One of the most popular and inexpensive methods of digital marketing is email marketing. Email marketing has evolved over the years tremendously; automation tools are the latest innovative upgrade email marketing has experienced. Here’s a look at two of the most effective email marketing automation tools for businesses to use.
Pop-Up Lead Capture Forms
While some businesses might buy or rent email lists, marketing best practices advice against this method, as it is an ineffective, short-term solution for a long-term objective. That long-term objective is to capture leads organically through inbound and outbound marketing efforts.
One of the best ways to capture email leads is by using a pop-up lead capture form on a business’ website. This form automatically pops up when visitors appear on a business’ website; email marketing automation tools allow users to set times for this pop-up form to appear to visitors (right away, when visitors scroll down, when visitors are leaving, etc.).
This might be a small example of email marketing automation technology, yet it’s still one of the most powerful tools businesses have available for capturing leads. After the rules-based triggers are set by users, they can sit back and let automation capture leads 24/7, 365 days a year.
There are many methods and options for marketers when using pop-up forms on their websites. Here are some of the main ones:
- sign up for newsletters, blog posts
- sign up for a free download (eBook, PDF, white paper, etc.)
- sign up for a discount on services or products
While the methods and types of tools used will make a difference in conversion rates, the main takeaway is: This email marketing automation tool effectively captures leads with little effort.
Drip and Blast Email Campaigns
Once a business has captured a lead’s email, they can now develop blast and drip email campaigns. Blast campaigns don’t use automation (except when scheduled), yet drip campaigns heavily rely on automation to function – data collection and analytics is automated with both methods.
Blasts are one-time email mailings to either a segmented group or an entire email list. Drips are personalized, one-on-one emails sent out to leads based upon rules-based triggers businesses have set.
Automation directs and guides drip marketing campaigns throughout the sales-cycle of a lead or customer, in order to, ultimately, get them to convert and become either a customer or a return customer. Using criteria set by businesses, email marketing automation tools send out personalized emails to specific leads based upon their:
- location in the sales funnel
- purchasing behavior
- profile
- preferences
- geographical location
Drip campaigns are designed to automatically send content (generally in the form of emails – but SMS is gaining popularity) to prospects at exactly the right moment in the sales cycle. This exposes the prospect to relevant information when they will (most likely) appreciate it. Actions taken by the prospect, time elapsed, and other factors – customized at your discretion – will determine the velocity in which your drip marketing campaigns send emails.
Here are examples of the types of triggers that can activate drip campaign emails:
- Welcome Email
- Onboarding Email
- Early Activation
- Reactivation Email
- Remarketing Email
- Transaction Email
- Account Email
- Personal Event Email
- Milestone Email
- Real-time Triggers
Just remember, all of these emails would have to be sent manually if automation technology wasn’t available with email marketing. Yet with automation, all businesses have to do is set up the criteria for triggers and build any needed landing pages.
Email marketing is still an effective method, as 60% of consumers say it influences them to make purchases and businesses worldwide are projected to spend $3 billion on it in 2019. Automation technology like pop-up lead capture forms and drip campaigns with rules-based triggers are a lot of the reason why.
Businesses of all sizes and types have the opportunity to use marketing automation tools to save time and money while reaching a more refined audience. A good place to start is by optimizing pop-up lead capture forms and drip campaigns, as these fundamental email automation tools can be highly effective when used intelligently.
