In today's dynamic business landscape where customer engagement stands as a pivotal factor for success, harnessing the potential of automated technology is more crucial than ever.

Among the tools at companies’ disposal, email automation has emerged as a powerhouse strategy for enhancing customer engagement.

As many as 71% of B2B marketing professionals use automation as a part of their email marketing practice. The technology offers brands the opportunity to connect more deeply with their audiences and even contribute to a higher conversion rate.
 
This article dives into the transformative impact of email automation through giving it a definition, exploring its benefits, and sharing a few tips on how you can implement it in your business for sustainable growth. 

What is email automation?

Email automation refers to technology used to send targeted and personalized emails to recipients at specific times or in response to certain actions. 

When incorporated into your marketing strategy, it streamlines communication, improves process efficiencies, and enhances engagement by delivering relevant content to the right people at the right moment. It can also support potential customers move through the marketing funnel at a higher speed.

What are the benefits of email automation?

Structured to contain an event-based automation trigger and a response that follows it, email automation offers a range of benefits that can improve your marketing efforts and boost customer engagement. Below are some of the reasons you should consider leveraging email automation. 
 

• Timely engagement 

Once you set up a triggered workflow – the trigger could be a sign-up, a purchase, or a simple click – the technology will deliver a timely message based on user behavior.
  
Automation triggers emails at the right moment, allowing you to be absent when the trigger occurs and thus maximizing email relevance for the target audience.  
 

• Personalization at scale 

With email automation in place, you can deliver tailored content based on user behavior and preferences, fostering deeper connections with your audience.  

Personalized emails generate 6x higher transactional rates. Businesses that recognize the value of a personal touch in the form of using a recipient’s name, or offering opt-out options on certain holidays that could be sensitive to the individual, show the consumers’ preferences are being considered, which can help support positive brand sentiment.  
 

• Time and resource savings 

When automated email technology does the manual work on your behalf, you have time to shift your focus to growing other parts of the business.  

By taking on batch processing, email segmentation, and even A/B testing, email automation platforms ensure that relevant content reaches the right audience without your constant presence and participation.
    

• Increased traffic and sales 

Depending on the industry, an email triggered due to cart abandonment can lead to a sales uplift of as high as 22%. Furthermore, drip campaigns – automated emails sent to subscribers or consumers over a specific period – can generate 50% more sales-ready leads.

In terms of website traffic, it becomes possible to drive more organic traffic by inviting your customers to click on a landing page-based campaign mentioned in the email.

Implementing effective email automation

You need to adopt a strategic approach when engaging your customers via email automation.
 
Apart from the steps involving building a targeted email list, segmenting your customers and designing automation workflows that trigger relevant messages, there are several things to keep in mind when optimizing your email automation strategy.

Create punchy email subject lines

Serving as the first impression for your prospects, email subject lines can make or break your email automation campaign. A well-crafted subject line sets the tone for the content inside and increases the likelihood of recipients taking the desired action.   

To take it up a notch, personalize the email subject line to increase your chances of it being opened by 22%.  

Avoid spamming your consumers’ inboxes

It’s important to send just the right number of emails to avoid ending up in your consumers’ email junk folder. Ideally, you should be sending a maximum of two bulk emails per week to your customer base. 
 
To avoid your brand being seen as spam, only send emails to those who opted to receive them from you. Avoid misleading subject lines, all-caps, and excessive symbols to prevent your prospect from unsubscribing and reduce the number of hard bounces.   

Invest time in creating email campaign assets

Don’t skip the crucial step of creating high-quality and visually engaging email campaign assets. Thoughtfully designed email templates help maintain a consistent brand image and message across all communications, reinforcing brand identity. 

Besides, attractive email campaign assets on hand act as an effective storytelling tool that supports your message’s narrative and story.  

Plan customer journeys 

Planning customer journeys makes it easy for you to send your prospects relevant content at every stage of their interaction with your brand. This results in higher engagement, increased email open rates and improved click-through rates.

Map out the customer journey in a way that aligns with your email automation. From welcome emails to order confirmation and customer feedback emails, a well-planned customer journey provides your consumers with a personalized and strategic experience that corresponds to their needs and behaviors.  

Elevating engagement through automated email experiences 

In the fast-paced arena of modern commerce, the elevation of customer engagement has become one of the defining factors for success. A sure way to boost this metric is to harness email automation which holds the key to fostering meaningful connections with your existing customers and prospects via a highly efficient channel.

By mapping your customers’ journey, optimizing your email subject lines, and using email marketing KPIs to track the performance of your emails, your email automation strategy is bound to improve engagement and support efforts to increase brand loyalty and boost customer retention.  

With THG Ingenuity’s global commerce platform, improving customer engagement is easy. Our integrated suite of digital solutions features a variety of services that help to retain and upsell to target audiences.  

Through leveraging the capabilities of our user-first CRM platform such as user flow automation and cart recovery, you can effectively maximize your Average Order Value (AOV) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).  

Embark on your journey to elevated engagement and extraordinary customer experiences with THG Ingenuity. Get in touch today.