Ways to use email automation to turbocharge your buyer’s journey
Email is an extremely effective B2B marketing tool—if you use it to deliver helpful content. A thoughtful email can help prospects move through the buyer’s journey—from awareness of their problem to consideration of possible solutions to their final decision to purchase. And once someone subscribes to your list, B2B email newsletters that are well-written and beautifully designed help build long-term relationships with your customers.
Automating some of the emails you send will make your email marketing efforts more efficient. In this article, we’ll cover five different types of automated emails that will help you move prospects along in their buyer’s journey.
First, for context, there are two general categories that email service providers allow you to send:
- Broadcast emails are sent manually to your entire list or a segment of your list. They are usually used to promote a specific promotion or piece of content.
- Triggered emails (also known as behavioral emails, transactional emails, or autoresponders) are sent automatically based on pre-defined conditions met by an individual by completing certain actions or other signals.
Here are five types of triggered emails that every B2B email marketing strategy should include:
- New Subscriber
When someone subscribes to your email newsletter, you should automatically send a confirmation email that welcomes them and recaps some of your most popular or useful content from previous email newsletters so they know what to look forward to in future sends.
- Lead Magnet Request
Your lead generation campaigns should trigger an email that delivers the lead magnet content. By automating this email, you ensure that readers receive your information within minutes—while they are still interested in what you offer.
Pro-tip: If the form on the landing page of your lead generation campaign also contains the option to opt in to your newsletter (which it should) then completing the form to request the lead magnet will trigger two automated emails: the new subscriber welcome and the lead magnet delivery. That’s perfectly okay; just make sure that both contain unique, engaging messaging.
- Clicking a Link in a Segmentation Campaign
Segmenting your email subscriber list allows you to customize emails to each subscriber’s interests. Their behavior, such as clicking a link in an email, can trigger a new engagement email campaign. This way, people who aren’t interested in the topic won’t receive the campaign. The people who are already interested are more likely to engage with the email content.
- Event Registration
Whenever someone registers for an event, such as a trade show or webinar, have a confirmation email automatically sent that contains all the details, including date, time, and any links or directions.
- Not Engaging with Your Emails
Re-engagement is the process of reactivating subscribers who have stopped engaging with your emails. You can set a certain number of email sends without any action taken by the subscriber to trigger an automated email campaign designed to encourage that person to take the next step in their buyer’s journey.
Making sure every email you send is relevant makes all the difference.
Ideally, your subscribers will be excited (or at least interested) every time they receive an email from your company. Sending relevant content conditions them to open and engage with your emails.
There are two approaches to sending relevant emails to coincide with the buyer’s journey: segmentation and timing.
Segmentation enables you to send emails to the people who will be most likely to engage based on their interests. Subscribers should feel that these emails were tailored for them.
Timing requires understanding where your subscribers are in their buyer’s journey and only sending them emails that are appropriate for that phase. Triggered emails take the guesswork out of timing.
Pro-tip: Just because you can trigger an email doesn’t mean you always should. Sending too many emails can actually create friction in the decision-making process and cause prospects to get stuck in one phase of their buyer’s journey.
Remember your goal is to expedite the buyer’s journey, so set up triggered emails to send the most relevant information to keep prospects and repeat customers engaged with the value you provide.
For more on how email drip campaigns can cause a flood of sales, check out this B2B digital marketing overview.
The Marketing Blender is a full-service B2B marketing agency focused on accelerating growth for clients in manufacturing, healthcare, software, and professional services.
You can share this article using the social icons below and sign up for the Blender newsletter for more insights here.
Interested in FREE advice that will help you propel your sales? Join Blender’s Blog today!
