Popular ways to use autoresponder emails
Businesses use email autoresponders to communicate with subscribers on various occasions. Different types of autoresponders can be engaging and drive traffic to your website. Let’s look at some of the most popular and also the most essential autoresponder emails.
Welcome Email
A welcome email is the first impression you make on your new subscriber. This is an automated email template sent immediately after someone signs up with you. Welcome emails have an average open rate of about 50%, making them an essential part of your email strategy. You must send the welcome email seconds after customers sign up or subscribers leave their email IDs. You can use this opportunity to introduce your brand and let them know what they can expect from you. Effective email personalization requires you to understand your subscribers and their preferences. You can use the welcome email and request subscribers to set their email preferences. This allows you to segment your subscriber list so you can send targeted and personalized emails.
Here’s an example of an excellent welcome email from Brightly. The email is engaging, asks customers to set their preference for what they’d like to receive, and leads them to some of their best posts.
Abandoned Cart emails
Abandoned cart emails are reminders sent to customers who added products to the cart but did not complete their checkout process. These emails enjoy a high open-rate and are a great way to bring back lost customers. They serve to remind customers of the incomplete transaction if they are abandoned by mistake or errors. By sending them an abandoned cart email, you show them the product(s) they picked, reassure them that it’s still saved for them, and they can quickly check out by clicking on the CTA in the email.
This example from Nomad uses witty copy combined with stunning visuals to grab the reader’s attention and encourages customers by reassuring them of their return/exchange policy and warranty program.
Email Course
An exciting way to keep your subscribers hooked to your content is by sending out a series of emails teaching them a specific topic. A series of emails are sent over time, and each email covers an important lesson about the topic you’ve picked. Autoresponder email courses are interesting since they educate your audience on topics that will interest them and demonstrate your expertise.
Creating content for an email course isn’t that hard. All you have to do is look at your blogs, social media, and comments section. These are great avenues that give you access to understand what your subscribers want to learn from you. There’s a strong chance your subscriber hasn’t read every blog post, so you could turn one of the topics into an email course that reaches their inbox directly.
Here’s an email course from InVision that details out how to use their freehand wireframe template. InVision sent a series of emails covering topics that would help its customers use the product.
Reactivation emails
A reactivation email is a lot like checking up on a friend you haven’t heard from in a while. They’re sent to a customer who hasn’t made any purchases from you in a bit. Brand retention is one of the most important aspects of marketing, and you don’t want your customers to forget about you. Bring them under your wing again with reactivation emails and top it off with an exclusive offer or discount.
Another way you can benefit from sending reactivation emails is filtering email addresses that you get no response from. You can remove these inactive email IDs to maintain a clean email list. This reduces bounce rates and improves your email deliverability.
Clear, a brand that helps with a faster security check process at airports, sends automated reactivation emails to customers they’ve not heard from in a while.
Follow-ups
These are emails sent after you’ve sent your welcome email, abandoned cart email, etc.. Follow-up emails are either sent as a continuation of a series or as a nudge if you didn’t get a response for the previous email. Most brands don’t follow up on subscribers and lose out on potential paying customers. The key to conversion is to ensure customers remember you.
An autoresponder email series saves you valuable time when it comes to following up with customers, and take little to no effort in converting them. Return Path sends a follow-up sequence if customers aren’t opening their emails. They ask customers if they’d like to continue receiving communication and request them to set their preferences.
Feedback emails
A feedback email is probably the most important email you send your customers. You’re asking for their feedback and opinion on your product or service. It’s a great way to find out what your customers think of your brand and product, and find ways to fix any pain points. Feedback emails can help you understand how close you are in satisfying your customers’ needs. With the information provided in these emails, you might even get better product ideas that could help beat competition because you’re directly addressing your customers’ problems.
Twitch, the live video streaming platform, sent its customers an automated feedback email to ensure they were catering to customers’ needs. This autoresponder covers some crucial details of a good feedback email, like, explaining why they want your feedback, how much time it’ll take to fill out the form, and a reward upon completing the feedback.
Cross-sell emails
These emails are sent to existing customers based on their past purchases. Cross-sell emails are recommendations for products similar to the ones the customer has purchased, or products that complement the past purchase. The purpose of automated cross-sell emails is to bring back customers and ensure they keep buying from you.
For example, when you purchase something from Dollar Shave Club, this excellent notification email not only lets you know about an upcoming shipment but also upsells other relevant products that you could add to your order.
