If you’re making your early forays into the world of email marketing then one of the things that can throw you is the terms. People talk about email automation and they talk about email marketing – but is there a difference, and if so, what is it?
What is Email Marketing?
Ever received an email from a company that mentions their products or services? I’m pretty sure you have. Great – you’ve been engaged with email marketing.
It really is that simple – email marketing is marketing done by email. It’s a way to try to promote brand recognition and, ultimately, sales by connecting to your audience with email. At its most basic, it’s possible to argue that simply writing a personal email to a customer thanking them for buying from you, or offering them something new, is email marketing – though personally, I’d say that’s a bit of a stretch in reality.
Because, when it comes to the email marketing business, we do a lot more than just sit there sending emails one per person – if you have even a decent list of customers or prospective leads, that’s going to take forever! No, email marketing really relates to a strategy of scheduled and triggered emails that reach a broad audience, featuring tailored content and eye-catching calls to action that encourage engagement – for example, sending out a monthly newsletter with a limited-time offer to everyone who has ever bought from you. It’s quite a deep subject, which is why I find myself writing about it all the time!
OK, that’s great, but what is email automation?
What is Email Automation?
Remember that idea of writing an email in your standard email app and then sending it to a customer, and then doing that individually for every single one of your customers? Doing that is impossible. Well, not impossible, but a full-time job in itself and incredibly inefficient.
What you really want is a way to automate as much of that process as possible.
(And I can see that you’re already catching on!)
Email automation refers to a range of tools that take the heavy lifting from your email marketing and do it for you.
Let’s take that earlier example of an email newsletter. If you’re going to send something out every month (and believe me, that sense of reliable constancy in your email marketing is important), then you can either do it by hand, setting a nice reminder in your diary to sort it out, or you can automate the process, writing the newsletters well in advance and having them queued up to be triggered to send once a month.
That’s at its simplest and could be done manually if you really wanted, but why not get cleverer? How about an email that’s set up to trigger and send as soon as someone opens an account with you – ‘Hi, thanks for joining us as a customer at Great Business Co., here’s a tenner off your next order…’ Oh yeah, you’ve seen them, and they’re a great bit of personal contact (email marketing at its best). Try to do that manually, and you’ll be sitting at your computer 24/7, waiting for someone to buy!
What about an email that is sent out on your customer’s birthday using data you requested from them when they first signed up? ‘Happy birthday, here’s a little gift from us at Great Business Co.’
Yup – that’s email automation.
Email automation is part of email marketing – and an important part; but it’s not email marketing, and email marketing isn’t just email automation. I’m glad you understand.
The Importance of Automation in Email Marketing
As you can see, doing everything by yourself is really time-consuming and, therefore, costly. One of the great benefits of email marketing is that it’s cost-effective and relatively easy to set up and do – why would you want to make it harder?
You can do email marketing manually, and many of us start that way, but as your customer base grows and your ideas for what you want to accomplish with your marketing expand, you’ll need to turn to automation.
Plus, with a whole host of AI-based tools out there, and more coming, email automation is getting easier and smarter (though I don’t advocate using AI to create your content without you!).
Use email automation in your email marketing to:
- Set triggers to target your customers at key times
- Maintain reliable and consistent email marketing
- Take the burden off your shoulders when it comes to remembering your marketing
- Segment your email list into groups for more targeted content
- Personalise your email marketing based on user data and actions
Doing things manually requires you to be constantly aware and working; email automation gives you time to actually run your business.
Learning More About Email Marketing with Nathan Littleton
Hi, I’m Nathan Littleton, and I’m an email marketing specialist – actually, I’m more than that; I’m an email marketing fan! I’ve been working with email marketing for years, and I’ve got a wealth of experience in how to make the most from this incredibly efficient marketing technique – experience that I’m happy to share with you to boost your business.
If you want to learn more about email marketing and email automation, why not read some of the many articles I’ve written over the years? Or, for that personal touch and to get your company’s email marketing up and running without delay, book a meeting with me. We can talk in-depth about your unique needs and build a campaign strategy together. I look forward to hearing from you.
