Let’s say you just created the perfect ad campaign. You’ve targeted your ideal customer, you’ve got an amazing offer, and your copy is on point. But then… crickets. They click on your ad, fill out a form, and then you never hear from them again.
What gives? The problem might not be your offer or your copy. It could be that you’re not using email automation to follow up with your leads.
See also: Taboola Native Advertising
Email automation is an important next step to ensure that your advertising efforts don’t go to waste. By setting up a lead nurture campaign, you can stay top of mind with your leads and continue to build relationships even if they’re not ready to buy right away.
So in this article, we’ll discuss:
- What email automation is
- Why email automation is important for your advertising efforts
- How to set up an email automation campaign
- How to ensure your campaign is effective
What is email automation and why is it important for advertisers?
Email automation is the process of sending emails to potential customers based on certain criteria, such as when they sign up for a newsletter or abandon their shopping cart.
By automating these emails, you can stay top-of-mind with your leads and keep them engaged with your brand until they’re ready to buy.
In addition, you can use email automation to differentiate warm leads from cold leads and pass them to your sales team, as we’ll discuss in the next section.
If you’re wondering how important marketing automation is, here are some stats to think about:
- 80% of digital marketers who automate marketing find improved lead generation.
- Marketing automation tools can boost your productivity by up to 20%.
- Almost 1 out of every 2 companies uses marketing automation.
- Custom automation workflows have the highest click-through rates of 17.27%.
- Up to three quarters of email revenue is generated via user-triggered, automated campaigns, rather than one-size-fits-all campaigns. This is a major benefit of automating your email campaigns — it allows for greater personalization.
In addition, it’s important to keep in mind that email automation is not the only type of marketing automation you should consider. As an advertiser, you already use automation as part of your daily workflow — for example, you might use ad scheduling to automatically post your ads at the times when they’re most likely to perform well.
You might also use automatic bidding to ensure that you’re always getting the best results for your ad spend. In addition, many advertisers use Taboola to automate ad placement and auction processes across high-quality publications like Business Insider, Bloomberg, and USA Today.
It then only makes sense to extend these capabilities to your email campaigns in order to maximize your advertising efforts. So let’s discuss how you can use email automation to move your leads down the sales funnel.
How to set up an automated email campaign for your leads
There are five main steps for creating an automated email campaign for lead generation. These steps are choosing the right email automation tool, creating an email list through lead magnets on your website, engaging that list using automated emails, separating warm leads from cold leads, and passing warm leads to your sales team.
1. Choose the right email automation tool
There are many email automation tools on the market, but not all of them are created equal. For lead generation, you’ll want to look for an email tool that offers a high deliverability rate, robust email tracking, and lead nurturing functionality.
If you’re in the B2B space, it might also be useful to look for an email finder tool that offers email enrichment. Email enrichment provides you with background information about an email address, which lets you hyper-personalize your emails and increase their effectiveness.
2. Create a list using lead magnets
Before you can send out automated emails, you’ll need a list to work on. Now, you could use direct ads to drive people to your email signup form. But think about it, why would someone give you their email address without a good reason?
This is why we recommend using lead magnets for creating your list, which are offers that you give to potential customers in exchange for their email address.
For example, you might offer a free guide to lead generation in exchange for an email address.
To create a lead magnet, start by identifying what your target customer needs help with. Once you know that, create a piece of content that will help them solve their problem.
This could be an e-book, a video tutorial, a cheat sheet, or anything else that’s helpful. Once you have your lead magnet created, add it to your website using an opt-in form.
3. Engage your list using automated emails
Now that you have a list of leads, it’s time to start engaging them with automated emails, so you can separate warm leads from cold leads.
The first step is to create an email series. This series should be designed to introduce your leads to your company, build trust, and demonstrate your expertise.
To do this, start by creating a welcome email. This email should introduce your company and explain what you do. It should also include a call-to-action (CTA) that encourages the reader to learn more about your company.
The next email in your series should be designed to build trust. To do this, you can share customer testimonials, case studies, or any other content that demonstrates your expertise. Some customer feedback/review management tools can help you alot with producing this kind of content.
The final email in your series should include a CTA that encourages the reader to take action, such as scheduling a demo, signing up for a free trial, or simply downloading an additional piece of content.
4. Separate warm leads from cold leads
Once you’ve engaged your list with automated emails, you’ll need to start separating warm leads from cold ones. To do this, you’ll want to track your open rates (CTORs), click-through rates (CTRs), and conversion rates (CVRs).
If you see that someone has opened all of your emails and clicked on every CTA, they’re a warm lead. These are the people you want to move to another list and pass off to your sales team.
On the other hand, if someone hasn’t opened any of your emails or clicked on any of your CTAs, they’re a cold lead. These are the people you’ll want to keep engaging with until they’re warm.
5. Pass warm leads to your sales team
This is the final step in the process. Once you have a list of warm leads, it’s time to pass them off to your sales team.
The best way to do this is to add them to your CRM. This will allow your team to track their engagement and follow up with them accordingly which means organizing and managing sales leads for more efficiency.
Now that you know the basics of email automation for lead generation, here are three important tips to help you create more effective campaigns.
Creating effective email campaigns
1. Keep your emails short and to the point
There have been many studies about the ideal marketing email length. The consensus is that shorter emails (50-125 words) are better. This is because people are more likely to read and engage with shorter emails.
However, it can be tricky to determine the right email length because there’s so much variability. For example, if you’re selling an uncommon product, you’ll need to provide more information than if you’re selling a common product.
The best way to determine the right email length is to test different lengths and see what works best for your audience. You can also test different lengths for different segments of your list. For example, you can increase the email length for warm leads but keep it short for cold leads.
Also, keep in mind that the content of your email is more important than its length. So although you want to optimize the length of your emails, make sure you don’t neglect the actual content that you’re sending out. Make sure they’re written with the best email practices in mind and if you can, hire an experienced copywriter to write them for you.
2. Personalize your emails as much as possible
Personalization can be as simple as including the recipient’s name in the subject line. And it can be as complex as segmenting your email list and considering things like time zones when sending emails.
But the more personalized your emails are, the more likely they are to be read and engaged with. So make sure you invest some time into learning about how you can personalize your automated campaigns.
3. Include a loud and clear CTA
Last but not the least, omitting a clear CTA is a fatal mistake that many new marketers make. A CTA tells the reader what you want them to do next.
For example, if you want them to download a white paper, your CTA should say “Download our white paper.” If you want them to schedule a demo, your CTA should say “Schedule a demo.”
Your CTAs should be clear, direct, and easy to spot. The best way to do this is to use actionable language and make the CTA button stand out with a different color or font.
Now your ad campaigns are more effective
Remember that Facebook ad that you created at the beginning of this blog post? Now that you’ve implemented email automation, that person who clicked on your ad and filled out your form will automatically receive follow-up emails from you.
And if you follow the tips in this blog post, those emails will be short, personalized, and include a clear CTA. At the end of the day, this will lead to more conversions and a higher ROI for your campaigns!