Email Sequences for Effective Marketing

By definition, an email sequence is a series of emails that follow up an initial email but are automatically sent to prospects and leads within pre-set time frames across days, weeks or months.

The email sequences feature in EngageBay's is meant for people who wish to enjoy the convenience of drip campaigns, automated emails, or auto-responders that require complex, dedicated and expensive apps, but don't have the available time, nor the expertise or the budget to implement such apps.

Benefits of email sequences

Email Sequences come with a host of benefits. Some of these are

• Allows you to build a strong relationship with your subscriber and build trust, foster loyalty, and increase retention.
• They make the lead nurturing and upselling/cross-selling processes easier by sending relevant information and reminders to your subscribers with your content
• Lets you send out your best and most relevant content at your own pace and convenience.
• Automated email sequences help you pitch and sell your product all the time, even while you are asleep.

While there are no defining restrictions to the types of email sequences that may be set up, there are few email sequences that are fundamental. These are:

The 'Welcome' email sequence

When a visitor signs up for updates from your blog or for an account on your site, a series of automated welcome messages may be sent to the visitor's declared email inbox. This type of an email sequence has been proven to have been responsible for 320% more revenue per email as compared to routine promotional messages.

While it’s best not to consistently spam your new subscribers, a frequency of around four-five emails within a couple of months helps acquaint them with your brand and conveys the value you can offer.

The 'Onboarding' email sequences

After you have completed the welcoming formalities with your email contacts, it's time to begin onboarding them by showing them a relevant value prop and keeping them engaged with your brand, consequently culminating into a closed deal.

The 'Abandoned Cart' email sequences

Research has shown that trillions of dollars are lost annually due to cart abandonment for Ecommerce businesses. However, an optimized and well-times sequence of abandoned cart emails is likely to be opened by 46.1% of people, says a study. Moreover, 13.3% will click the CTA within the email, and over 35% of those will go on to complete their purchase, according to the same study.

Thus there may be no doubt about the efficiency of abandoned cart email sequences.

It is well known that many businesses use Email sequences regularly to keep their existing customers engaged, thereby arresting attrition and fostering brand loyalty.

Moreover, they encourage upsell and cross-sell to ensure that customers spend their maximum with the businesses.

The 'Reengagement Email' sequences

Everybody knows by now that retaining existing customers is five times more cost-effective than acquiring new ones.

A sequence of emails that offer incentives conveying why your customer should stay connected with your brand ensures customer retention and fosters brand loyalty.

The most important thing to remember is to be extremely judicious while choosing the right email provider. It is the decision that would be the real game-changer. That is because once your email sequences, lead scoring and automation rules are set up, it will be a huge ask to change providers. Changing providers will result in the loss of the subscriber history from within that email platform.

Here are some ‘must have’ features you’ll need from your provider:

• Templates that are fully customizable.
• The ability to segment your email recipients based on their work profiles
• The ability to send broadcast messages to all subscribers, subscriber segments, and subscribers not currently in a sequence
• The ability to move users between sequences based on their specific actions .
• The ability to integrate with/API into Zapier
• The ability to score leads based on their levels of engagement

There are a lot many reasons why businesses choose to use email sequences. Possibly the most important one being 'automation'

With automation, manual work is largely negated. So neither do you need to type the same email repeatedly, nor do you need to add contacts manually. No more waste of time on mundane tasks and more time to focus on other core activities.

Out goes labour, in comes automation.

But that isn't all, there are some other important reasons why you should use email sequences:

• Identify and filter out recipients who are not interested in your product(s), i.e. those who have unsubscribed.
• Get email open rates, number of unsubscribed emails, clickthrough rates, response rates, and similar valuable insights.
• Ensure optimum productivity from your sales & marketing teams.
• Give the campaign more credibility with data.
• Expedite deal closure.
• Ensure that no customer is spamme at any point of time.
• Target the right prospect and enjoy a higher conversion rate.

Unless you are superhuman, it won't be possible for you to send targeted emails to subscribers at the exact times they need to see them to drive action, each and every day. The answer is email sequences.

Email sequences are automated series of emails that may be sent out in a studied manner. These aptly timed and trigger-based emails need to go out at those times that are most likely to have an impact. As an example, let's say I’ve set up an abandoned cart email sequence. If say an online shopper adds a product to their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, a series of triggered emails (that needs a one-time setup) can remind the customer to return and complete the purchase, with no constant manual persuasion.

Email sequences have the power to convert a complete stranger to becoming a returning customer, and subsequently, a proactive brand advocate. Email sequences are capable of strengthening your relations with your customers over time, by way of shared content.

So whether you’re an ecommerce store, online education provider or a software company that believes in implementing email marketing for their outreach, a tailored email sequence is bound to work wonders to achieve your business goals.