Time is precious for everyone and even more so if you are a solopreneur or small business owner. That is why it is key to make technology work for you and automated email campaigns are a great example of this.

WHY AS A SMALL BUSINESS OWNER YOU SHOULD USE AUTOMATED EMAIL CAMPAIGNS?

The joy of email automation is once you have done the work to set it up in the beginning it will continue working for you with no (or minimal) extra work. Not only is email automation a great way to leverage your time, but if you setup the right email automations in your business, you can add more value to your customers and clients, as well as providing yourself with more useful information to grow your business.

Here are 3 types of automated emails campaigns that I think every small business owner should consider:

1 – A WELCOME SEQUENCE

Hopefully you understand the importance of growing an email list and you have a mailing list that people can join and you regularly email your subscribers. I have a question for you: What happens when someone joins your email list?

Here is what could possibly happen:

• They receive an email saying to confirm their subscription and then once they confirm they get a confirmation email.
• If they joined to receive something (a free guide, audio-training etc), then they are sent an email that includes the freebie
• They confirm the subscription, maybe they receive a freebie, and then they receive a number of e-mails over the next fortnight that goes further into what you do and shares valuable content with them.

Which situation do you think would be better for building a connection with the new subscriber?

The series of emails I referred to in final point is called a Welcome Sequence and this is where you are welcoming your new subscriber over a period of time. The period of time depends on your business and whether you are trying to drive directly to a sale or not. But every business should be thinking about welcoming their audience. What do you want this new subscriber to know about you? How can you deepen the connection with the new subscriber so they open future emails and possibly buy? How can you provide value and position yourself as an expert.

2 – FEEDBACK EMAIL (POST-PURCHASE FOLLOW UP)

Gaining feedback is essential for your business, but some business owners dread asking for feedback or it becomes a task on their list that they don’t get round to. Therefore, it makes great sense to automate it! The first thing you need to do is work out an appropriate time frame between purchase and asking for feedback. For example, if your product is an e-book then you could follow up say a week later, but if you are delivering a x week course then you would send it after your customer should have completed the course.

You can keep the email super simple by reminding people what they have purchased and you would love if they could spare a few moments to provide feedback and then have a link to a questionnaire/survey. This could be done via a survey tool such as SurveyMonkey.

3- RE-ENGAGEMENT EMAIL

We live in a numbers driven world and unfortunately, this can make business owners have the wrong attitude to numbers, especially when it comes to list size. People love to share I have 10,000 on my list, I have 50,000 on my list BUT the number on your list isn’t the most important thing. It is the number of engaged subscribers on your list.

What is the point of paying for people who don’t open your emails?

Your aim as a business owner is to have a list of people who love to open and read your emails and that will then take the action you suggest in the email.

It is a fact of life that some people will be more engaged than others and I advise that you regularly clean out your email list. However, before deleting people from your list you can send a reactivation email.

A re-engagement email is where you send an email to someone who hasn’t opened an email over a period of time. This would be the time to think of a strong subject line so it gets opened and then explain in the email that you have noticed they haven’t been opening your emails and you would love to know if they are interested in hearing more from you or not. Depending on the action they take you would then be able to delete them from your list or keep them on your list (but if you want to get super sophisticated you could setup a re-welcome email sequence).

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This is just 3 of many different types of automated emails campaigns you could set up for your business. I would love to hear how you are currently using email automation in your business or a type of automated email campaign you would love to get setup in the future.