often perform best in terms of an abandoned cart follow up. If you want to dive into this one more, check out Klaviyo’s article on this here. Klaviyo is my favorite eCommerce email platform.
5. Events (virtual or in-person)
Events, whether you’re hosting virtually (such as a livestream or webinar) or in person, can absolutely benefit from an email automation series. From event promotion to sign up confirmation, to reminders about the event, to follow up post-event with next steps, these are key for engaging your audience. Think of these emails just as you would a launch, but they may require more specific details on the “who, what, when, where, why” as opposed to a launch sequence. The most important email here I’d say is the follow up post-event. You want to either give them a replay, or let them know where they can learn more or what their next step is. Where are you guiding them next and what incentive are you giving them to take that next step?
To take a step back, if you’re still struggling with picking the right email platform, I highly recommend ActiveCampaign or FloDesk. FloDesk is visually appealing with gorgeous pre-made templates that I LOVE. If you like simplicity though and very extensive automation experience, go with ActiveCampaign. FloDesk calls their automations workflows if you’re looking for them, and you’ll always need a trigger to set up an automation - whether it’s an email sign up form or a tag, etc.
There are numerous videos and help guides if you’re still struggling, but if you don’t have any of these set up in your business, and want to save yourself the time and/or frustration, I’d be happy to help you with these through my 5-hour intensive. Book a discovery call here to chat more.
Katelyn Hamilton is an Online Business Manager and Get Your Sh!t Together Strategist. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front.
After spending 6 years in the corporate world working with multimillion dollar companies, top-rated chefs and celebrities, she launched her own business to find more flexibility and freedom. She matched her corporate salary in just one year of starting her business.
Katelyn is also a wife, stepmom, dog mama of three furry friends, fitness lover, sports fanatic (Go Dawgs) and dreams of living at the beach.
Click here to book a free call to talk more about your business goals and to see if hiring an OBM is the right fit for you.
