How to Use Email Automation to Make Money While You Sleep
Sending individual messages to a large customer base may prove counterproductive. With email automation, you can send pre-built email sequences to your customers at scale — even while you sleep. This article will provide an insight into how to use email automation to make money while you sleep.
Imagine for a moment that you can send the right offer with the right message to the right customer at the right time. You can send personalized messages to prospects and customers, day or night — to make more money.
Sounds too good to be true, right? With the right email automation tool and strategy, you can make your imagination become a reality. Think of email automation as a powerful marketing tool to help you make money while you sleep.
With email automation, you basically have an opportunity to engage with customers, drive more traffic and generate leads to your business — 24/7.
There are different types of automated email sequences you can use to drive more revenue. But first, let's explain what email automation is, and highlight the most important factor you must consider before you start to use email automation.
Table of contents
- What is email automation?
- Why does email automation matter?
- Considering the customer journey when using email automation
- 5 ways to use email automation to make money while you sleep
- Choosing the right email automation tool
- Wrapping up
What is email automation?
Email automation is the process of sending pre-built email sequences to customers based on behavioral triggers. These triggers can be customer behavioral actions like purchasing a product, joining a mailing list, abandoning a cart, etc.
For example, if a customer adds an item to their shopping cart but doesn't complete the order, they may get an email reminding them of their incomplete order, nudging them to complete the purchase.
Why does email automation matter?
No matter the kind of business you own, automated email campaigns can change the trajectory of your business. Think about this — the internet is open 24/7. People are constantly browsing through your site, adding items to carts, signing up for your email list, and many more.
How can you possibly communicate with each customer according to the stage in the buying journey — when you're not present?
Email automation is a powerful marketing strategy you can use. It lets you create personalized email sequences tailored to your customer's preferences and deliver them at the right time.
Research has shown that automated emails generate 320% more revenue than non-automated emails.
Here are additional benefits of using email automation in your business:
- Build relationships at scale: using the right customer segments, you can send pre-built email sequences that are capable of fostering customer relationships, selling your products at scale.
- Increased productivity: when you invest in the right email marketing automation tool for your business, you save energy and have more time to handle other important tasks.
- Opportunity to personalize your emails: a random email blast to just any customer won't do justice to your email campaigns. When you segment your audience based on their preferences, you can personalize your automated emails and connect with them on a deeper level.
Considering the customer journey when using email automation
For your email automation strategy to be effective, you need to visualize the customer lifecycle. Every customer is at different stages in the buying journey and uses various touchpoints to interact with your business.
The key is to think about each customer and how their behavioral actions occur in your business. You can think of customer actions as triggers. If a customer takes a specific action, what kind of message can you send to the customer at that stage in the buying journey?
For each stage of the journey, identify these important messages and then map out the email sequences tailored for each stage. With these insights, you can set up automated email workflows that are targeted and delivered to the right customer at the right time. If you’re new to email automation, it can be challenging to set up these workflows.
In the next section, we'll cover how you can use email automation to make money while you sleep.
5 ways to use email automation to make money while you sleep
1. Welcome email series
Welcome email series are a great way to use automation in email marketing. Why? Research says that 74% of customers expect a welcome email after signing up or making a purchase. A welcome email can be sent based on two customer actions:
- When a site visitor signs up for your email list
- When a customer purchases for the first time.
With email automation, you can set up workflows based on various conditions. For example, you can set up automated workflows like this:
Trigger 1: a site visitor signs up for your email list to redeem your offer.
Automated email sequence: a welcome email series of 3 or more emails that shares your brand story and ultimately drives the prospect to make a purchase.
Trigger 2: a customer makes the first purchase
Automated sequence: A series of 2-4 follow-up emails thanking the customer for the first purchase, including tips on how to use the product and other product recommendations.
2. Cart abandonment email
This email category is another great way to make money while you sleep.
With email automation, you can send a series of emails to reach out to a site visitor that abandons their cart, remind them of their incomplete order, find out the issue, and offer an incentive to complete their order.
You can set up automation workflows based on different customer actions during cart abandonment like:
Trigger: a customer initiates the checkout process (after providing an email address) but leaves before completing the purchase.
Automated email sequence: a series of follow-up emails reminding the customer of their abandoned cart, nudging them to complete the purchase. You can also customize split sequences based on cart or order value.
For example, you need to create the best performing abandoned cart emails to win back your customers. With Engage, you can track shopping cart and order events and use this to create email automation to automatically send abandoned cart recovery emails.
3. Re-engagement email campaigns
Re-engagement emails also known as win-back emails are sent to inactive customers. They provide an awesome way to make money while you sleep — set them up and then they attract your lapsed customers.
An example of using email automation:
Trigger: a customer becomes inactive for a certain period.
Re-engagement email sequence: a series of 3-4 emails that encourage the inactive customer to re-engage with your brand. Your re-engagement email sequence can include:
- The reminder email initiates the win-back email campaign.
- Feedback email that enquires why the customer went inactive.
- Incentive email that offers the customer something for free.
- Unsubscribe email informing the customers you have to let them go but include an option to return in case they change their mind.
Once you map out your re-engagement email sequence, set the ideal conditions and automate it.
4. Order follow up series
Don’t let communication with customers end after they have made their first purchase. You can use automated follow-up email sequences to build trust and encourage customers to become loyal brand advocates.
You can set up different automated workflows based on the number of products you sell and communicate with customers based on the specific product they bought.
Your order follow-up email sequence can include:
- Order confirmation email telling the customers that their order was successful.
- A supportive follow-up email that educates the customer on how to get the best use of your product.
- A discount offer email to incentivize the customer to make another purchase or share with a friend or family member.
- Product recommendation email telling the customers about additional products that can be helpful to them.
Once you map out your order follow-up email sequence, automate it and set the right conditions.
5. Customer feedback and review emails
Who doesn’t love compelling customer feedback? They are crucial for your business growth and encourage doubting potential customers to buy from you.
You can set up a simple automation workflow to get customers to provide their feedback about how your product has benefitted them.
Trigger: A customer makes some purchase after a certain period or (number of months)
Your customer feedback email can include an offer to incentivize customers to provide a review on how your product has helped them.
Choosing the right email automation tool
The foundation for email automation is the software you use. Ensure you use email automation software that has the ability to create automated emails based on customizable triggers and dynamic customer segmentation.
Wrapping up
The key to running effective email automation is to understand the customer journey, create the right customer segments, build workflows and monitor the results. Monitor key metrics like click to open rates, click-through rates, open rates, etc that tell you how your email marketing campaigns are performing.
You can automate just about anything, and deliver the right message to the right customer at the right time. You don’t have to worry about losing a customer. Just set up the right email sequences with a suitable email marketing automation tool and you let email automation help you to make money while you sleep.
At Engage, we have simplified these processes to ensure you can easily integrate your customer data and craft powerful automation with different triggers.