Fundamentals of Automated Email Marketing Flows

Email is not dead. For many businesses, email stands for a large percentage of their profits. Email marketing is, at its core, building a list of potential customers that you own, and having full control over how well your marketing efforts will perform and be presented amongst a group of consumers who have already opted in to learn more about what you have to offer. When set up correctly, automated email flows can not only generate large profit margins, but countless reviews, domain authority and much more. 

There are five email flows you should always start out with when creating automation using an email engine for your ecommerce business. These flows will cover the basic and most common interactions you will see your website visitors trigger. Those five flows are:

 

Welcome Series

The welcome series is a flow dedicated to introducing your visitors to your brand & business. These introductions should include critical, descriptive information about your team and company – and a basic understanding of what you have to offer; not only in product or service, but also in content.

 

Browse Abandonment

This automation is critical to securing and converting those potential customers into finalized sales. Browse abandonment flows should be gentle, and non-intrusive. The trick here is to identify what reasons brought your visitors to your website in the first place, and remind them of the benefits they’d otherwise be missing if they decided away from purchasing your product or service.

 

Cart Abandonment

Abandoning a cart, from your customer’s perspective, could mean many things. Maybe they left an item in their cart to purchase later, or maybe they wanted to get to a point in the checkout process to identify any extra fees, or see how reliable your shopping experience is. It’s important to build your emails in this area around doing your customer a favor and answering any pain points they may be trying to research themselves by providing value propositions and the option for them to quickly check out at a later time.

 

Customer Winback

If customer retention is a priority of yours, then these automations are imperative for success in email marketing. Any interaction a visitor has had on your site qualifies them for targeting from your winback campaign. Someone may have purchased products many months ago, or maybe someone has left multiple items in their cart on multiple occasions – keeping your business in the forefront of their mind is the key to winning your visitors time, attention, and money.

 

Customer Thank You

Not everything in email marketing is about turning a profit. Often, providing a simple reminder that you appreciate your customer’s business can often lead to referrals and other forms of beneficial interactions that will help your business grow in other ways.

 

Welcome Series Email Flow

The overall flow of emails existing underneath the welcome series umbrella should feel 60% informative and 40% promotional. These emails should be representative of the conglomerate of other forms of media you operate in, like your website, social platforms and advertising. The first couple emails, if built in a similar style as the rest of your branded material, will start to establish a “Brand Authority” with your customers. This is important because you want your customers to feel comfortable interacting with all of the forms of media you offer. The Frequency at which you send welcome emails should feel natural and sparse, but regular. You want to find the sweet spot, keeping your brand and purchase opportunities fresh in your customers mind, without being overbearing or repetitive. Each email in your welcome series should be unique, engaging and pertinent to the tone, benefit and value of your business and products. We recommend you should have at least six emails planned out in your welcome series. We have gone ahead and broken down a standard, well converting recipe for each of those six emails. 

 

1. Welcome To Our Brand.
   • Intention Cell : Welcoming CTA to revisit your About Page
   • Promo Cell 1 : Company Summary
   • Promo Cell 2 : Top Selling Product
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer
2. Will You Connect Us On Social?
   • Intention Cell : CTA to follow top performing social platform
   • Promo Cell 1 : Top performing social example & CTA
   • Promo Cell 2 : Another top performing social example & CTA
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer
3. What Do Our Customers Have To Say?
   • Intention Cell : Read Reviews CTA
   • Promo Cell 1 : Example of a good review
   • Promo Cell 2 : Top Selling Product
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer
4. DId you know?
   • Intention Cell : CTA to learn something unique about your business
   • Promo Cell 1 : Collaboration or Partnership ( or more unique info )
   • Promo Cell 2 : Production collection visit CTA
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer
5. Learn More About Us?
   • Intention Cell : Welcoming CTA to revisit your About Page
   • Promo Cell 1 : Manufacturer or Product Sourcing Process
   • Promo Cell 2 : Top Selling Product
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer
6. Are You A Fan?
   • Intention Cell : CTA to join interactive newsletter
   • Promo Cell 1 : Special “Fan” Promotion
   • Promo Cell 2 : Invite to vote on company direction
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer

Browse Abandonment Email flow

Landing customers on your website from outside marketing efforts like paid advertising and social media campaigns are a feat unto themselves. Once customers land, you want to secure their attention, and it’s not entirely up to your website in order to do that. A Browse Abandonment is simply entering into a product page, and leaving without making a purchase. In order to make any further attempts to regain their attention, you can build dynamic emails that will pull a list of products and “like” products they may have viewed during their visit on your website. It is important to select popular products to build these triggers around at the very least, but eventually including every product in the future. Taking the time to build out a complex browse abandonment flow can turn incredible profits and is definitely worth the time and experimentation it takes to build out a functional process. These are the three emails we believe you should have in your first browse abandonment email flow.

 

1. What Did You Think About What You Saw?
   • Intention Cell : CTA to revisit website
   • Promo Cell 1 : Last viewed product
   • Promo Cell 2 : Like Products
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer
2. Here’s What Others Are Saying About This Product.
   • Intention Cell : CTA to read reviews
   • Promo Cell 1 : Good reviews on last viewed product
   • Promo Cell 2 : reviews on like products
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer
3. Limited Time Offer On These Products.
   • Intention Cell : Limited time offer on last viewed product
   • Promo Cell 1 : Reviews on last reviewed product
   • Promo Cell 2 : Like products
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer

Cart Abandonment Email Flow

Customers will leave a product, or multiple products, in their cart for many reasons. Many of those reasons involve building trust, or price checking your products or services. One of the most common reasons for abandoning a cart have to do with unexpected or invisible costs relating to the checkout process ( i.e. shipping costs, taxes, service fees etc. ). Often, customers are looking for a quick checkout, but certain companies will require customers to create an account, or hide their fees in a lengthy or overly complicated checkout process. Now some companies require these hurdles to be in place in order to prevent scams and false purchases to occur, or even just complications during or after their shopping experience. Regardless, you can win your customer’s trust and dollars with a well-built and functional cart abandonment campaign. With these three emails put in place, you should be able to convert a good percentage of these abandoned carts to completed checkouts.

 

1. Did You Forget Something?
   • Intention Cell : CTA to finish checkout
   • Promo Cell 1 : Abandoned Cart
   • Promo Cell 2 : Product Related Reviews
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer
2. Time’s Running Out!
   • Intention Cell : Urgency Message 
   • Promo Cell 1 : Abandoned Cart
   • Promo Cell 2 : Similar Products
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer
3. Last Chance!
   • Intention Cell : Limited Time Cart Discount 
   • Promo Cell 1 : Abandoned Cart
   • Promo Cell 2 : Product Related Reviews
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer

Customer Winback Email Flow

In order to win back a customer, they first must have visited your site or viewed or purchased a product. The point here is, inviting a customer or visitor back to your site to see the changes, updates, new products or upcoming special promotions on your website. To do this successfully, you have to create value in your emails based on something you have to offer about news or products that they haven’t seen yet. This “news” or new products don’t necessarily have to be new to you, but should be new to them. This can be achieved by tracking the interactions your customers and visitors have made, and offering them dynamic content in your emails based on the interactions they haven’t made. For example, a customer may have quickly purchased one of your products, but never made it to a collections page, or your about us page on your website. Offering them a quick portal into a product collection page or some form of content can be a great way to earn more attention from every customer, no matter how much they’ve interacted on your site. These three emails can be very effective if set up properly and pointed at the correct customer segments.

 

1. It’s Been A while Since We’ve Seen You.
   • Intention Cell : CTA to visit website
   • Promo Cell 1 : Current Promotion
   • Promo Cell 2 : Recent Reviews
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer
2. Did You Hear The News?
   • Intention Cell : Company/Product Updates
   • Promo Cell 1 : Newest Product
   • Promo Cell 2 : Newest Product Reviews
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer
3. Are You Still A Fan?
   • Intention Cell : CTA to visit website
   • Promo Cell 1 : Fanclub Newsletter
   • Promo Cell 2 : Media Involvement or Company/Product News
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer

Customer Thank You Email Flow

As I’m sure you would agree, receiving gratitude from a brand or business who you’ve transacted with builds trust and a positive relationship with that business. Not every email has to have a promotional intention, or financial return after sending it. Often, consumers will interact more and recommend brands that have gone the extra mile to earn and reward them for their business. This email flow is intended to do just that. Many studies show, offering your customer a window into the personality and human side of your business can reap outstanding rewards outside of, but also including returning revenue. Making it clear to your customer that you appreciate their business, and look forward to hearing their feedback about the business and experience you’ve built, will create all sorts of opportunities for your customer to engage further than completing a purchase. We have seen these four emails have done very well for others who have had something to offer their customers after a transaction.

 

1. Thank You For Your Purchase.
   • Text Only Email : Letter from the owner
   • Footer
2. Here’s A Little Something.
   • Intention Cell : Discount for 3rd purchase
   • Promo Cell 1 : Share with a friend
   • Promo Cell 2 : Reviews
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer
3. You’re A Part Of The Family
   • Text Only Email : Letter from the owner
   • Footer
4. Thank You For Your Continued Support
   • Intention Cell : Discount for another purchase
   • Promo Cell 1 : Review request
   • Promo Cell 2 : Follow us on social
   • Value Propositions
   • Footer

Email Design, Construction & Intentions

You may be asking yourself, “These email ideas make sense, but how am I supposed to lay these ideas out? How should they look?” And that is a great question. Designing the flow and clarity, the “story,” contained inside each email can be tricky, even after understanding the purpose and framework of each email like we outlined above. Emails can be – too long. They can also be too short, too wordy, hard to read on certain devices, unable to deliver to certain email providers. Many of these issues have the ability to land your emails in the spam folder. Even the wrong subject line or description can keep you from reaching your customer’s inbox. It’s also very important to plan your emails out, when it comes to when you’re actually sending the email. If you’re a global brand, or even if your customer base is in the same time zone as where you operate – the time and day you send your email can have a huge impact on how well your email performs. So here are some tips to keep your customers interested in your emails, and clicking all the way through.

 

Subject Line & Description

Finding the right subject line and description can be tricky. There really isn’t a right way to do it. In order to find a high converting subject and description style, you need to A/B test your ideas and see what converts with your customers well. With that being said, there are a couple things you can consider when choosing a subject and description. 

 

1. Your subject line should be a short, descriptive title to the content inside of your email.
2. Different case types, emojis, and punctuation can have different effects on your conversions. Be intentional about how you test these options. Start by sending two of the exact same email, just with different configurations of ALL CAPS or Proper Punctuation Types, Emojis, or not, etc.
3. Remember to keep your Subject line personal and human sounding. Stay away from “sales” type, or promotional vernacular ( i.e. SALE, Free, Buy .
4. Your description should be exciting, and telling of the secondary benefits to opening the email (i.e. promotional value, reassurance, promotional deadlines ).

 

Size, Dimensions & Sections

When actually building out the sections in an email, there are directions you can take that will convert better than others, and that list is very long with many different perspectives. Keeping that in mind, there will be some things you need to test to see what converts better with your customers specifically. The best thing you can consider when building out the length of each section is that everything should have a purpose. Every section, every title, every paragraph, every photo and every button should be organized in a way that keeps your customer’s attention and directs them to the area of your website you want them to see. So, here are some formatting tips to help you do just that.

1. We have found ( using illustrator to build our emails ) starting with a template size of 600 px by 2,400 px is a great place to start and leaves you plenty of room to build out the required sections. 
2. We believe a standard email template should have:
   • One Intentional Cell ( 600 px by 800 px )
   • Two Promotional Cells ( 600 px by 600 px )
   • A Value Proposition Cell ( 600 px by 200 px )
   • A Footer ( 600 px by 200 px )

 

Intention Cells & Promotional Cells

As it has been stated, every aspect of your emails should have a purpose. And ranking the most important aspects of each email in order of most convertible content is a great way to build the flow of each email. As stated above, each email should have intention cells and promotional cells clearly laid out. In order to bring clarity to these concepts, here are summaries of each section, and what they should include.

 

1. Intention Cells are essentially the “hero sections” or the first thing people see when they open your email. They should represent the Subject of the email, and should represent the overall purpose of that email altogether. An intention cell should include a very clear call to action, with its own description, explaining the reason they are receiving the email in the first place.
2. Promotional Cells are sections in the email dedicated to promoting a certain “sub CTA” relating to the purpose of the email. For example, if you were building a “Follow Us On Social” Email, you would use your two promotional cells to promote two of your social media accounts with the highest traffic. 

 

Supporting Elements

Every email should have at least two supporting element sections – the value propositions section, and the footer. Both of these sections can be slightly different depending on the email, but for the most part, you could include the same information in these sections across every email template you build out. The purpose of these sections is to give your viewers the security and comfort in either participating with, or opting out of your email communications. These sections will build authority in your business and how you like to communicate with your customers. Here’s a summary of each of these sections and what each one should include.

 

1. Value Propositions are the selling points you offer your customers that have to do with how you operate your ecommerce business. This section signifies to your customer that you have paid attention to the common pain points of shopping online, and you offer a solution to those problems. For example, you could use this section to promote the fact that you offer free shipping, and easy returns. Or, you could speak to the steps you take to maintain clean manufacturing habits. Everything in this section should be considered your qualifications as a responsible ecommerce business owner.
2. The footer should be dedicated to housing all of your social links, and opt out link and any brand or business legal jargon you’d like to include in order to protect the intellectual property in the email above. Any other pertinent information or links like your privacy policy, FAQ or shipping & return policies would fit in well in this section as well.

 

Scheduling & Timing

Depending on your customer base, where you ship your products, how long your products take to ship and even your product type could have an effect on how well your email performs at different points throughout the day. There is no one size fits all answer about when you should send all of your emails. But here are a few tips speaking to when might be a better time to send your emails, and how long you should delay triggered email flows.

1. Your email flows should be scheduled to send, once they're triggered by your visitors, to go out during the most common times your visitors have time to check their emails. In other words, sending your emails as close to your typical breakfast, lunch and dinner times have proven to be the most effective. Though Emails sent around 6:00pm local time tends to convert the best. But this doesn’t always mean you should set every email type to deliver at 6:00pm local time. Setting trigger delays can often be more effective, and more important than sending emails during a particular time of day.
2. Setting trigger delays for all of your automated emails is a must. Whether that delay is set to one second, or one hour – identifying the best time to send these emails out automatically after your visitor triggers the email can be tricky. There’s nothing wrong with setting these emails to trigger immediately ( especially the abandon cart & browse emails ). But it would be smart to get comfortable with adjusting these trigger delays, and learning what timing converts best for your business. 

Conclusion

And there you have it, these are the basics. If you follow this guide to building your emails, you will be in a great place moving forward to adjust and experiment with your email flows to find the highest return from your audience. Please note, this guide is not meant to make you your first million overnight. Becoming a master email marketer takes patience and a strong understanding of your unique email list. As long as you build your emails out with valuable information, good photography, clever messaging, and comprehensive layouts you will start to collect enough data to make changes as you see fit.

 

If you found this information helpful, and you’re ready to take the next step, checkout the next article in this series Benchmark Resources | Email Flows | Work Smart. This next resource will go into great detail, explaining how to collect, analyze and act on the data you’re collecting through Klaviyo with these email flows.