Email remains at the heart of many businesses’ customer engagement strategies. It’s a simple and effective way to establish dialogue and keep customers informed.
However, effective email communication becomes more difficult as businesses scale. For businesses that deal with thousands of clients, sending manual emails isn’t realistic.
That’s why so many organizations are investing in email response automation. It’s a surefire way of cutting out the legwork and keeping customers engaged.
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Email response automation is a technology that triggers emails automatically based on various pre-defined triggers. For example, an email might be sent when a customer contacts you.
Here, automation could be as simple as sending an instant reply to the customer, acknowledging their email has been received, and explaining how long they might wait before getting a response.
Of course, email automation software can also handle more complex tasks.
You could set triggers so an email fires upon a customer completing certain actions. For instance, if a customer adds a product to their wishlist, you could email them when the item goes on sale.
Thanks to this versatility, email response automation can be used in many different cases. That’s why it’s an essential tool for any organization with a large or growing customer base.
There’s no denying that many businesses find email response automation valuable. But why do so many organizations rely on this technology?
Let’s explore some of the top benefits of using email automation tools.
Modern customers want and expect experiences built around their needs. Business leaders are aware of this need – 89% believe personalization is crucial to their business’s success in the next three years.
Luckily, the ability to create personalized experiences is one of the major benefits of email response automation. With an email automation tool, you can split different subsections of users into groups.
This way, you can send relevant emails to individual users.
Thanks to a personalized approach, you're more likely to send messages that resonate with your audience. More customers will engage with your emails, and fewer users will drop off the sales funnel.
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Lead nurturing is an essential but often tricky process. Sales teams must find the right balance; appearing too eager and sending sales messages as soon as a lead completes a key action can be off-putting.
Conversely, a lack of messaging can make businesses seem uninterested in leads. However, slowly building a relationship with a lead can be very time-consuming.
Luckily, you can let automation handle the task for you. Email response automation can assist your nurturing strategy by sending useful materials to leads.
The software can help a lead to discover more about your organization so that they feel more positive about you. Your agents can kickstart the sales process when a lead has been nurtured sufficiently.
Upselling, where you persuade customers to purchase a higher-end version of a product, is a key strategy for increasing your business’s bottom line.
Cross-selling, where you attempt to sell other relevant products to customers, can be an equally valuable opportunity. The challenge is recommending the right products for individual customers.
With automation, however, you can trigger emails with upselling and cross-selling recommendations.
When a customer is in the process of buying a product, you can trigger an upselling email highlighting a higher-end version of an item. Artificial intelligence can also use customer and demographic data to identify the best products to cross-sell.
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Consider the amount of resources you use to contact your customers manually.
To keep up with the scale of emails, you’ll need a larger team. What’s more, you’ll spend valuable time working on manual emails that could be devoted to more useful tasks.
Email response automation cuts out the legwork and requires a less extensive team. You can also free up sales agents to focus on their primary objective: selling.
Unlike human teams, automated tools are also unlikely to make errors. They will carry out tasks as they have been programmed, which means employees will spend less time correcting costly mistakes.
Regular financial planning and analysis (FP&A) will quickly reveal the cost-cutting benefits of automation. From day one, you should start seeing a clear boost in your cost efficiency.
Receiving a sea of emails can be overwhelming. Not all communications will carry the same weight.
Sales teams must prioritize the most important emails. If a lead is almost ready to purchase, you don’t want to leave them waiting.
Automated tools can group emails into different categories and levels of priority. Thus, when sales teams log in to their emails, they are met with an ordered inbox.
They can choose a category and get easy access to the emails they need. There’s no stress about finding the most important email; they can simply look to the top of the list.
Of course, simply having a tool isn’t enough. To get the most out of automation, you need the right strategy. Below are some of the top factors to consider when compiling yours.
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Earlier, we mentioned the importance of segmenting your email lists. Knowing the different groups of customers that make up your audience is crucial for effective engagement.
Firstly, though, you need to know how you will segment your users.
Listed below are some segmentation strategies that may come in useful:
One of the best aspects of email response automation is that it answers your audience’s common questions. This way, you’re not constantly responding with the same message to multiple customers.
It’s worth taking stock of your business’s most common inquiries. Then, create email templates to answer each area. Remember to personalize your messaging when creating templates.
To do so, you can add dynamic content through personalization tokens. These contain a customer’s contact information so that automated emails address users directly by their first names.
Automation rules consist of three key elements: triggers, which kickstart a rule, the conditions needed for a trigger to fire, and the actions that will be carried out in an email.
For instance, you might want to email a user who has left an item in their basket, but you don’t want to send the email to every user who has placed items in their basket.
By setting the right rules, you can ensure the email reaches the right people.
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It’s estimated that 96.2% of global users access the internet via mobile phones.
Catering to these users is critical for maximizing engagement. When creating automation templates, ensure that they are properly optimized for mobile users.
The simplest way of achieving this is through opting for a scalable design.
This allows you to use the same design for desktop and mobile users. You’d opt for a single-column layout featuring large CTAs that can scale depending on the size of a user’s screen.
Remember, if you’re ever unsure, simply run a test and see if an email is accessible on mobile.
Your CRM is the nerve center of your organization. It contains data relating to all customer interactions, customer investment history that can be fed to reconciliation software for accounting accuracy, and other useful information.
Integrating your automation tool with your CRM can allow you to utilize all this valuable data, which can then be used to create more detailed segments.
For instance, you might segment based on certain previous customer interactions. However, you can only access this information through your CRM. Opt for a tool that links with popular solutions, such as Salesforce or HubSpot.
We mentioned email automation’s powerful capabilities for prioritizing and categorizing emails. For AI to complete this task, you should define categories and the sorts of emails you want to prioritize.
For example, you might create categories for customer queries, lead nurturing, or cold emailing.
You could also develop triggers that denote that a particular email is a priority, such as when a customer is ready to move to the next stage of the sales funnel.
With careful prioritization and categorization, you can cut out extra work later.
Email response automation offers many benefits, but it also poses some challenges. Let’s explore these in more detail and discuss solutions for dealing with them.
Automation can very effectively handle basic email queries. However, it should not be used in all areas.
For instance, customer complaints require understanding and sensitivity. Here, a human response is much more appropriate.
Similarly, an automated tool is ill-equipped to deal with delicate subjects. It's always best to opt for a personal approach in these areas to avoid appearing insensitive.
Have agents write their responses or even use your small business phone system to talk in person.
Email providers use firewalls to detect spam messages, so salespeople must be careful when using tactics such as cold emailing. Automated tools can perform these tasks, but a blanket approach will not suffice.
The timing and style of your email is crucial for avoiding spam. Make sure to limit the output of your automation. Sending too many messages at once increases the chance of your mail being flagged as spam.
When creating your templates for automation, be sure to follow the CAN-SPAM guidelines. This involves practices such as:
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Timing is everything in sales emails. If you overlook this factor when setting up your automation, you won’t get the engagement you need.
Studies have shown that Tuesdays and Fridays have the best open, conversion, and clickthrough rates, while 2 PM, 5 PM, and 8 PM have the highest levels of engagement.
As we’ve discussed, frequency is also important.
Sending too many emails to the same recipient can be an issue. Equally, sending too few might prevent you from connecting with a lead. It’s best to test various strategies to find the optimum frequency.
There’s a risk that automated emails can be overly generic. They’ll fail to establish your brand in the minds of potential customers, who will move on to more interesting mail.
To remain memorable, it’s critical to enforce a clear brand identity.
This means that your templates should be consistent and feel the same. Always use the same font and color scheme. Make sure that your logo and other imagery are always in the same location.
Establishing a clear tone for all messaging is also important. To ensure consistency, you can create a brand style guide.
As with all software, there will be times when automated tools don’t act as they should.
To minimize risk, choose a reputable tool that contains lots of software integration options. Seek a solution offering comprehensive customer support so that you can get the help you need if you run into an issue.
Lastly, always test your automations before they go live to make sure they’re working properly.
Automated email responses are email messages that are pre-written and only sent when someone triggers a particular action.
Email response automation can save businesses considerable time. It ensures that all customer emails are responded to quickly and professionally without requiring your team to manually write and reply to every message.
Businesses can benefit from automating numerous types of emails, particularly ones that are commonly sent to customers and time-consuming for the team to put together manually.
For example, your customer service team might set up automated replies for emails to tell someone their message has been received and the team will resolve their issue soon.
You can also automate welcome emails for new subscribers, abandoned cart emails, or thank you emails when a customer completes a certain action.
To automate email responses, follow the steps provided by your email marketing provider, whether Google, Mailchimp, or another platform.
Many will have templates for you to choose from, or you can create your own. Add these to your email workflow, assigning specific triggers to determine when the email is sent.
Email response automation is a powerful tool, but it must be used correctly. We’ve shared some best practices to help you get started. Take these one at a time and carefully craft your approach.
One thing is certain: with the right automation strategy, you can eliminate the work, boost engagement, and maximize revenue. So, why not get started?