Guide to Set Up Marketing Email Workflows (with Examples)

Email marketing is an effective way to reach your target audience, but it can be time-consuming and tedious. That’s where email marketing workflows come in. An email marketing workflow is a set of automated emails that are triggered by specific actions or behaviors.

Automation workflows can help you streamline and personalize your emails, making them more effective and easier to manage. In this guide, we’ll be covering what email marketing workflows are, why you should automate them, and how you can set them up. We’ll also provide examples of email workflows you can use and tips for testing and optimizing your campaigns. With these insights, you’ll be ready to make the most of your email marketing efforts and achieve better results.

What is an Email Marketing Workflow?

An email marketing workflow is a set of automated emails that get triggered by a user’s behavior or action. The purpose of email marketing workflows is to engage with subscribers at the right time, develop relationships, and ultimately drive conversions. With email marketing automation, marketers can personalize messages and send them to their target audiences more efficiently.

Marketing automation software makes the creation of workflows streamlined, allowing marketers to manage multiple channels for the best-personalized communication with their subscribers. Email workflows can be either linear or dynamic and include drip campaigns and nurture campaigns. Drip campaigns are automated workflows that introduce new leads to a brand, while nurture campaigns send targeted content based on user actions.

Creating email marketing automation workflows is easy with ready-made templates or by creating customized workflows. With this knowledge, marketers can take full advantage of the email marketing automation feature and create tailored email campaigns that will effectively engage their subscribers.

Benefits of Automating Email Marketing Workflows

Automating email marketing workflows can provide numerous benefits for businesses. It saves time and effort while managing multiple channels, and customer data for personalized communication workflows. Email automation can help in converting leads into customers, delight existing customers, and increase product adoption. Upsell workflows with email automation can target engaged customers to increase their lifetime value.

Email workflows can be used for several purposes such as customer onboarding, content marketing, lead nurturing, subscriber re-engagement, and shopping cart reminders. By starting small and focusing on important aspects of customer communication, businesses can make the most of email automation to improve customer engagement and experience while increasing revenue opportunities. By following these email marketing workflow strategies, businesses can reap maximum benefits while providing customers with personalized attention and timely communication.

Better clarity and consistency

One of the benefits is converting leads into loyal customers and improving ROI. With streamlined workflows, businesses can achieve better clarity and consistency in their messaging.

Personalization and segmentation are key to successful email workflows. By tailoring content to individual subscribers and creating segmented lists, businesses can enhance engagement and increase conversions. For example, recurring purchase reminder email workflows can help drive repeat customers.

In addition, email automation can also encourage product adoption, upsells, and additional purchases by providing timely and relevant information to subscribers. Overall, implementing email marketing workflows is an effective strategy for businesses looking to improve their email marketing campaigns and drive growth.

Improved Efficiency

One such benefit is improved efficiency, as automated emails are sent out at the right time without the need for manual intervention.

Email workflows can also convert leads into customers, encourage greater product adoption, and be used for recurring purchases or to remind customers of one-time limited deals. Common uses for email workflows include customer onboarding, content marketing, lead nurturing, re-engagement, and shopping cart reminders.

By using email marketing automation, businesses can save time and send out promotional messages at the optimal time, leading to better engagement and higher conversion rates. To get started with email automation, it is recommended to start small and focus on the most important aspects of customer communication.

Increase productivity

One of the main benefits of using email workflow automation is an increase in productivity. By automating tasks, such as scheduling follow-up emails and creating targeted campaigns, marketers can focus on other important tasks. Additionally, using email workflow software in project management tools can help analyze metrics for better ROI.

Starting small and prioritizing important aspects of customer communications is key to successful email automation. By testing campaigns and tweaking them as needed, marketers can slowly build more complex workflows that will generate higher ROI. Ultimately, the use of email marketing automation can improve the customer experience and productivity in the long run.

Reduce the risk of error

It can also improve customer retention and encourage activities like upsells and additional purchases, but it also reduces the risk of errors in customer communication.

By triggering emails to retain customers who are showing tendencies to leave, for example by offering surveys or promotions sparingly, you can increase overall customer satisfaction. Similarly, automating re-engagement email workflows with an SMS and three emails for customers who have been inactive for 30 days can help to bring back lapsed customers.

Finally, an abandoned cart recovery email workflow that includes three emails, introducing benefits and urgency with discounts, can help to incentivize customers to complete their purchases. With all of these powerful tools at your disposal, automating your email marketing workflows is a smart move for any business looking to improve customer engagement and increase sales.

Steps to Setting Up Email Automation

Email automation has become an essential part of email marketing, greatly helping to engage and nurture target audiences. Automation workflows are triggered based on specific conditions or actions, such as email signups, and are sent out in a sequence, providing a more personalized experience for the recipient. There are different types of automation, including welcome email series, re-engagement campaigns, and lead analyses, to name a few.

Here are some steps to setting up email automation:

1. Define the objective of your email automation campaign.

2. Determine your target audience and their needs.

3. Plan the workflow, including trigger events and the sequence of emails.

4. Design the email content and create the automated sequence.

5. Monitor the campaign and adjust as necessary.

Automated emails can welcome new subscribers, provide customer support, and send out drip campaigns. Setting up successful email automation requires time and effort, but when done well, it can be a powerful tool in your email marketing strategy.

Design Your Workflows

To design your email workflow, start by selecting a marketing automation tool like MailerLite, which offers both free and paid automation with easy setup. Next, choose your trigger, such as a welcome email for new subscribers or a re-engagement campaign for inactive contacts. Finally, optimize your behavioral-based automated emails for the biggest impact, including drip campaigns, time-based autoresponders, event-based autoresponders, welcome email series, and re-engagement email campaigns.

With email automation, you can easily create effective communication workflows that save time, increase engagement, and ultimately improve conversions using the latest tools and strategies.

Select Email Marketing Automation Tools

Email automation can be used to improve customer experience, sales engagement, and support. There are many email marketing automation tools available, including workflows that create personalized communication and manage multi-channel.

Some of the best email marketing automation tools include Mailchimp, Hubspot, and Marketo. These tools offer a range of features, including analytics, personalization, and segmentation. When setting up your email automation workflows, be sure to choose the tool that best suits your needs and budget. With automation, you can create effective and personalized email campaigns that help grow your business.

It’s important to set up a welcome email series to engage new subscribers and keep them interested in your brand. Tailoring content and messaging based on customer data and behavior analysis can also help to increase engagement and conversion rates. Finally, A/B testing can be used to optimize the impact of your automation workflows and ensure that you are getting the best possible results from your email marketing efforts.

Take automation breaks

I’s important to take breaks and implement delays to keep your subscribers from feeling overwhelmed. The first step to creating an automation workflow is to select the trigger that will set it in motion.

Once you’ve established your triggers, you can begin to implement breaks and delays to ensure that your subscribers receive emails at a manageable pace. This will help to reduce the risk of subscriber fatigue and ensure that your messages are well-received.

By automating your email marketing, you can save time on routine tasks and focus on high-priority work. With workflows, you can send emails based on lead actions and stop the workflow if necessary, ensuring that your emails are always relevant and timely. With the right setup, email marketing automation can be a powerful tool for driving engagement and boosting conversions.

Examples of Automated Email Workflows

Email automation workflows have become an essential tool in email marketing. These workflows can be triggered by specific conditions or actions and generate a series of automated emails, including drip campaigns, time-based or event-based autoresponders, welcome series, re-engagement campaigns, and A/B testing. Automated email workflows can serve a variety of purposes like cross-selling, recovering abandoned shopping carts, lead nurturing, and sending price drop notifications. Automating a series of tasks that would normally be done manually, marketing automation software saves time and manages multiple channels, creating personalized communication workflows.

Examples of customized variations on classic automated email workflows can optimize performance, incentivize customers back into the path, and increase ROI. For instance, a welcome series workflow, easing new subscribers into your brand, can have a tailored approach to the content with the addition of personalized incentives to promote further email engagement. Automated workflows act as a catalyst for achieving higher engagement and better conversion rates. By streamlining email marketing workflows through automation, businesses can benefit from increased efficiency, higher customer engagement, and ultimately, higher conversion rates.

Welcome Email Workflows

We all heard about the welcome email series, which can help you make a great first impression on new subscribers.

To set up a welcome email workflow, use a drip campaign format to send a series of emails over several days or weeks. Welcome emails have high open and click-through rates, so use the opportunity to showcase your brand and provide learning resources.

Automated welcome emails are just the beginning of types of trigger emails you can use to communicate with your contacts. It’s important to provide helpful information in your welcome emails, such as popular content, social media links, and support resources.

Consider launching a separate welcome email series for paying customers to nurture positive relationships. With these tips, you can set up effective welcome email workflows that engage and convert your audience.

Lead Nurturing Workflows

If you’re looking to set up email marketing workflows, lead nurturing workflows can be a powerful tool in your arsenal. These workflows use triggers, lead tracking, personalization, and A/B testing to nurture your leads toward conversion. To make lead nurturing workflows successful, they rely on segmentation, tagging, and scoring to address pain points and build trust.

Best practices for email workflow management include segmentation, behavior tracking, and content relevancy. By tracking user behavior and segmenting your audience, you can send targeted emails that feel personal and relevant to your recipient. A well-designed email workflow is automated, sending emails based on user behaviors and lead status to nurture them toward a specific goal.

Workflow triggers can include custom conditions met and stage-specific conversion events. For example, a lead might receive an email after they’ve browsed your website or opened a previous email. By using lead nurturing workflows, you can build meaningful relationships with your leads and increase your chances of converting them into customers.

Re-Engagement Workflows

Automated email workflows are a powerful tool for engaging customers and keeping them interested in a company’s services. One type of workflow that can be particularly effective is the re-engagement workflow, which aims to win back old customers who have become inactive.

Re-engagement workflows can be triggered by various factors such as website visits, email activity, and form submissions. Once triggered, these workflows send out a series of compelling content and offer through SMS and email messages. This can reignite interest in a company’s services and improve customer engagement.

One of the most significant advantages of re-engagement workflows is that they are cheaper than acquiring new customers. By targeting customers who have already shown an interest in a company’s services, there is a higher chance of success in bringing them back into the fold. With the right messaging and offers, re-engagement workflows can be a highly effective way to keep customers engaged with a company’s brand.

Abandoned Cart Workflows

Much research talks about the fact that a lot of people leave websites after adding items to their shopping carts. This is where abandoned cart emails come to the rescue, they are a good way to build customer relationships and bring back customers that have shown strong purchase intent.

When you have someone adding many items to your cart, but leaving them without a purchase you can make a workflow that will send them an automated email that reminds them of their forgotten basket. To make it more effective, you can even add a special discount, free delivery, or even express shipping.

Upsell or Cross-Sell Workflows

This workflow is a great way to upsell or cross-sell your product or services to existing customers, especially if you have plenty of products to sell. You can create an updated list of customers that purchased one of your products/services and from that, you can create workflows that start recommending other products or services to your buyers.

You can segment these customers based on their past purchases, contents they have downloaded, or what they put into their wish list, these can make your upsell workflow much more effective and smooth.

However, this kind of email can go in the wrong direction and decrease open rates and click-through rates, if your customer finds your emails annoying. So make sure to only send out products or services which are relevant to your buyers and always check how people respond to your emails.

Product Lifecycle Workflows

Some product has a limited lifecycle, an automated email can be helpful to remind your customers about this. You can send an email to remind them about renewing or paying for their subscription or ordering your product again in time.

For example, when it comes to eye contact, many people order 1-3 months’ worth of contact, you can send a reminder after 3- 11 weeks to let them know their supply is about to run out, and it is time to reorder to product to arrive in time. Some companies even add a do-follow link with a call-to-action button to increase the possibility of customer engagement.

Thank you Workflows

We have all heard about Thank you email automated workflows, they have many different forms to choose from. They are mainly used in email campaigns where companies want to let their customers that they appreciate what they have done. Such as subscribing to your newsletter, shopping in your online store, filling up a form, or registering on your website.

This helps companies build a relationship with their customers and increase their brand loyalty.  Some companies even add discount coupons for their Thank you emails to make them more valuable for the customers.

Free Trial Sign-up Workflows

When you have a free trial sign-up option you must send a confirmation email directly after your buyer signs up for a free trial. Make sure to send out details about your product to let them know what they gain with this subscription. In the upcoming last days of the trial expiration, the free trial sign-up workflow should remind the user to sign up in order to keep the advantage of your product.

Can email marketing workflows be customized for different target audiences?

Yes, email marketing workflows can be customized for different target audiences. Customization allows you to send relevant content to one segment of your subscriber, with this you can increase engagement and conversion. Here’s how you can customize your different kinds of email marketing workflows for different target audiences:

• Personalizied content
• Design and layout
• Audience segmentation
• Customizing timing
• Considering localization

Conclusion

Automating email marketing workflows comes with numerous benefits. From better clarity to increased productivity, automating your workflows can save you time and resources. Setting up automated email workflows requires time, effort, and the right software. But once you’ve got it right, it’s guaranteed to pay off! If you’re interested in getting started or improving your existing workflows, check out our comprehensive guide on email marketing automation. You’ll learn how to set up workflows, tips for testing and optimizing campaigns, and examples of workflows that you can implement right away. Download the guide now to get started!