5 Things To Look For In Email Marketing Automation Solutions

Email marketing is both affordable and effective for modern businesses, with an ROI that outperforms social media by a huge margin.

However, to make the most out of the amazing potential of email marketing, you need a tool that will help you to manage your lists effectively, create content that offers value to the reader, measure performance statistics, and handle responses.

Email marketing automation can help to make the entire lead nurturing process more efficient and maximise revenue generation. A study of over 3,500 global marketers found that over 17% of respondents generated at least half of their email marketing revenue from automated emails.

There are many different email marketing automation solutions available today. It’s important to choose a system that will work well for your business.

When comparing different software, it helps to consider these five main aspects of email automation systems so you can decide which is the right solution for you.

1. Integration

Your email marketing should integrate seamlessly with all other aspects of your marketing and sales strategy and the rest of your business systems.

It’s therefore vital that the email marketing automation platform you choose is compatible with your CRM and interacts with your contact database.

Combining your CRM with your email marketing software allows you to generate better-targeted lists using customer insights from the CRM. You can also automate manual tasks such as adding or removing records from the database. You can send highly targeted emails to a specific group from your CRM, improving conversion rates and avoiding the risk of annoying customers by sending them irrelevant content.

Emails can also be personalised with CRM data such as customer names – you can even send out automated emails to customers on their birthday, or dynamically load content depending on their demographics or preferences. Personalised emails earn 18X more revenue than generic emails.

Using email in this way enables you to nurture leads, building rapport with your readers and educating them on making buying decisions, so they’re more likely to convert into a sale in your funnel. Nurtured leads are both more likely to make a sale and tend to make larger purchases.

2. Responsive Designs

More people every year are choosing to read email on their phones over a laptop or desktop computer – in fact, the majority of emails are now read on mobile devices.

It’s therefore vital that the email marketing platform you choose to work with caters for these readers by designing emails to be responsive on smaller screen sizes.

Emails that aren’t designed carefully for small screens will be difficult to read. This can result in readers disengaging or unsubscribing from your list.

Ideally, the platform you choose should include an easy-to-use visual editor that allows you to design custom responsive emails including styling content, adding images, and inserting eye-catching CTAs.

3. Clear Reporting

Without knowing if your emails are being opened or read, it’s impossible to know if your campaign is working or what steps to take to improve its effectiveness. This is why data should be at the very centre of your campaign.

Good email marketing software should provide clear reports on your campaign performance including the percentage of your emails that are being open and read and where they’re being read (mobile or desktop), if they’re being forwarded, which links or buttons in the email are being clicked, and an overall picture of engagement, filterable by demographics if available.

Not all email software gives you access to all this data – the more detailed the reports are, the better you can understand your audience and the more effective you can make your campaigns.

4. Autoresponders

At the very least, your email marketing software should enable you to create autoresponders, which can save your business time and money. The need to handle responses becomes more vital as your list grows larger.

A very simple example of an autoresponder would be to send an automatic message to replies from your mailing list saying that you have received their message and will respond within a set amount of time.

Autoresponders can increase conversions by automatically sending emails with special offers when customers take actions, such as visiting a certain page on your website or abandoning their shopping cart.

They also help to nurture relationships, particularly for new signups to your mailing list. Instead of waiting until you have some worthwhile content to send out, by which time the new reader may have forgotten who you are, you can send out a series of new customer emails that offer value and help them to learn more about your company.

5. Segmentation

The final element of email marketing solutions that shouldn’t be overlooked is the ability to segment your lists. You can create groups based on different criteria such as purchase behaviour, location, and engagement.

Sending targeted emails to specific segments of your list will increase your conversion rates as you can create content that is more relevant and more likely to result in a sale.

These more relevant emails also help you to keep subscribers because your targeted messaging offers more value.

Are You Ready to Choose an Email Marketing Platform?

Is your business currently using email marketing as part of its marketing strategy? Are you looking to upgrade your current email marketing software or find a platform that offers more automation options?

Here at Swift Digital, we can help you with your marketing automation needs to make your campaigns a success!

Swift Digital’s templates help you effortlessly create stunning emails and events communications using our drag-and-drop email and event builder.

You can raise engagement with embedded images, videos, polls, article feedback, and emojis and schedule messages to send at the right time.

Government departments’ unique marketing requirements are covered with Swift Digital, and full compliance with all anti-spam and privacy laws is guaranteed. Swift Digital is also ISO 27001 certified.

Swift Digital is Australia’s leader in marketing automation software and event management working with organisations like the NSW Government, ATO, and companies like Westpac Bank and Qantas.

Find out why we’re the Australian government department’s number one choice for their professional communications and events.

To find out how your business can get the best out of Swift Digital’s platform, contact our team today.

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