It doesn’t matter whether you sell products or services, or which industry you’re in.
If you have prospects and customers, the most effective way to build and nurture your relationship with them is through email marketing. For over a decade, email marketing has generated the highest ROI for marketers globally: for every $1 spent, businesses can generate up to $31 in revenue.
As one of the easiest ways to deliver messages to your audience, it allows you to keep your customers engaged with transactional updates and content-driven emails that are relevant to their likes and needs. Constant communication is key to cultivating customer loyalty, and consistently providing value is essential for them to stick around.
But it isn’t always about selling something, it’s about providing value to your subscribers & keeping them engaged, especially since 99% of consumers use email every single day.
That’s where email marketing automation comes in.
But as your business grows, it becomes harder to give one-on-one attention to your customers. With email marketing automation, you can create workflows that will send personalised and relevant emails to your customers at the right time with the right message.
For example, to convert your customers into repeat-buyers and increase their lifetime value (LTV), a strong post-purchase email sequence has to be in place.
If the post-purchase emails are timely and relevant to the customer’s interests, you increase your chances of customer retention. Stats show:
- Repeat customers are 9 times more likely to convert than a first time shopper
- Repeat customers are more likely to refer your brand to their network thus helping your brand’s customer acquisition process
- Repeat customers typically have a higher average order value that increases with every purchase they make
In fact, custom automation workflows have the highest click-through rates and personalized emails can produce 6x higher transaction rates than those of other marketing emails!
Let’s look at the most frequently used email flows and must haves for your business:
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Welcome Flow with Discount
Website visitors often leave without making a purchase. The most common way to recapture their attention is by showing a ‘Welcome 10% Off Discount” popup if they try to exit.
A 10% discount is typically enough to make a potential customer give us their name and email, and they are then entered into this flow where they get nurture with brand information, blog content, popular products and ultimately a push to purchase with their 10% off discount. Using this flow also encourages higher open rates as people are keen to open emails for their unique discount code.
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Welcome Flow for Newsletter Subscribers
When people visit your website, they might like what they see and sign up to the “Newsletter” via the form in the website footer. This is a great opportunity to convert them from a subscriber to a customer.
Through this journey, they get blog updates, content-driven emails etc that nurture them along the funnel. This flow isn’t created to necessarily push people to purchase, but for the purpose of building trust and creating value. It’s very important to be true to your brand, your values, and provide necessary updates (and occasionally promotions) especially since people have opted-in to hear from your brand.
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Post Purchase Flow for New Customers
Once a customer places an order for the first time, they are put through this flow.
The flow thanks them for their purchase, and helps build trust through valuable blog content and useful tips, with the ultimate aim to upsell with another purchase. A positive post-purchase experience also includes follow ups on orders, and brands can use this flow to request for reviews or other UGC. The purpose is to create such a great experience for this customer that they keep coming back for more. As you may know, it costs far less to market to an existing customer than to acquire a new one.
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Post Purchase Flow for Repeat Customers
Once a repeat customer places an order, they are put through this flow. The flow thanks them for their customer loyalty and may try to cross-sell (sell them something more) in another product category.
This flow is key in encouraging repeat purchases and encouraging customer loyalty. The flows can also be created to communicate differently with second-time buyers or multiple-time buyers – you may choose to reward either with different forms of loyalty through discounts, or special deals for your VIP customers.
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Post Purchase Flow with a Bounce Back Offer
When someone is making their first purchase, you can target them with this email right before they check out with a special offer. For example, if someone buys a dress on your website, within a few minutes they will get an email saying “if you buy this now you’ll get a 10% discount valid for 2 hours only” – basically you can give them an offer they cannot refuse, and convert a first time buyer into a loyal customer!
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Abandoned Cart Flow
When website visitors add a product to their cart but don’t place the order, they enter this Abandoned Cart flow which reminds them the same day, and the next day to complete their purchase.
Statistics show that consumers are more likely to complete their purchase if they receive immediate and personalised cart reminders. In fact, this flow is responsible for most of the revenue generation through email marketing for businesses!
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Browse Abandoned Flow
It’s natural for shoppers to get distracted with daily tasks, and step away from their mobiles or computers in the middle of browsing products on the internet. So when website visitors view a product online, but don’t place the order, they enter this browse Abandoned flow which reminds them to keep shopping.
Furthermore, personalization in such emails via dynamic fields helps drive the consumer to make the purchase.
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Customer Winback Flow
Sometimes people who have made one purchase don’t intend to make another purchase for several months – or ever again. This kind of win-back flow targets those people who haven’t made a purchase in at least 3-6 months, trying to regain their consideration.
It’s customary to offer a small discount to tempt these customers back, but more often than not it’s simply the reminder of ‘hey we exist!’ that may pique their interest into returning to your website once again.
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First Purchase Anniversary Flow
It’s no surprise that people love being celebrated. Whether it’s their birthday, graduation, an anniversary, or any occasion where they get treated a little bit more special than on other days. So why not remind them of how they connected with you in the first place?
To celebrate a buyer’s first purchase anniversary, you can remind the customer they’re special and thank them for buying with you. A personalized reminder email gives them an extra push to make another purchase on this occasion – often provided with a 10% off discount. Who doesn’t love a little deal of their favourite goodies?
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Replenishment Flow
When someone orders a product such as toiletries or supplements that are likely to be purchased again, they enter this flow.
It serves to remind the customer to buy another one of the same product to replenish their stock after a fixed number of days. No more running out of products when you have an automated reminder telling you to stock up again!
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Sunset Flow
The purpose of this flow is to check-in with or re-engage unengaged or dormant customers. If the subscriber opens the email or takes an action, they are moved to the ‘engaged segment’ and will continue to receive your emails.
However, if there is no response from the subscriber, they are marked as ‘suppressed’ and will no longer receive any messages from you. Ultimately, this is a list-cleaning tool to ensure you only send your emails to engaged subscribers who want to receive your content. By cleaning your list every few months, you can ensure higher open rates and lower bounce rates.
So there you have it! All the flows that your business needs to succeed with email marketing and recapture your audience, revenue and ensure an ongoing customer relationship.
