6 Must-Have Email Automation Flows For Your Business

When it comes to email marketing, there are a dozen types of email flows that can help you build meaningful customer relationships and improve sales. However, this is the case only when they are done right. Sending out inconsistent and irrelevant emails that are not in the best interests of your customers can cause your customers to classify your emails as “inbox clutter” and could eventually hurt your bottom line.

Successful email marketing lies in identifying and delivering the right flow at the right time. Unfortunately, most brands and businesses have no clue which email campaigns are worth prioritizing and when.

In this blog, we are going to walk you through the different types of email automation, the goals behind each of them, and how you can deploy them to your own business.

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What are Email Flows?

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Email flow or email automation is a sequence of triggered emails that are set up in advance and sent in response after a prospect has taken some sort of action. Like in any marketing endeavor, the end goal is to eventually contribute to sales.

From reminding the prospect of an abandoned cart to upselling products after they’ve purchased, there are a ton of ways to achieve that goal, and here are a few…

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1. Welcome Flow

With an average open rate of 82%, the welcome email is considered to be one of the most important and must-have email flow for any business out there. High engagement rates like that present a wonderful opportunity for businesses to introduce their products, and brand mission because at that point in time, their attention and excitement are at peak levels.

A welcome series is basically an introductory email that’s sent to new subscribers who’ve signed up to your mailing list either through a lead magnet or an email newsletter sign-up via your website. By delivering a series of 3-4 emails, you can leverage the chance to educate them on your brand values and build rapport  with your future customers.

An effective welcome email sequence must include the following objectives:

• Greet and welcome your subscribers to your community.
• Share your brand story, values, vision, and mission.
• Inform subscribers about what to expect from future emails
• Highlight your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)
• Encourage your subscribers to connect with you on social media.
• Ask them to whitelist the email or add it to the primary inbox.

While welcome emails don’t have to be strictly meet and greet only, you could even provide subscribers with incentives such as discounts or coupon codes to make a purchase. 

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2. Nurturing Flow

Now that you have your customers well settled in, it's time to nurture them towards the ultimate end goal. Now, this doesn’t mean that you blast out a series of promotions with a discount offer slapped across the email in a gigantic font. NADA!

While you could include products and offers in these emails, that shouldn’t be the focus. 

Instead, you should be focusing on leading nurturing. Lead nurturing is a process where you nudge subscribers through each stage of the buyer’s journey, ultimately driving them to make a purchase.

Going by the typical AIDA funnel…

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Awareness: During the initial emails, educate about the problems that are relevant to your audience and offer tips, tactics, and solutions to overcome them. Prioritize education and guide them to your blog library and social media content.

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Interest: Gradually begin to stir their interest by talking about your products, sharing the benefits and transformation that’s possible. Talk about what makes your product unique and show how that unique feature can help them reach their intended goal.

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Desire: Build on the desire and FOMO by sharing customer testimonials, case studies, and reviews.

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Action: Make it easier for them to take the final call by raising the stakes and offering incentives.

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3. Abandoned Cart Flow

Cart abandonment is one of the major leaks in most marketing funnels, especially more so in e-commerce brands. In fact, it is known that more than 70% of consumers abandon carts at checkout. Sometimes all this precarious situation needs is an email sequence to gently nudge subscribers to the buy button. 

Enter the abandoned cart email sequence.

Automatically triggered whenever a customer fails to complete their purchase, the task of abandoned cart emails is to simply remind and entice customers to come back and complete the purchase. 

However, firing out just a single email won’t do the job. The reasonable strategy is to send out a series of 3 automated emails. When building your abandoned cart flow, timing is everything. 

The first email is to remind them of the items that they’ve abandoned in the cart along with the link to the checkout cart so that they can resume and complete the transaction almost instantly. Send this email within the first 24 hours.

For those who’ve still not engaged, you could send out a second email offering a discount or communicating scarcity 48 hours later.

For the final and subsequent email, you could offer an elevated discount or free shipping 72 hours later.

Pro Tip: Feel free to highlight benefits, overcome objections, and link to FAQs to encourage customers and give yourself the best chance for success.

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4. Transactional Email Flow

Transactional mail is an email that’s sent in response to an individual performing a specific transactional task such as an order purchase or account creation. The main purpose of a transactional email is to deliver the expected and necessary information to the customer at the right time. While they are often overlooked, these emails are crucial to maintaining lasting relationships and creating a positive brand experience.

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The most common transactional emails that you must include in your marketing strategy are…

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Confirmation emails

You’ve probably come across instances where you opt-in to a newsletter and then immediately see a pop-up asking you to check your email and confirm it again. 

That right there is a confirmational email. 

With the main purpose of authentication and email verification, these emails are usually sent after a user opts in to either create an account, access a lead magnet, or subscribe to a newsletter. 

Next, we have the order confirmation — the most anticipated email for all consumers. An order confirmation email is simply a re-iteration of the order summary — the amount and items purchased. Along with it, it is also recommended to include details such as order number, package number, and customer service contact details.

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Notification emails

These are emails that provide further communication to keep your customers in the loop about their orders. It includes information about real-time updates of their order. It includes data such as order dispatch, shipping notifications, estimated delivery times, and delivery confirmation.

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Password reset emails

With plenty of platforms and social media channels around, it can be definitely hard for anyone to keep track of all their possible passwords. Password reset emails are one of the most essential emails to help users get back to their accounts and engage with the business. Not having an effective password reset email could mean that users turn their backs and you risk losing their business forever.

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Purchase detail emails

Once an order is placed you need to make sure you follow up with the transaction receipt to assure the customer that their order has gone through. You can do this effortlessly by integrating your payment processing platform with your email service provider. 

5. Win-back/Re-Engagement Flow

After a certain point in time, some subscribers may stop engaging with your emails. Don’t worry! Nearly all businesses have a large number of dormant subscribers who haven’t opened their emails in months. As it turns out, by using an automated re-engagement sequence or a “win back sequence”, you can rekindle relationships with your customers and win them back to your site.

 Having low open rates could also mean that all your subsequent emails will most likely end up in the Promotions or Spam folder. By deploying win-back flows you can filter out the disengaged bunch from your list and thus show Google bots and spam filters that your emails are of value and are being read. 

Some tips to keep in mind when creating a re-engagement campaign:

• Use curiosity-piquing, compelling subject lines to get them to open the email.
• Reactivate customers with an irresistible deal. It could be a free product, coupon, or chance to win something.
• Remind customers that they haven’t engaged with you in a  while.
• Check in with them by asking them to respond to a questionnaire or survey.
• If they still fail to engage, inform them that they will be deleted from your database. 
• And then finally, follow through with your word by deleting them. You’ll be thankful later!

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6. Upsell/Cross-Sell Flow

The purpose of an upsell/cross email flow is to get customers to upgrade or complement their recent purchase. 

For example, suppose you are an E-commerce brand that sells women’s apparel. If a customer purchases a jacket from your store, you could either cross-sell it by suggesting complementary products such as a top, jeans, and boots for a complete look. Or you could upsell a more expensive jacket made with premium material and features.

Research has shown that the probability of selling to a warm audience like your current customers is 14 times higher than selling to a customer that hasn’t heard about you. Plus, it is way easier to create a personalized and relevant email campaign for your current customer than create a random, best-guess email to a new customer.

Apart from improving sales and increasing Average Order Value (AOV), these flows can also convert one-time customers into loyal advocates. So you should definitely consider sending out loyalty programs and referral emails to acquire business from your best customers.

Upselling and cross-selling flows perform best when sent immediately after a purchase or when it’s time to replenish the bought item. While using these flows personalization and relevancy must be on top of mind. If not, you might come off as pushy and too salesy.

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Conclusion

Email flows make the process of building relationships so much easier in this  social media era. Also not to mention they make it less dependent on the sometimes unreliable world of social media thus giving you more direct and intimate access to your customer and a greater opportunity for building strong relationships. 

If you’re looking to refine your email marketing strategy without having to figure it out all by yourself, do reach out to Growthhub.

At Growthhub, we’re obsessed with helping businesses like yours get the growth it deserves. 

Get in touch with us and we can match you with videographers, marketers, content creators, and influencers in as little as 24 hrs. We screen and pre-vet the marketers on our platform, so you don’t have to. Book a call with us today!