The co-founder of Flickr and Slack Stewart Butterfield once said,
“There's a lot of automation that can happen that isn't a replacement of humans but of mind-numbing behavior.” This can be especially true when it comes to automated email responses.
Have you ever signed up for an online class, or a special seminar advertising “5 Easy Steps to (Start a Podcast, Live a Plant-based Life, Write a Cover Letter or Make the Most Out of Your Life)?”
As soon as you sign up, you probably get an email telling you how smart you were to make that decision. Then you get daily (or weekly, or whatever fits the offer) emails congratulating you on moving on to the next step … despite the fact that you haven’t even visited their site.
Or you get reminders about a terrific offer … which you already bought/downloaded/scheduled an appointment for.
How does that make you feel? Are you more inclined to work with that company … or are you frustrated that they really don’t “get” you?
That’s the problem with autoresponders. The “auto” part doesn’t really care what you do, think or say. It’s going to charge forward relentlessly until it’s completed the appointment tasks.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Correction, it really SHOULDN’T be that way.
There’s still value in using email automation, it just has to be the right kind of email automation. Check out these top reasons for using email automation:
- Save Time
- Better Lead Generation
- More Revenue
- Higher Customer Retention
- Track Marketing Campaign ROI
- Shorten the Sales Cycle
Here are some relevant automated email marketing statistics that demonstrate its value:
- 49% of companies use some type of email automation.
- 68.5% of responders believe that email automation helped improve the targeting of messages.
- 51% of those surveyed believed that the use of personalized messages was one of the best automation tactics.
- 60% of business-to-business marketers described relevance of communications and improved user experience as the top advantage of using marketing automation.
Now you might be asking yourself, how SHOULD effective email automation work? It should operate seamlessly and have a flow to it.
Ideal communication flow:
- You sign up for an offer
- You either get that immediately, or an email with a link to redeem the offer.
- Did you get the offer? Then you get emails about the next step.
- You didn’t click the link? Then you get reminders to take step one.
- You still haven’t visited the course page with the first module? You won’t get reminders to complete the second module until you’ve done that. If you wait too long, we’ll check in to see if you’re still interested, stuck, or want to resume at a later time.
The key is keeping your audience fully engaged through timely, relevant, personalized messages. You’re probably thinking it’s too difficult to implement a customized email message process that works for you and your customers. But here’s the thing: it isn’t.
Yes, you have to put a little thought into the process - but it's as much a one-and-done setup as your initial robot responder was. All you need is an email marketing system that lets you segment customers by behaviors (opens, clicks) and page visits.
Need help making this work for you? Set up a free call with us, and we’ll give you some pointers!