Why do I need an automation for business?
‘It’s just a small business which will grow with time and enough hard work’ Or ‘I can do better by spending extra hours to improve my coaching business’. No doubt statements such as these have helped some businesses in time past, and brought their company goals into fruition.
However with the changing times and introduction of new media technologies, virtually all sectors of the economy have experienced a shift in their method of marketing both to reach out to their clients/customers and to generate profit. Well let’s take a look at what email marketing automation is.
Email Marketing Automation:
is the process of sending out automated emails based on specific events or actions taken by your subscribers. Further understanding of the definition of email marketing automation can be found at Campaign Monitor. It is incredibly powerful for many different aspects of the organization. It can directly result in customers retention and a higher return on investment which makes a lot of sense for individual businesses. An automation coach can help ensure the implementation of your email marketing automation is a success.
1. Overworking Your Employees
As your business grows so also does the task of your employees. You need to understand that there are more data than before for your employees to handle coupled with all your business goals.
Automation for business will definitely be a good choice to reduce the weight of the administrative tasks on your employees and help in dedicating more time for your customers as well as helping your business grow rather than spending long hours of work and achieving less.
2. Declining Rate of the Business
Change as it is often said is the only constant thing. As the time is moving so also people and technology are evolving. What works before no longer works now. Your business is growing and so is the competition. New, improved and better service delivery are very important factors that will keep your customers loyal to your brand, hence the need for automation in your business.
3. Time Wasted
Time is very valuable and sacred. While waste lots of productive hours preforming repetitive tasks. The laborious amount of hours employees spend just to meet up with tasks not only waste productive time which would have been channeled into other areas to promote the business, but also kills the morale and zeal of the employees, thereby making them unproductive. An automation will help in getting more work done within the shortest possible time.
4. Decline in Profit
A decline in the business rate will definitely have an effect on the choice of potential clients and customers who you have loved invest into your company. Also a reduction in profit can also be as a result of a drop in the number of your already existing because of the their quest for a better service.
5. Loss of Customers
Sticking with an outdated method in communicating with and keeping your customers updated might lead to the loss of some of your customers.
How well can you keep in touch with your customers if not doing a good and consistent follow up. To avoid loosing your customers, this is a clear unmistakable sign that you need an automation for your business by having all your customers on your email list and communicating effectively with time.
Automation for Businesses Features
Basically the standard automation features that are used for creating automated email messages are an Autoresponder and Sequence. While the Autoresponder is a single email that is triggered automatically by a specific event or action for example, birthdays and holidays, Sequence on the other hand sends multiple emails simultaneously in response to an action or event.
There are a lot of benefits that businesses could gain from automating their business. Some of these include:
- Finding new customers faster
- Onboard existing customers
- Identifying your high growth and highly profitable customer segment
- Increase your communication and engagement with your prospects, existing customers and Onboarding new customers.
- Established good relationship with the customers.
Let’s take for instance a coaching business looking for ways on how to gain those benefits for the business here are few steps it can apply to make that happen:
Step 1 – Having a Clear Purpose
First, you have to be clear on the purpose of your email. This is important, in order for you to be sure on the right format to use so as to help you create content that will lead to more conversion and sales for you. For example, for new customers, a good sequence follow up email would be more appropriate in making the prospective customer take action.
Step 2 – Creating Segments
When it comes to email automation, it is important to take note of the individual segment of the email automation and what you are going to put in each sequence and what you look forward to accomplish with it. Let the subject line be catchy, because that is the first thing your readers see before they open the emails. Also, make sure it aligns with the goal of email. You can can simply do this by carefully outlining your messages (goals) in the order and time you want to send them.
Identify the typical questions prospects have before they become customers, then follow the process sequentially with the appropriate planned automated emails. Clearly segment your customers based on their needs to make sure you don’t send a wrong message to a client. For example imagine sending a follow up made to already existing customers asking them to sign up for a program they have already signed up for. A clearly segmented email list will prevent this kind of action.
Step 3 – Retaining Your Customers
Your customers might not know everything about you but educating them gives the opportunity to become more familiar with you, your company and brand. For example when people receive a welcome series of emails that informs them about your company. Welcome series are opened more frequently, clicked through more frequently and they drive more revenue than any other type of email.
An event triggered automated such as a birthday wish, a festive celebration greeting will definitely make a customer feel recognized and valued. This is a very standard way to build Clients and Business Relationships.
Step 4 – Understanding Why They Left
Lastly, take your time to know why some of your customers unsubscribed, stopped responding to future emails, or dropped off. It is wise to check up regularly with your email service provider, for reasons why this could happen.
To understand this, most email service providers that provide automation abilities will allow you to understand how your email funnel is working, you will want to analyze that on a weekly basis by making sure you are always checking in, refining and finding the best way to manage that sales funnel, that it is successful for you.