What is Email Automation?

Email automation, a component of the business marketing automation, has become an essential part of any effective marketing campaign. With automated emails you’re able to build lasting, personalized relationships with your customers, sell your products more often, and grow your business faster than ever.

The good news is you don’t need a big marketing budget to effectively use marketing automation software and take full advantage of email automation. In this article, we’ll talk about several topics, including what is email automation and what are the most popular automated email responses you should be sending.

If you’re in a hurry, feel free to use the table of contents below to jump to the section that you find most interesting.

What is Automated Email?

Email automation is a way to send emails to your subscribers as a sequence, with specific time intervals in between them.  Automation enables you to schedule your emails and send them to relevant users at scale, which is essential for effective email marketing.

Just like you set up your out-of-office messages, you can send your email marketing campaigns automatically. You would use this approach, for example, if you wanted to send an email course where each message would comprise an individual lesson. Marketers often call these drip campaigns or follow-up sequences.

What are the Benefits of Email Automation?

Here are the 5 top advantages of using email automation:

1) It saves time.

2) It makes your marketing campaigns scalable.

3) It lets you personalize your customers’ experiences.

4) It’s measurable.

5) It works well with other marketing channels.

How does Email Automation Work?

To send automated email campaigns, you’ll need either an email automation or a marketing automation software. Whichever tool you use, the logic remains the same.

Before anyone can start receiving your messages, first you have to specify a set of conditions and put them into a workflow. Think of it as a scenario — when a subscriber meets the conditions you’ve specified in the scenario (e.g., they’ve filled out your newsletter signup form), it triggers the system to send out your email.

The good news is that when you set up your workflow and hit publish — you’re done! From that point forward every time your customer meets a specific condition, they will get your automatic email. In this way, email automation is like sending a personalized message for your customers without having to write one every single time.

Also, many automation tools offer prebuilt marketing automation templates you can use immediately. The video below shows you how the workflow templates work in GetResponse.

What are the Best Tips to Effectively Use Email Automation?

5 tips to effectively use email automation to grow your business:

1) Start with a plan.

2) Design your email templates at once.

3) Document your campaigns.

4) Measure the right metrics.

5) Keep returning to your campaigns.

What are the Types of Automated Email?

Now that you know what email automation is, and how it works, you’re probably wondering how you can use it for your business.

As you’re about to see, email automation isn’t reserved for one type of business or industry. Companies of different sizes or offering different products can use it successfully throughout their entire customer journey.

Below you’ll find 36 types of automated email responses with examples and tips for what industries they’d make the best fit.

To learn more about generating more revenue out of your emails, consider these email marketing best practices.

1) Thank you email.

2) Welcome emails.

3) Meet the team.

4) Download the app and stay up to date.

5) Your order is on its way.

6) Tell us what you think.

7) Product review emails.

8) Here are our best-rated products.

9) Recommendations.

10) Blog updates.

11) Webinar invitations.

12) Event reminders.

13) Reactivation emails.

14) Your discount code will soon expire.

15) Content follow-ups after someone visits your website.

16) Post-event follow-up.

17) Birthday and anniversary emails.

18) Cart abandonment emails.

19) Thanks for trying us out.

21) Join the community.

22) Wish list update and price drop.

23) Replenishment emails.

24) Activity update.

25) Account expiration.

26) Shipping information.

27) Loyalty points status update.

28) Transaction confirmation or receipt.

29) Just one more step.

30) Top of mind campaign.

31) Campaign summary.

32) Saying bye.

33) Testimonial.

34) Referral.

35) Let’s get to know each other better.

36) Opt-in confirmation.

Read more here.