Automation

2. Implementing automation with a plan

With automation, you respond appropriately to the actions and needs of your contacts. You prepare email messages that are sent based on the behaviour of your contacts to send them adapted, personalised messages at the right moment.

To make sure that your automated flows are a success, we’ll walk you through the 4 most important components:

1. Triggers
2. Workflows
3. Contact details
4. Content

Triggers

With automation, you don't send your campaign to a preselected group. Triggers determine whether the campaign goes out, they are scripts that constantly check whether the message is relevant to send.

Some examples of common triggers:

• Newsletter subscription: a subscription to your newsletter is the perfect moment to give your new lead a warm welcome and some information about your company. More about the benefits of good welcome emails below.
• Repeat purchases: do you offer products or services that are repeatedly needed? If you sell contact lenses, for example, you can send customers an email every six months with a reminder about their new contacts. This shows your commitment and they feel personally addressed.
• Inactive contacts: contacts that have not interacted with your brand for a certain time can be reactivated with an automatic mailflow. A we-miss-you-message emphasises that personal approach again and reminds recipients of previous benefits. Do they remain inactive? Then they probably don’t belong to your target group (anymore) and you can clean up your list.
• Event registration: did a contact register for an event? Then it's best to design a flow with registration details, but also a reminder right before the event or even teasers about the content to warm up your audience. This way, your event stays top-of-mind and you optimise attendance.
• Abandoned shopping cart: if someone added a product to their cart but then left, it is best to send them a reminder. That way, you can be sure they haven't just forgotten about you and increase the chances that they will buy after all.

Welcome emails

A trigger is just as easy to use for entire workflows as it is for sending only a few emails, such as welcome emails or welcome flows.

A few statistics:

Workflows

Workflows are series of successive emails that serve the same purpose and thus form part of a larger whole. The emails from your workflow are all set up at the same time. As soon as a contact activates the right trigger for a workflow, they start receiving the emails.

You can identify different types of workflows for your own brand, but certain types are very effective overall:

• Nurture flow: this is one of the most important types. With lead nurturing, you guide leads through the customer journey and help them make a purchase. So once you know someone is interested in a product or service, you further support them in their search.
  With a lead nurturing workflow, you use email to provide that support. You create different touchpoints where you give them valuable information or commercial advantages. This way you also build a strong relationship with each lead. Perfect your lead nurture flow with these 4 recipes and examples of typical lead nurture flows.
• Welcome flow: when your lead finally converts, it is best to activate a series of welcome emails. That way, you not only confirm that the registration or purchase was successful, but you also show appreciation for what they did. They feel welcome. Moreover, in such a series, you can frame who you are and create expectations to immediately start building a relationship.
• Reactivation flow: this flow is meant to reactivate inactive contacts. For example, you set the trigger to send based on how long it has been since they visited your website, downloaded something or opened your newsletter. With a discount code, a valuable piece of content or an offer for your products, you can reignite their interest in your company.
• Event workflow: with a specific workflow for events, you keep the event top-of-mind and your contacts enthusiastic. Your flow can include sharing event data, teasing with speaker interviews, giving practical information with directions, asking for feedback and sharing material after the event and much more.
• Recurring events: events that recur at set times are the ideal time to connect with your audience. Birthdays, the anniversary of their subscription, a specific purchase like contact lenses that needs to be renewed at regular intervals: they give you the opportunity to approach contacts on a very personal level and thus not only strengthen your relationship, but also keep the communication active.

Setting up a workflow

In order to set up an effective workflow, it is best to be very organised. The following 8 steps will help you make every workflow goal-oriented for the best results.

1

Identify your audience: as you already know, personalisation is crucial. If your customer relationship management or CRM is optimal, you have a lot of relevant information about your customers. Based on that, you can easily identify their needs and know who is eligible for, say, an upsell flow.

2

Determine your goal: do your contacts need to learn, buy, download, fill in something? Depending on what you want to achieve, adjust the content and structure of your campaigns for the best results.

3

Define criteria: not only for personalisation, but also for achieving your goal, you need to know your contacts well. This way you will know whether they meet the requirements for a certain flow. For example, customers who previously purchased a product but then left a bad review should be given a different flow than those who were very happy.

4

Identify the actions for your software: do certain emails need to be sent out delayed, are updates needed? Register the events in your campaign very accurately so that your software knows what to do.

5

Create what you need: once you know the framework of your mailflow, create the layout, text, content and everything else that you need in practical terms to send your mails.

6

Set up the campaigns: create your flow in your CRM software and add all the necessary content.

7

Check your set-up and the content of each part of your workflow, but also of the bigger picture. Test your mailflow with A/B testing or a trial version for yourself and your colleagues.

8

Analyse the results and see what opportunities you have to optimise. See how contacts interact with your campaign, what other actions they take, and most importantly, whether you are achieving your goal. Then get to work with your findings to make your flow even better.

Contact details

In your email marketing, you go by the personal milestones and customer journey stages of each contact.

In lifecycle email marketing, you take it one step further: the triggers there are not actions, but personal events. Birthdays, follow-up messages and the anniversary of their subscription are just a few examples.

Customer journey

There are 5 phases that your leads and customers go through and which you can best anticipate in your workflows:

1. Prospect: contact shows interest in your products or services, but doesn’t yet know you well.
   • Welcome programme: keeping attention and preparing for further interaction.
2. Nurture: interest turns into intention to convert.
   • Lead nurturing flow: you take your prospect by the hand and show them with various pieces of content why it is best for them to buy.
   
   
   Tip: In these series, alternate free content (blog articles, case studies, references) with commercial content with a call to action (download another white paper, register another event, subscribe to a newsletter, request a demo).
3. Activate: transition to conversion.
   • Conversion flow: you send more commercial emails and (personalised) purchase aids.
4. Retain: retain customers and prepare them for follow-up purchases.
   • Follow-up flow: ask their opinion about their experience, show related products...
5. Advocate: satisfied customers act as ambassadors for your brand and generate new customers.
   • Loyalty flow: send personalised messages, suggest products based on their preferences...

Content

Setting up emails is the same for stand-alone emails as it is for workflows. Landing pages, CTAs, images, text, subjects...: you determine them strategically just like the rest.

With workflows, however, you must ensure that you finish all emails at the same time and that your campaign only contains fully completed emails. It’s the only way to ensure that each contact receives a quality message and not a half-finished message.

It is a good idea to group all necessary content per campaign. That way, you centralise everything and build your campaigns quickly and effectively.