An automated email is a marketing tool used by businesses both big and small to take away manual marketing work. They can be used to nurture, remind, educate or encourage buying behaviours. The most common use is the welcome series which gradually introduces a business or product to a prospective client or customer, but there are many smart ways that they can be used. Even in the free version of MailChimp you can set up and release emails in your sleep.
The beauty of automations is that they can be personalised to the recipient’s stage in the sales funnel. Imagine discovering a fabulous business coach only to be sent their regular monthly email which is pitched at someone who knows more about them or has been following them for a while.
An automated email sequence gradually warms up your prospects and leads them gently by the hand, rather than pushing them kicking, screaming and resisting!
With product based businesses, there is the ability to use automations for discounts, sales sequences and reminders, abandoned carts and product recommendations based on previous purchasers. But how can a service based business use automations?
Welcome series
As previously mentioned, this is one of the most popular uses of automated emails. Usually around five emails are sent over 7-10 days to someone who has signed up to your list. This person has most likely joined you as a result of downloading a freebie (also known as opt-in or lead magnet). They have handed over their prized email address to you because they believe that you hold the key to solving their problems. An automated series in this situation would usually include:
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Information about yourself
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Ways in which you can help them
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Valuable free resources such as blogs, videos or other checklists
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Testimonials
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Offer, trial or low cost service
Sale of low cost product or service
Once your welcome series is complete, you can use your triggers to determine who and what to do next. If you have an intermediate step between your freebie and 1:1 service, here is an opportunity to encourage your new audience members to invest small to test the waters. An automation here could be sent to people who opened your last email but took no further action (such as clicking on a buy now link). You may also like to send people who didn’t action in the last email into a different sales funnel path. You could send one email after a certain period of sending the last welcome series email or decide to send several with different subject headings to entice action.
Launches
Imagine having a smooth launch where emails did all the work for you! You would be able to shift all your energy into delivering and nailing the launch (whether it’s a 5 day challenge or webinar) without having to worry about blasting your current list with pleas to sign up! You could send information to participants about what to expect or what they need to do prior to the launch event. Reminders could be automatically sent at set intervals to make sure people know when a webinar is happening.
5 day challenge
If you are using a challenge as part of your launch sequence, or perhaps you have a lost cost 5 day challenge that you offer as part of your welcome series, then automations are a great way to set and forget the participant side of the challenge. This will leave you more time to focus on interaction within your Facebook group, recording Facebook Lives or other live video contact.
By using segmentation, grouping, tags and triggers in a smart and connected way, automations are a great tool for any service based business.
If you need help getting your automation to look and work the way you want them to, check out my package for automated emails, or you can drop me a line. I would love to help you save time and your sanity!
