A business owner today has many tools at their disposal. With all the marketing strategies and tools available today, automation is probably high up of the “Most Used” list. Automation not only gives you access to convenience, it also helps you to be consistent in your efforts without eating up all the time of your day. And today, we are going to be talking about one of the most staple marketing tools, email, paired up with automation. Read on and see how email autoresponder can help your business grow.
What is an Email Autoresponder?
An email autoresponder refers to a tool used by businesses and companies to send emails automatically to their customers and clients. This automatic email is sent as an immediate response to a predetermined trigger. These email autoresponders all look or contain different content depending on the kind of business involved. The triggers also can be all sorts of actions and interactions done by your customers (signing up for a form, making a purchase, joining a newsletter, abandoning their cart, etc.)
Effective Email Autoresponder
There are no hard rules on how to create an email autoresponder. This is because of the different natures and structures of businesses. Since there is no definite constant standard, all you really have to know is how to create an effective one. An effective email autoresponder makes a difference for your business and other marketing efforts (since email autoresponders should just be a part of a holistic marketing strategy). Here are a few tips on how to create an email autoresponder that is effective and efficient:
- Collect as many emails and information as you can. Take note that email autoresponders should be personal as much as it is automated. Thus, it will be helpful for your business if you can gather up as much personal information as possible (name, phone number, address, etc.) The relevant information you will be able to collect defines the personalization that your automated emails will get. Suffice it to say, email autoresponder is not possible without this information.
- Don’t create for the sake of creating - have a purpose and a plan. Needless to say, much like any other marketing strategy, email autoresponders also have to be thought of carefully and backed up by valid and relevant information. An automatic email should not be sent blindly and carelessly. You start creating email autoresponders by first identifying your customer segment lists and mapping out the specific goals.
- Write your emails as personal, persuasive, and relatable as possible. Starting with your subject line, you must already come up with a way to get your audience to notice you and actually open your emails (and not send it to spam or trash). You want to get personal because you want them to see you not as a salesperson but as a friend reaching out to them. So use the information you got from your research to really personalize your automatic email. Your email autoresponder should also be persuasive. People should feel empowered and encouraged to do what you want them to after they read your email. You can do this by veering the focus away from you and your business and leaning more towards giving them the attention, assistance, and appreciation that they need and want.
Advantages of Using Email Autoresponder
- Higher Engagement Rating. Engagements are interactions and actions that your customers do on your website and with any of its features. And by using an email autoresponder, you can increase the chances of your customers responding and engaging more because of the relevance and timing of the message you send. This is because automatic emails might be sent through technological advancements. Its personalization features tend to speak and really connect with your customers.
- Lead-nurturing. An email autoresponder can help you take care of leads. Your customers’ or site visitors’ position in the sales funnel can be helped immensely when you follow up on them. You can use automatic emails to feed your customers with more relevant, interesting, and helpful content. You can use email autoresponders to move your leads further along the funnel.
- Optimized For Conversions. Not only can email autoresponder be used for lead-nurturing, it can also eventually push site visitors to convert into actual paying customers. Sending each of your customers an automatic email helps you encourage them more. You can send email autoresponders when a customer asks a question or abandons their cart. You can set it up in a way that would allow you to send a constructive response that will speak much about how much you value them and how much you want to help them. On the contrary, you can also send them an automatic email days after they put items on their cart but never checked them out. This might give them the reminder they need to get back to your store. However, be careful not to appear too pushy because that would not end well for you and your business.
- Strengthening of Customer Relationship. Connections are always important in any relationship. Using an email responder, you can easily follow up or reconnect with your customers at a time or duration that you see fit. You can set the automated email to be sent days after a specific action that they did. Here’s an idea: why not set the trigger for 100 days after they subscribed or answered your form and make it an anniversary. These kinds of efforts will speak volumes about how much you value your customers. They would really appreciate it if they received such acknowledgment and appreciation from you. And though you wouldn’t be sending it manually, the thought is already a huge effort, and if you set up your email autoresponder right, your customers won’t even have to know about the fact that you did not hit send yourself.
- Time-saving and Efficiency. Above all, perhaps the most significant advantage of using an email autoresponder is the time and effort it saves for you. See, email autoresponders work so that you only have to set it up once, but no matter how many people or how many times your trigger is pressed, an automatic email would be sent. Imagine how convenient it would be to not always have to manually construct and edit an email. Imagine the time it saves for you not to constantly check for new updates and interactions that you have to respond to. Imagine how much of your energy is conserved and can be used on other things if you have an email autoresponder set up for you.
Automatic Email Responses With Strikingly
The new Strikingly feature allows its users to have email autoresponders for the form responses on their website. With this feature, automatic emails are sent to your audience based on a specific trigger that you set. These triggers anchor on the different forms that you have on your website. And this Strikingly email autoresponder is designed to be easy and quick to set up. Let us tell and show you how it is so:
- Log in to your Strikingly account.
- Go to your Dashboard and open your site editor.
- Go to your “Settings” and there you will find the menu for “Audience”. One of the subcategories of this menu is “Email Automations”, click that.
- As you can see, this is where your email autoresponder triggers will be listed once you create them. Start one by clicking on “Create New Automation”.
Image taken from Strikingly Product
- A pop-up window will appear. This is where you can select the trigger of your email autoresponders. It can be specific to a particular form or general to all the forms that you have. You can also set whether this would be sent immediately or later (asking how many days from 1 to 100 before the automated email will be sent). After setting these, click “OK”.
Image taken from Strikingly Product
- Another window will appear on your screen. This window (as seen below) will allow you to edit the contents of your automated email. Although there is a preset template, you can easily change these contents to your liking. You can even input a link that would lead your customers back to your site or towards another part of your website. Don’t forget to edit the “Subject” line because it is vital for email autoresponders. You can also add a name for easier internal monitoring. When you are done, you can immediately activate this email autoresponder trigger or save it as a draft in the meantime.
Image taken from Strikingly Product
- Once you are finished, you will see all the automated emails that you set up.
Image taken from Strikingly Product
As mentioned earlier already, an email autoresponder brings many benefits to your website and your business. You not only arm yourself with a tool to more efficiently and effectively connect with your customers, you are also able to do so with many conveniences. And if you do it right, you not only build stronger relationships with your customers, you also set yourself up to be more credible and reliable and virtually create better chances of success.
This is only one of the many features of Strikingly that can help you build up your site to its fullest potential. Keep in mind that email autoresponders are meant to only be a part of much bigger marketing strategies. Indeed, it is practical, but it is not meant to provide the full user experience that your customers deserve - only a part of it. Nevertheless, Strikingly can help you with both an email autoresponder and your other marketing strategies. Sign up now and achieve that success we all know you deserve!
