20 Best Email Automation Tips for Marketing Workflows

1. Deliver a Powerful Welcome Email Workflow  

A welcome workflow determines what your entire customer relationship will be like. This will, in most cases, be the first impression of your brand that a subscriber will have- so it must be warm, informative and value-based. It must also ensure that the subscriber feels valued and looks forward to meaningful follow up.

• Send out the first welcome message immediately so that new subscribers receive recognition as soon as they are registered. This builds trust, creates effective communication, and demonstrates that your brand appreciates responsiveness quickly, during the initial contact.

• Get it straight with users, such as what kind of content you are going to deliver, how they will hear from you, and what kind of exclusive resources they will get. Setting the right expectations will lessen surprise in the future and prevent unsubscribes due to uncertainties in the future.

• Provide instant value with learning materials, member-exclusive perks, access to useful tools, etc., to put your authority to the fore. When people are offered value on day 1, they are motivated to look forward to subsequent emails.

• Tell the story of your brand, its mission, or values in order to establish an emotional fit. When your subscribers know your purpose, they develop trust in your brand.

2. Develop a Lead Nurturing Process

Lead nurturing helps move subscribers from awareness to consideration and ultimately to conversion. This flow does not force prospects to buy too soon but explains why your brand or product is worthy of their attention.

• Begin with educational content where the user is made aware of  the issues or the problems within the industry. This will enable you to establish you as an informed partner, rather than a salesperson, which will gain credibility in the long-term.

• Bring in case studies or stories of success, display real life results of the effectiveness of your product or service. These are social evidences and eliminate scepticism.

• Slowly start to showcase your products, describing your product features, benefits, and differentiators in a manner that does not seem salesy. A gradual introduction establishes a gradual interest without being overwhelming to the reader.

• Add powerful and unobtrusive CTAs, pointing to demos, trial or consult. The CTA should nudge them towards their next step in the decision-making process.

3. Introduce Behavior-based Triggered Emails

Behavior-based automation is adaptive to what the user does, i.e. making each communication relevant and timely. When emails react to the actual activity, they become personal and the level of engagement is enormous.

• Send out trigger emails when a user opens a page or a link like a pricing page or category of a certain product. Such emails may be more informative, compare and contrast, or remind users of specific areas of interest.

• Follow-ups can be sent on unfinished activities, e.g. half-completed forms, signups that have not been completed or half-completed browsing. The slightest hint will go a long way in terms of completion.

• Show customized information like the items that a user browsed, which will help in regaining their attention and motivating them to move along the funnel.

• Examine user behaviour closely, where frequent visits or repetition of actions can be used as a measure of high intent, so you can interact with them in a more strategic way.

4. Segment your Audience to Target More Specifically

Segmentation enables you to divide your audience into meaningful groups, in order to make your communication relevant, specific and valuable – instead of passive and generic.

• Divide prospects demographically based on their age, region, gender or profession. This will enable you to make announcements about the region or make personalized offers depending on groups of users.

• Segment depending on behavioral patterns, distinguishing between frequent consumers, occasional consumers or leads who have been truly interested. Addressing each group of behavior specifically enhances the relevancy and conversion.

• Separate by activity, where active subscribers can get unique content and the inactive ones can be re-engaged through incentives or preference refreshers.

• Create high sophistication segmentation with browsing history or purchase behavior or product affinity to generate highly targeted messages.

5. Implement Cart Abandonment Email Messages

Abandoned cart automation is among the most converting types of workflows since it re-advertises shoppers when their buying intentions are at their highest point. 

Buyers frequently abandon shopping carts because they get distracted, confused or need time. Automated cart reminders assist in reminding them by integrating transparency and comfort.

• The initial reminder should be sent within an hour because this is the most critical time to nudge prospects to buy the product, as it is still fresh in their minds. 

• Display the precise products that have been abandoned with photos, dimensions, colours or characteristics. This visual reminder makes it easier for them to remember what made them select the item in the first place.

• Respond to the most frequent objections, which include shipment fears, refund challenges or product incompatibility. Clarity will minimize reluctance and enable the users to make the purchase with ease.

• Create a sense of urgency or offer incentives e.g. limited stock notifications or small discount codes will help to push final conversions without looking too sales-driven.

6. Design an After Sales Follow-Up Process

The purchase does not end after a customer has made a purchase. Post purchase flow enhances loyalty, lowers buyer’s remorse and stimulates repeat purchasing. 

• Send them a warm thanks message, that is authentic and appreciative. This builds trust and demonstrates your brand values relationships and not transactions.

• Include comprehensive product manuals, help manuals, maintenance manuals or tips of use. This makes the customers satisfied as they get maximum value out of what they purchased.

• Offer add-ons, with recommendations that are well-considered and truly beneficial and not just a spam-like upsell. This develops credibility and more revenue in the long run.

7. Build Re-Engagement Workflows for Inactive Subscribers

With time, a number of subscribers may be inactive, resulting in decreased deliverability and interaction. Re-engagement processes can be used to reinstate their interest, reminding the user of what they are missing out on.

• Call attention to changes, additions or developments and demonstrate to the users that since the last time they engaged with the brand, things have changed. This leaves them curious and willing to explore the new offerings.

• Provide minor rewards/special benefits, like exclusive access to resources, discounts, or exclusive access, as a way of giving them a strong incentive to come back.

• Open up content preferences, whereby users may select content topics, frequency or format, to enhance future relevance and minimize unsubscribes.

• Show actual care, with human-focused communication such as “we miss you”, which appeals to the emotional side of buyers.

8. Automate Birthday and Anniversaries Emails

Congratulatory emails form intimate experiences between the brand and the subscriber are a win. These communications are important in creating an association with buyers which goes beyond just business.

• Send personalized messages with greetings that recognize the special day of the subscriber in a personal, genuine manner. This creates emotional attachment, where the recipient feels appreciated.

• Provide some intuitive offer or commission—like a birthday discount or anniversary gift—that will motivate purchase intentions.

• Apply celebratory designs and supporting language, ensuring that the email is aesthetically festive, and that the language is in tandem with the event.

9. Develop Teaching or Value-Based Emails

Educational sequences make your brand a leader. Rather than making a sales push, you create trust by providing knowledge, solutions, and valuable information to enable the user to grow or make informed decisions.

• Begin with easy-to-understand material, give a basic description, step-by-step instructions or an introduction that is easy and comfortable.

• Provide intermediate resources, including 

• Frameworks.
• Toolkits.
• Templates.
• Strategy breakups.

This is to assist subscribers to understand better without being overwhelmed.

• Add sophisticated learning points, like case studies or professional methods, to build your image as an industry thought leader.

10. Automate Review Requests and Feedback

Customer reviews are crucial in enhancing the product’s reach, improving services and achieving better conversions in the future. 

• Send out review requests once the user has used the product, most often in 3-7 days.

• Describe why their feedback is valuable, emphasizing the importance of it to future customers and product upgrades.

• Ensure that the review process is seamless by providing direct links, using simple questions or single-click rating.

11. Build Lead Scoring into Your Email Automation

Lead scoring helps your system to differentiate between the leads that are close to being converted and those that need extra nurturing. This way high-intent users will be able to view timely and targeted messaging.

• Assign points on high-intent actions, like visits to a specific webpage,  webinar registration, or pricing-page visits, and your system will be able to recognize who is showing genuine interest.

• Auto-forward hot leads into specific conversion sequences so that they get persuasive messages at the appropriate time, and not generic messages.

• Filter low-intent by pushing them towards learning processes that gear them up to make conversions in the future, without bombarding them with sales-related content.

• Apply score levels to initiate activities such as alerting sales departments, sending emails or making calls on leads that have attained a certain level of readiness.

12. A/B Test Each of the Major Automation Flows

A/B testing will make sure that your automation process does not stay static, but evolves with time. Even a tiny change in open or click rates can have a major impact on long term revenue.

• Trials on subject lines: Test subject lines continuously, experimenting with tone, length, personalization and emotive wording to find out which lines work best with your audience.

• Compare email format, e.g. long or short format, image-rich or text-driven style, or narrative-style or message-oriented format.

• Test and be creative with CTAs, placement, design, wording and frequency to maximize click-through rates.

• Schedule emails, based on information about when various segments are most engaged, and automatically schedule mails at these times.

13. Personalize at Scale with Dynamic Content

Dynamic content is automatically altered according to the user information, and it allows crafting highly personalized emails without the need to manually create multiple variations. This renders automation more human and flexible.

• Target product offers, so that each email is personalized to the user, by displaying products that are in line with their purchase and browsing history.

• Show regionalized offers, localizing currencies, languages and promotions so that the email is relevant no matter where the subscriber is located.

• Use conditional blocks, where sections are presented or concealed based on user activities, to ensure that every subscriber is only presented with content that has the most significance to them.

• Provide multi-path messaging, in which the email is optimized to beginners, advanced users, or loyal customers, based on data stored about them.

14. Use Milestone Emails to Celebrate Customer Achievements

Milestones help to track progress and make subscribers feel appreciated, building an emotional attachment to your brand experience.

Reward usage milestones, including course completion or level of membership, to make customers feel valued.

• Reward loyalty milestones, such as anniversary, cumulative orders, or years of being active, which strengthens the feeling of belonging.

• Provide incentives based on milestones, such as special badges, discounts, or a higher quality of content, to keep them interested.

• Present factual storytelling, demonstrate to customers how they have progressed and how much they have acquired, which strengthens their association with your brand.

15. Automate Cross-Sell and Upsell Email Campaigns

These workflows help in revenue generation since they enable the exposure of customers to related or premium products at the time when they are the most open.

• Make complementary recommendations, but they should be useful and should seem to make sense in relation to the purchase made by the customer, which would add to customer satisfaction.

• Describe the advantages of upgrades and demonstrate how higher levels of your product or service address more fundamental issues and provide improved results, such that the upsell does not seem an unnecessary addition.

• Apply comparison images, which will demonstrate features differences between product levels clearly, to make customers automatically gravitate towards higher levels of product.

• Timing-based trigger offers like upselling nearer to the renewal period of subscription or following the recurrent usage trends of the customers.

16. Enhance Transactional Emails Strategically

The most commonly opened emails include transactional e-mails such as confirmations and receipts. Better design and tone in these emails allow you to gain the audience’s respect and worth even in the face of ordinary communication.

• Make it human, friendly to customers, without being cold or passive.

• Provide valuable advice, like follow-ups or frequently asked questions, or links to customer support, which makes it less confusing and prevents the situation when a customer needs help.

• Provide some personalization (suggestion of items to add or instructions that address the user specifically), but do not overload the main point of the email.

• Make sure that there are no errors in formatting them, the critical information must be easily accessible, and the layouts must be aesthetically presentable.

17. Apply AI-Led Tactics in Email Automation

AI has been used to advance email automation where hyper-personalized experiences are generated through predicting behaviour.

Optimize the time of sending messages, when each subscriber is most likely to see e-mail, to make sure that each message arrives at the most appropriate time.

• Anticipate purchase, by using AI to predict the behaviour pattern of the user, and create more persuasive workflows to high-intent users.

• Create customized content including dynamic suggestions or interest-based messages which match user interests.

• Automate the deep segmentation, where users are grouped according to the machine-learned information instead of intuition.

18. Webinar/ Event Communication Automation

Event work flow maintains high audience interest, pre-event, during and post events. Repeated notifications guarantee the attendance and the follow-up after the event.

• Send confirmations immediately, including event information, joining links and calendar attachments to ensure less confusion and better preparedness.

• Set multi-stage reminders, e.g., 

• One week prior
• One day prior
• One hour prior

It makes sure that attendees don’t forget about the event.

• Publish session content (recording, slides, summaries or bonus material) after a session, which adds value in the long-term. 

19. Create Automated Win-Back Campaigns

Win-back processes are aimed at users or customers with a long history of inactivity. These are flows which revive interest and reduce churn.

Remind dormant users about the good experiences that they had in the past, and nudge them towards reconnecting emotionally with the value they can expect to receive.

• Showcase new features or improvements, showing how the brand has developed and the good that it would do to them.

• Provide a special reward, based on their browsing or purchase record, with higher chances of reactivation.

• Make it easier to navigate this process by providing simplified activation links, simple log-in, or suggested features.

20. Automate Electronic Loyalty/ Rewards Program Emails

Customers feel valued and important through the use of the loyalty workflows which in turn encourage them to buy and stay with the company.

Automatically update balances on spend points, remind customers to redeem a valuable reward, get them more motivated.

• Reward tier upgrades, with customized messaging that recognizes the achievements and promotes the perceived status of the customer.

• Use reward reminders, which reminds customers to redeem their points before they expire, which is beneficial to both the engagement and sales.

• Provide early or VIP privileges, which make loyal customers feel unique and belong to a special group.

Conclusion

Email automation is much more than a technical capability –  it is also a strategic business approach that can assist a brand to nurture, educate, convert, and retain a customer at various points of the customer journey when done properly. 

Appropriate automation processes will ensure that the businesses are able to deliver value to audiences in a personalized manner at scale, and also reduce workload and enhance the efficiency of marketing. 

These 20 tips provide a full-scale blueprint in developing workflows that are conscious, human and effective. Email automation is a potent growth and customer retention driver where personalization, timing, and value coincide to create a consistent and long-lasting growth and retention strategy.