Email workflow automation takes over administrative tasks such as following up on sales inquiries, sending targeted promotions, and requesting feedback after a purchase. This helps teams save time, enhance productivity, and retain consistency across all communications.
As you can imagine, this type of automation streamlines lead nurturing processes, increases conversion rates, and boosts engagement. Moreover, teams can focus more on crafting persuasive messages and building efficient pipelines.
Let’s dive deeper into email workflow automation, explore popular tools, and discuss best practices that will help you get the most out of your campaigns.
What is email workflow automation
Email workflow automation is the process of leveraging software to send pre-defined emails based on user actions or specific events.
User action is something that your visitors or customers may do while interacting with your brand. This includes downloading content from your platform, subscribing to the newsletter, or requesting a demo.
To that, specific events are holiday seasons or industry breakthroughs that necessitate sending offers or updates to the recipients.
The key components of email workflow automation include:
- Triggers: These are the events and user actions that initiate the workflow, like a user signing up.
- Actions: The automated task that the trigger executes, like sending a welcome email.
- Conditions: Rules that define the criteria that need to be met before a mail is sent, like “if a new user signs up, send them the welcome email.”
- Sequences: A series of emails sent over time that nurture emails, like a quick start guide email after the welcome message.
This is great for lead nurturing, post-purchase follow-ups, onboarding sequences, and more. It allows teams to complete a lot of tedious, repetitive tasks in minutes or even seconds.
Additionally, efficient email workflow automation can support revenue recognition by ensuring timely communication and fulfillment updates that meet the conditions required to recognize revenue. For example, automated emails confirming product delivery or service completion help businesses promptly recognize revenue in line with accounting standards.
Email workflow automation templates and examples
Templates, as pre-built frameworks, help set the foundations of email workflow automation while still allowing room for customization.
The four popular email workflow automation templates include:
1. Welcome email series
The welcome email series is triggered when an interested prospect joins a mailing list or a customer makes their first purchase. These messages are crucial for introducing yourself, setting expectations, and engaging the new recipient.
It establishes initial contact with your prospect or customer and provides them with resources they might need to learn about your offerings. This includes a quick thank you for choosing you, an introduction to the offerings and their configurations, and support content.
In some cases, you can also send over a special offer to encourage the first purchase.
Headspace, a mental health company, sends a warm welcome email that sets user expectations from the get-go:
2. Abandoned cart emails
The abandoned cart emails remind your potential customers that they have chosen products or services they want to motivate them to complete the purchase. There can be several messages in such a campaign, such as regular reminders and offer notifications.
This assists businesses in recovering lost sales by encouraging users to finish the checkout process.
These emails contain a clear call-to-action (CTA) — a direct link to the cart, making it easier for the recipient to complete the purchase.
Loftie, a wellness company that creates products to rest and relax, sends a coupon to encourage customers to complete the purchase:
3. Re-engagement campaigns
Re-engagement campaigns are triggered when a subscriber hasn’t interacted with your brand or an existing customer hasn’t purchased in a while. The key objective is to pique the interest of the prospects again and ultimately reduce churn rates.
These email workflow automation campaigns are designed to win back leads or buyers’ attention. And it’s essential for teams to personalize the re-engagement emails if they’re to be impactful.
Additionally, you can include a survey to learn why they have been inactive for a while.
Duolingo, a popular app to help you learn new languages, motivates you to get back to work when you take a few days off:
Notice how they have incorporated various engaging elements such as a direct CTA to get back to your lessons, what other learners have achieved when you were away to create a sense of FOMO, and an encouraging message to push you to act.
4. Post-purchase follow up
As the name suggests, the post-purchase follow-up email automation workflow is initiated when a customer completes a purchase. The messages may include questions that reveal insights about the checkout experience and feedback on the products or services leveraged.
You can also offer product usage tips to enable the buyers to get the most out of their investment.
The given actions bring the customers closer to your brand because they send empathetic signals. Such follow-ups can play a pivotal role in improving retention and boosting customer lifetime value (CLTV).
Coffee Lab, a premium roaster, sends a heartfelt message after a customer makes a purchase and requests their feedback. Plus, there’s an option to get in touch via a chat feature.
How to create an automated email workflow
I won’t dwell too much to lead you in but focus on a stepped approach you can immediately follow to create your workflow. So, here it is.
1. Define your goal
The objectives of your automated email workflow can range from nurturing leads, educating current customers, and re-engaging inactive prospects. This informs the types of triggers you need to set and messages you need to send.
2. Identify triggers
Determine the events that initiate your email sequences on a tangible level. These are usually IF-THEN statements. For instance, “if a visitor downloads a whitepaper, then send them a thank you email and offer a demo.” Incorporating a mutual action plan with the sales team ensures that these triggers align with key stages in the buyer’s journey, creating a seamless experience from marketing engagement to sales outreach.
3. Segment your audience
The leads in your pipeline might not be ready to buy now. Moreover, each of them may want a different value from your brand. Therefore, it’s vital to group all the contacts in your database based on criteria like pain points, demographics, or purchase history.
Doing that enables you to personalize your automated email workflow which increases its efficiency in making a sale.
4. Create and map out the email sequence
Once the trigger is set, outline the email sequence for a particular audience segment. In the case of a new subscriber, for example, this could include a first welcome email, a follow-up to include additional resources, and a personalized offer.
It’s crucial to be mindful of the timing here. You do not want to overwhelm your recipients with too many promotional messages.
5. Set conditions and actions
The conditions are the email triggers and the actions are what your email automation software is pre-programmed to do. As indicated earlier, these are the “IF” statements that determine the course of action in your email automation workflow when the conditions are met or unmet.
For instance, “if the welcome email isn’t opened within three days, send a gentle reminder and decrease the lead score by 5 units.” Alternatively, “if the welcome email is opened in three days, send a follow-up with more resources and increase the lead score by 3 units.”
6. Test the workflow
As there are a lot of moving parts in a typical email automation workflow, teams should evaluate it in all aspects before setting it live. Testing also help spot areas of improvement, such as message enhancements.
7. Monitor and optimize
Key performance indicators (KPIs) include open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. Keep in mind that the data is tracked with the permission of your prospects and customers to avoid legal fines and reputational damage.
Best practices while setting up email workflow automation
Planning and implementing email workflow automation requires keen attention to detail while making data-backed decisions. Here are some best practices that will help you get started quickly in this journey:
1. Identify tangible metrics from the beginning
Based on your goals for email workflow automation, recognize the measurable parameters that reflect the progress towards them. For instance, if your objective is to improve customer engagement, then you should focus on click-through rates.
2. Segment audience based on value
As we mentioned earlier, each visitor on your website looks for a different value. Grouping them based on the common value makes it easier for you to write personalized messages. This increases the efficacy of your email campaigns and the ROI of the overall automation workflow.
3. Personalize content with AI
Speaking of personalization, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies can assist in summarizing a client’s profile including past interactions to suggest replies. So, you can write messages that resonate better with your audience without sacrificing productivity.
4. Space emails out strategically
Nobody wants to hear from a business every day, even if their products are amazing and services are best in class. A good rule of thumb is to schedule your messages 2-4 days apart in your email workflow automation.
3 best email workflow automation software for businesses
Useful email workflow automation software allows teams to focus on writing and sending messages that deliver value to their recipients and boost sales. Here are three tools that businesses can consider:
1. Klaviyo
Klaviyo is a marketing automation platform primarily designed for eCommerce businesses. It has become a popular choice among online retailers due to features like real-time segmentation, behavior tracking, and pre-built email workflows.
Teams can quickly set up simple email automations such as welcome series, cart abandonment reminders, and post-purchase follow-ups. Of course, its intuitive interface also makes it easy to create custom workflows for specific use cases.
The free tier allows businesses to store up to 250 contacts and send 500 emails per month. Paid plans begin at $20/month where users can access advanced functionalities. The price then changes based on the number of contacts and emails sent.
Its robust features make it a great option for eCommerce businesses and online sellers.
2. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation platform that offers robust functionalities. Teams can integrate it seamlessly with their CRM solutions to segment their contacts and send personalized messages. The email workflow automation builder is intuitive and easy to use, even for non-technical professionals.
The plans for ActiveCampaign begin from $19/month for 1,000 contacts with limited automation features.
This solution is great for B2B marketing teams with extensive email workflow automation needs.
3. Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a popular email marketing platform that offers features like customizable templates, A/B testing, and audience segmentation. This can preferred by teams looking to automate their email workflows but also want a minimalist tool to streamline their marketing efforts.
The free plan allows up to 500 contacts, with 1,000 sends per month. The premium plans are charged based on the number of contacts. The lowest tier begins at $13/month for 500 contacts with 10x the sending limit.
Mailchimp can be a solid option for small businesses and startups with limited email marketing needs who need an easy-to-use tool.
Wrapping up
Email workflow automation makes it easier for teams to send timely and relevant messages quickly to their customers. It also simplifies the process of personalizing messages to increase the overall effectiveness of email marketing.
But, keep in mind that email workflow automation requires continuous iterations to remain effective over time. Track the relevant metrics such as open rates and conversion rates to discover areas of improvement.