What’s the best way to improve the results of your email campaigns? According to a recent benchmark survey by MarketingSherpa [see illustration], automated emails – also known as triggered emails – provide the biggest bang for your buck!

That doesn’t mean ditching the e-newsletters you send to your clients and prospects; they will always appreciate fresh content. But sending regular e-blasts or e-newsletters to your entire database (also known as “batching and blasting”) requires ongoing creativity and content development.

On the other hand, automating your emails will achieve better results because they require less effort and have the highest ROI. That’s because they are:

• Sent individually using 1-to-1 marketing and not “batch and blast.”
• Targeted to the recipient’s behavior and interests and are therefore considered highly relevant.
• Are timely and can deploy a “drip mechanism” to stay top of mind.

As the survey indicates, the top three most successful email methods are all based on automated or triggered emails!

What do we mean by “automated email”?

Unlike your weekly or monthly e-newsletters, triggered emails are written once and then deployed throughout the year automatically based on certain criteria that you define, perhaps an event, a behavior, or lack of behavior. They can be one simple email or a drip series.

Let’s look at some of the more popular automated emails that you can use to maximize conversions with minimal effort:

The Welcome Email. The best time to develop a relationship with a prospect is when they just signed up to receive your e-newsletter or purchased an item for the first time — and you are “top of mind.” A welcome email is an automated email (or series of emails) sent automatically to a new subscriber at a predetermined frequency. Content can be a simple personalized “Thank You” with links to your blog and social media, or a series of emails introducing the reader to your services and company. Read more on creating a Welcome Series.

B2B Lead Nurture Drip. Say someone just filled out a form on your Web site for a free download of your software. Ideally a salesperson should follow up immediately. But whether they do or not, why not also send a series of three pre-written weekly emails that are personalized and specific to the person’s interest. They can describe, say, how to best use the software they just downloaded. You can sleep well knowing that anyone who fills out that form will get a lead nurture drip instantly — whether it’s midnight or your salesperson is on vacation.

Anniversary Drips. Perhaps you sell a product or service with an annual expiration or it’s a seasonal service like tax preparation. Consider automating a few simple reminders to trigger as you get close to term. Examples are automated reminders in January and February about your tax return service or a reminder 30 days before the end of the warranty to extend the agreement.

Birthday Emails. This is especially relevant to B2C firms that want to build long-term relationship with their constituents. Why not acknowledge their birthday and make a sale at the same time? An automated trigger with a birthday wish coupled with a discount is sent on the birthdate and then a second note two weeks later reminding them the offer is about to expire. You’ll generate goodwill and business!

Cart Abandonment. Typical e-commerce sites suffer from 70% cart abandonment. Whether you have a B2C or B2B site, win back as many as 20% of those “abandoners” with a three-part cart abandonment drip. Send an immediate email within 30 minutes of the abandonment as a reminder and then another one or two in subsequent days. You’ll be amazed how quickly you can increase your sales with this automated effort. Read more on Cart Abandonment emails.

Registration & Form Abandonment. This is more typical of B2B business where you may have an event registration (perhaps a tradeshow or webinar) and find that you have lots of browsers but few registrations. Deploy a three-part form abandonment email drip that is personalized and has more information on the event and why they should register now (maybe an expiration date, a discount, or the fact that there are only a few seats left). Typical conversion is is 10-20%.

Like the idea of automated email? Try these tips:

• Plan your drip campaign and frequency carefully.
• Remember to have evergreen content and promotions that are good for 6-12 months.
• Use personalization wherever possible.
• Automated emails don’t have to be fancy; short text emails are perfectly fine for many drip campaigns.
• The first email should be sent immediately following the recipient’s behavior.

It can’t be stressed enough — the highest return in email marketing comes from some sort of automated triggered messages. They work tirelessly for you while you eat and sleep, and they make sure you stay in touch with your constituents, always focusing on conversion.

All the above functionality is available within the OM3 platform. If you want to see how easy it is to create a triggered email series please sign up for a free demo account and go to the Campaigns tab/Triggered Campaigns