Discussion

What are email workflows & how do they work?

If you have potential leads “stuck” in your marketing funnel who aren’t quite ready to commit to buying your product or service, but you don’t have the time to reach out to each and everyone individually to nurture them towards this purchase. What do you do?

The straightforward and time effective way to do this is through email workflows.

So, what are email workflows?

Email workflows are an automated selection of emails that can be scheduled based on a person’s behaviour or contact information. Workflows allow you to trigger actions based on the information you have about your leads, meaning you can send the right message to the right person at the right time. Some examples of this are:

  • A series of emails to those who have viewed a certain page on your website
  • An email triggered by a date e.g. sign up anniversary or a birthday.
  • Emails for when leads have a specific website history like clicks and downloads.
  • An email for when they abandon their cart before a purchase.

The whole purpose for setting these emails up in a certain way is to make sure they’re more relevant, timely and targeted than sending out one mass email to everyone. This way you segment your email lists and create lead nurturing that is best suited to your audiences position in the buyer journey.

A workflow is triggered by an action that signals for it to send or start sending its series of emails.

So how do email workflows work?

This feature works through automation which you set up, so if A happens, B will follow. There are specific conditions to be set up for emails to start this workflow, you just need to decide what these are.

You can set up a workflow for a series of emails based on an activity. For example, when someone subscribes to an email list a triggered email can be set up to welcome them one day later and then a follow up email a week after that initial email.

Date triggered emails would work by the workflow identifying the time from a specific date. For example, set up two emails to be sent before their birthday, one a week before and then another the day before.

So now you know what email workflows are and how they work. You know it’s going to save you time and help you convert leads into customers you’re ready to go. But it’s also important to be aware of the right time to start using them, and there is no real black and white about when you should incorporate these email workflows into your marketing strategy as everyone is different.

But if you can identify with any of these scenarios it maybe a good idea to start:

  • You’re sending the same emails to your entire subscription list.
  • The sales team aren’t very happy with the quality of leads you’re sending their way.
  • You’ve managed to collect some really valuable lead information but aren’t using it.
  • You’re trying to follow up all your emails manually and it’s not manageable.

Closing thoughts

Email workflows are such a useful automation tool to use in your email marketing campaigns and if set up properly can better engage your leads turning them into customers. Its all about nurturing them down the buyer journey through relevant, targeted emails.

Another great thing once you have them as customers you can use the email workflows to delight with a series of emails that support them in their purchase with helpful articles and maybe some cross-selling thrown in for good measure.

What’s more they save you more time, in fact, Market2Lead found that leads that go through automated workflows have a 23% shorter sales cycle.

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