Streamlining Your Business with Email Automation Tools: A Beginner’s Guide

Email automation is a powerful tool that business owners can use to decrease manual work, improve engagement, increase sales, and foster great relationships with customers. This is all achieved by automating emails based on the preferences and behavior of visitors to your website and contacts in your email list.

Diving into the world of email automation might be intimidating at first, but starting small and building your understanding can turn you into a pro in no time.

What is email automation?

Email automation is the use of software tools to trigger or activate email organization and email responses based on specific keywords in messages you receive. With the right tools and plug-ins, triggers can also be based on specific actions a user takes—or doesn’t take—on your website.

This can be things like sending an automated email with a download link for a free workout routine to someone who signs up for your weekly nutrition and fitness newsletter. Or sending a follow-up email to customers who put an item from your online store into their cart but didn’t make a purchase.

How to use email automation

To set up and use the power of email automation, you’ll first need to get a business email. Once you have an email for your company, you’ll need to purchase or subscribe to an email campaign service that will allow you to automate your business emails.

But before you can automate anything, here are the most important terms to know for email automation tools:

• Email list – a group of email accounts belonging to individuals, customers, or sales leads who have consented to receive regular outreach from you.
• User – a visitor to your website, a subscriber to your email list, or someone who’s made a purchase through your online store who is now receiving automated emails based on their interactions with your website or business.
• Segment – a group of your email list or users that shares certain characteristics, like shopping habits, interests, or demographic.
• Flow actions – the specific actions that are triggered based on user behavior. Flows are what triggers activate when users take an action. This includes things like automated emails or goal-based actions that are discontinued after a specific event (like a purchase) is detected.
• Campaign – a set of coordinated actions that are automatically triggered based on user behaviors or specified time intervals, like sending a specific batch of emails whenever anyone signs up for updates on your business website.

Automation campaigns work best when they’re tailored to your business and its needs. Use this information to get started, but make sure to tweak things along the way to suit your operation.

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What does email automation look like?

Email automation can be as simple as an automated welcome message when someone subscribes to your website. It can also be as sophisticated as a dynamic product launch campaign that segments your audience by their interests and provides access to your new offerings in stages. When it comes to email automation, you’re only as limited as your imagination and the tools and services you use.

Powerful email automation services to try

Many platforms provide automation tools, and they all have different strengths and price points that cater to businesses at different stages of their journey. In some cases, these services even offer a free version of their software, with more tools and capabilities unlocked at higher subscription tiers.

Mailchimp – Intuit’s Mailchimp is great for beginners, as it has a simple interface and provides access to comprehensive reports to help you determine how your email marketing is performing.

ActiveCampaign – This service offers some of the most comprehensive tools available, like multi-step campaigns and some audience segmenting

Klaviyo – A Shopify-friendly email automation provider that has dynamic pricing based on the number of contacts you have and how many emails you expect to send out.

There are more services out there then there are spam messages in your inbox. That’s why it’s not a bad idea to consider testing out the free versions of a few services to determine which one you’re most comfortable with.

Types of email automation

Once you have a service provider to set up campaigns and automation, it’s time to explore what you can do with your business email. No matter what service you choose, you should be able to automate:

1. Abandoned cart reminders: If an item is added to a customer’s cart, but no purchase is made, you can set up a campaign to follow up with these customers a day or two later.
2. Product launch campaigns: If you’re preparing to launch a new product or service, a dynamic launch campaign can play a vital role. Build excitement for your new addition by offering sneak peeks, early access to certain segments of your audience (like those who are most engaged), and discounted pricing at launch to recipients who open your emails.
3. Flash campaigns and sales: Instead of running lengthy, staged launch campaigns, brands with a loyal following may rely on quick, automated pushes timed just before—or immediately after—product release to drive rapid sales and engagement. Companies like MSCHF will often notify their audience of new products available in limited quantities, like their infamous 2×4 boots, with no prior notification of their existence.

Leverage the power of email automation

Once a secret of the marketing industry, email automation is now more accessible than ever. If you want to give your business the best opportunity to thrive, make sure you aren’t neglecting this powerful tool. Start small with things like welcome emails and boost your sales later on with more complex campaigns. When used intelligently, email automation can have a positive impact on any business.