5 tips to Build a Great Email Marketing Automation Strategy

Email marketing is one of the oldest and most reliable mobile marketing strategies out there. With the right elements in place, emails could be your ultimate weapon in marketing and improving your marketing campaign. But wait…what is email marketing automation?

Email marketing automation is basically sending out email campaigns automatically based on triggers (or automation workflows), categories, segments and schedules you create and set. You no longer have to type and send out a hundred emails every day manually (very time-consuming!). Instead, with automation you can arrange a set of messages and schedule them for a particular audience.

A successful email marketing automation strategy can:  

• Boost engagement along the customer journey 
• Increase revenue   
• Improve efficiency   

Are you excited yet? Now you might be wondering asking: “How can I build a successful email marketing automation strategy?”   

There are several different ways to do this, but we are here to give you the best. 

Here are five fail-proof steps for you to follow:  

1. Select a marketing automation tool
2. Segment your potential customers
3. Personalize your message and call to action
4. Perfect your mobile-friendly design
5. Analyze results

1. Select a marketing automation tool  

First, you will need to choose an excellent platform that will build your email marketing campaign and apply the best strategies to yield results. It should also have your prospective customers and their desires at heart.

When choosing a platform, look for credibility, reliability, and ongoing professionalism. Anything else would have your emails landing in spam, deliver low conversion rate and virtually no open rate.

(If you need help finding the right email marketing platform, try our checklist with 10 essential features every platform should have).

2. Segment your potential customers  

A very common mistake people make when working on their email marketing automation is this. “Oh, I can send multiple messages every day, so why don’t I compile everyone in one list and send them everything? I’ll get more responses, right?” Wrong.

Instead, you should segment email lists or categorize your customers based on the actions they’ve taken, how they discovered your product/service, what they purchased, and so on.  

Don’t confuse this with the usual “thank you for ordering” or “thanks for signing up” email though. Remember – we are talking about marketing email, so these have to be written and segmented strategically. Let’s say you have a segment of clients that purchased a particular product. You can email them saying:

“Hope you are enjoying the V1000 battery? Here is a list of similar products like the V1000 battery”.   

To improve your segments, build a targeted list. Truth be told, a lot of people subscribe and then never visit your site again. With a targeted list, you have a clearer AOC (area of concentration).  

3. Personalize your message and call to action 

The total number of business and consumer emails sent and received per day exceeded 319 billion in 2021. So, of course, you have to make yours stand out. And we don’t mean the regular “Dear [First Name]” form of personalization.

At this point, your segments are also vital because, thanks to them, you have records of who purchased what, how they registered and so on. Using this data, you can add and modify your email marketing strategy and make it hit just right. 

Personalizing your message is the best way to get the subscribers’ attention and create a better bond with them. It improves the quality of your customer service and makes each receiver feel less like a needle in a haystack.  

4. Perfect Your Mobile-Friendly Design  

Do you know what’s very annoying? Opening certain emails on your phone. We know that emails are accessible by both smartphones and laptops (or desktops), but the configurations for both are quite different. So you have adjust how the email looks when opened on any device.   

Creating a mobile-friendly email design is truly imperative with the climbing 68% mobile open rate. Here are a few ideas:

• Include sufficient clicking space for links
• Keep your emails concise
• Create captivating subject lines

Finding the right email service provider is imperative if you want a high-quality sophisticated template design that allows you to quickly drag and drop content.  

5. Analyze results  

“Try, try, try again, even if you don’t succeed, just try, try, try again” This is a rhyme we sang as children but never fully understood. There is no guarantee that your first attempt will be successful, but that doesn’t mean you should jump right into another process.  

On your first attempt, go with split testing. In split testing, you divide your contact list and try different templates. Then, when the results come back, here are the essential lead generation metrics to check:  

• View rate  
• Open rate  
• Click through rate  
• Conversion rate  

(If you want to learn more about email marketing KPIs, check out this article)

As similar as these look, they’re individually significant. Compare the results. Which template did better? Are you pleased with the results? And do they align with your KPIs? If not, get back to the drawing board, and don’t be afraid to try, try, try again.

With these tools up your sleeve, you’ll start killing the email marketing game in no time! With the help of automation, you can create high-performing campaigns and save time all at once.