Do email marketing automation workflows actually work?
Nod if you too have asked yourself this question 5x every day.
Instead of boring you with refurbished statistics that make rounds in nearly every email marketing blog, we will demonstrate why–and more importantly–how email workflows work using real-life examples. Let’s get right to it.
User onboarding campaigns are ideal for marketers who have leads signing up for the services but don’t seem to be returning post sign-up.
The goal: To keep the users motivated so that they stick around long enough to see and extract real value out of your product.
The solution: A well-conceived user onboarding flow can help. Here’s how this workflow works:
Step 1: Identify the goals of your onboarding email campaign by figuring out your product’s ‘Aha moments’.
Step 2: Brainstorm about the varying kinds of obstacles that are preventing users from reach the aforementioned goals.
Step 3: Use the problem areas identified to write compelling and relatable content for your email marketing campaign.
Step 4: Make sure to include strong value propositions into your content and ensure that the copy is user-benefit-oriented.
Pro tip: All onboarding campaigns that enter the “legendary” status focus on providing solutions to the various challenges that the users might be facing. |
Here’s an example of a user-onboarding flow by Tokopedia to get your creative juices flowing:
The challenge: 60% of customers that installed Tokopedia’s app uninstalled it within the first month, leading to a high rate of user churn.
The solution: There was a need to create a 1:1 personalized experience for new app users to engage and encourage them to make the first purchase. So Tokopedia implemented an integrated customer onboarding strategy by:
Step 1: Identifying the various stages in the customer onboarding journey where they could send the right messages to eliminate ambiguity in communication, and leveraging MoEngage Omnichannel Flows to create a series of integrated cross-channel campaigns.
Step 2: Targeting users through various channels, including push notifications, emails, SMS, and retargeting with personalized messages.
Step 3: Leveraging a robust onboarding workflow to guide customers from installation to first purchase and grow the number of active shoppers on their app.
The results:
At the end of the day, for your user onboarding campaign to work, you will need to strategize on what your customer journey looks like and then draw out a strategic, logical, and compelling onboarding email campaign that could include multiple channels.
Welcome emails are kind of a given for 74% of new subscribers at least. Now, when would you use a welcome workflow?
The goal: Let’s say you want to welcome a new blog subscriber who has just joined your email list. The welcome email blog subscriber workflow should be triggered when a user subscribes to your email list or specific VIP programs.
The solution: You can send a series of emails, starting with a welcome email which should:
Here’s a great example of a welcome email by Buffer:
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Here’s another welcome email by Barilla that sets the right expectations and empowers the user to personalize the experience to the extent possible:
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Pro tip: Once you send a welcome email, make sure to send more emails consecutively highlighting the most popular posts on the blog, high-converting posts, etc., to help email subscribers move through the funnel and become customers. |
The process of driving conversions can be a tough nail to track. Here’s an interesting use case of Early Salary.
The problem: The brand, a FinTech startup, and an app-based loan provider, was observing high drop-offs at the following stages—bank statement submission, KYC submission, and loan approval. This was also affecting the conversion rates.
The solution: Upon analysis, it was discovered that the email campaigns that EarlySalary was driving had two problems:
MoEngage helped improve email deliverability by:
Bonus material: Here’s a helpful guide on how to engage in email marketing using Gmail tabs. |
The results:
The power of re-engagement emails cannot be emphasized enough. Take, for example, Swiggy’s email marketing campaign that set new records, boasting achievements to the likes of:
Here’s a quick snapshot of the campaign:
The goal: To build a sense of curiosity amongst its user base.
The solution: Here’s how the brand managed to re-engage users:
Here’s another email subject line that Swiggy used to pique the reader’s interest.
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Pro tip: This campaign worked wonders because the brand used email marketing automation to drive data segmentation and in-depth data analysis. Additionally, the email creative was crisp, the content was intriguing, and it used personalized CTA to encourage users to check their coupons. |
This type of workflow works best for a brand that routinely administers regular Net Promoter surveys. In other words, you can use your Net Promoter Scores as a property to trigger the customer happiness workflow.
Here’s how this process works:
Step 1: Determine what your ideal customer happiness score looks like.
Step 2: Use it as a benchmark for your dynamic list of happy customers.
Step 3: Trigger a workflow for customers with “happy” scores. Make sure to reward them with freebies, exclusive content, free demo, enticing offers, loyalty programs, discounts, deals, and so on, as Shopify demonstrates below:
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Step 4: Don’t forget your “unhappy” customers. Trigger a different workflow for them that encourages them to voice their concerns and includes content/offers aimed at helping to improve their happiness.
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Pro tip: Try and segment your unhappy user base by categorizing them into ‘reasons’ as to why they’re unhappy. This real-time data can then be used to roll out a more targeted workflow, complete with increased personalization. |
As a brand, there really aren’t enough opportunities to thank your customers. You can thank them for participating in an event, subscribing to your email list, making a purchase, and so on.
The goal: If you wish to build a stronger connect with your user base, thank you email workflows are the way to go.
The solution: Take a look at Warby Parker’s “Thank You” email that gets multiple things right.
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Here’s another example of a Holiday-themed Thank You email that shows appreciation to the customers for their support.
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Pro tip: You can show your appreciation with a simple thank you workflow. Just think about when you would like to roll out your campaign–post-purchase or as part of an ongoing campaign, or at all times (even that works). |
For marketers looking to boost the average order value, this workflow is ideal. Take a look at Vimeo’s up-selling email marketing campaign, which rolls out the following welcome email once the user sign-ups for an account and starts using a Vimeo Pro paid account.
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This welcome email is then followed by an upsell email, which encourages the user to upgrade their account and leverage more features and storage.
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The brand takes its up-selling campaign to the next level by sending emails with respect to more features and benefits offered by the brand.
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Similarly, for cross-selling, you can offer relevant suggestions about additional product purchases to your customer base.
Pro tip: Whether you’re upselling or cross-selling, you will need to strike a healthy balance when sending out emails, or you may run the risk of annoying your customers. |
eCommerce retailers often face the brunt of abandoned carts. Research claims that the average cart abandonment rate stands at 69.80%. To counteract this, you can use an event-based re-engagement workflow as Lifestyle did.
The problems:
The solution: Implement a purchase funnel-based engagement strategy to boost user engagement and send targeted, personalized communication at every step of the purchase funnel.
Here’s how MoEngage helped the brand reduce boost user engagement and reduce drop-offs:
Step 1: Analyze user drop-offs at each stage of pre-purchase.
Step 2: Identify the right target audience and segment based on factors such as price-sensitive customers, loyal customers, and lost customers.
Step 3: Look at different stages of in-app usage such as “App Open”, “Product View”, “Checkout,” etc.
Step 4: Using automated marketing software, trigger smart communication across multiple channels such as email, push notification, and SMS.
For instance, here’s an example of an abandoned cart in-app notification:
Here’s another example of re-engagement using email, which contains content such as look-books and ongoing trends to motivate users back on the app:
The results:
The learning: Email workflows should be triggered based on a subscriber’s data or behavior. |
Where would you use the transactional workflow? If there’s any exchange of product/service, this would be your go-to email workflow. Most eCommerce marketers already have a stellar transactional workflow in place.
Take Etsy’s use case:
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This email from Etsy allows the brand to keep the conversation going with the customer after they’ve made a purchase. The end-goal of transactional emails is to keep customers “in-the-know” by including important touch-points of the transaction made such as:
You get the drift, right?
Email marketing is growing strong today. As long as brands have a highly engaged email list, they should be good to go. Another piece of advice that always works with email workflows is that as marketers, you’ve got to keep the momentum going with the right messaging that’s sent at the right time to the right target audience.
Email workflows, as you can imagine, help save marketers valuable time and lighten the team’s workload. At the same time, they can boost user happiness and keep your customers coming back for more.
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