The Definitive Guide To Using Email Automation In Your Outreach Campaign

Personalized emails are now data-driven. It can be automated through software that triggers responses based on what a customer does or doesn’t do.

Let’s say a customer has an interest in sports and has a history of buying sports gear and apparel. If you’re an eCommerce site that sells a wide variety of products, you wouldn’t want to send this customer a promotional email for cooking.

Email automation software can curate information like this and let you use it to your advantage. So stick around if you want to take your outreach campaigns to the next level using automation.

In this article, we’ll explore:

  • The benefits of email automation.
  • How it can be used to streamline marketing campaigns.
  • The benefits of automation.
  • Real-life examples of email automation in action.

What is Email Automation?

Email automation uses software, algorithms, or artificial intelligence (AI) to personalize emails. It sends out responses based on specific actions or conditions.

A real-life example we’re all familiar with is when we purchase products. After buying something online, we often get a notification in our inbox saying payment was successful.

We can also receive tracking details about our product and recommendations based on previous purchases. All of this is done without lifting a finger (granted the right conditions and triggers are set).

If you’ve done email marketing before, you know the importance of sending relevant emails to the right people at the right time. Here are popular examples of this in action:

  • Order confirmations
  • Shipping confirmations
  • Abandoned cart notifications
  • Welcome messages for new subscribers
  • Cross-sell and upsell messages

Why Email Automation Can Be a Game-Changer for Your Business

More and more businesses are investing in email automation. Salesmate says that 80% of companies are already automating emails. You don’t want to be left behind the curb.

If you want to compete on an even playing field with the competition, email marketing should be a standard. It can allow your brand to do the following.

Save Countless Hours

Automation streamlines repetitive processes like sending emails. Spending less time drafting emails and who to send them to gives decision-makers more time to focus on other revenue-driving tasks.

When paired with good customer relationship management (CRM) software, lead generation, email nurturing, and other aspects of email marketing campaigns are done a lot faster.

Accelerate Scalability

You can always send out emails manually. The challenge with this is scalability. Manually sending emails won’t be sustainable and practical the more leads or customers you have.

Thanks to automation, you don’t have to worry about scalability issues. Brands can send out personalized emails in bulk with ease.

Because the process is automated, business executives can put efforts into other parts of the business that help them grow at a faster rate.

Build Strong Customer Relationships

A personalized customer experience is among the most important factors to success in eCommerce. Studies show that 69% of customers with a positive experience are more likely to recommend brands to others.

Email automation helps boost customer relationships through pre and post-purchase campaigns. A great example would be abandoned cart notifications, product recommendations after purchase, and especially personalized discounts or offers.

Drive Revenue and Retain More Customers

Statistics show that 80% of email automation users saw a 77% boost in sales. The secret to its success? Personalization!

Accenture conducted a study suggesting 90% of customers are likely to shop at your store when they have a tailored experience.

email automation drives revenue

Source: Pexels

Email automation also helps you be top-of-mind for customers through personalized email notifications. This can be about new products, recommendations, discounts, special offers, and more.

Staying in touch with customers and giving them slight nudges can increase sales, boost engagement, and help promote your brand.

Email Automation in Action

Now that we know the benefits of email automation, let’s take a look at it in action. In this example, we’ll be looking at Instantly.ai, a powerful automation tool that utilizes AI to personalize emails.

Warm Up Your Account For Maximum Deliverability

To ensure an effective email marketing campaign, you need to improve email deliverability. It’s a metric that reveals the percentage of emails you sent that landed in inboxes. The most effective and surefire way to increase deliverability is through “email warm-ups”.

New email accounts don’t have good reputations just yet. Service providers need to see that the accounts send and receive emails regularly. You can do this manually but it takes up a lot of time and several email addresses.

To speed things up, you can use Instantly.ai to automate the process for you. Here’s how:

Once you have a list of new email addresses, click the flame icon to the right of each email account in your Email Accounts section to activate warm up.

automated email warmup

You can also change the warmup settings by clicking on the gear icon next to the flame.

Warm up settings are already built-in with the suggested amounts by default. But you can

always change the daily limits, volume, and reply rates depending on preference.

automated email warmup settings

Easily Import Your Prospect Lists

The next step is deciding how you want to upload the contacts or list of prospects. CSV, hand entry of emails, or importing from Google Sheets are the options you can choose from.

When uploading your contact list, ensure that they’re all verified. You can then assign a variable for each contact to make it more personalized.

uploading leads to instantly

Source: Instantly

For bulk uploads, you can simply copy and paste your email list into the “bulk insert manually” box and click import emails.

bulk import emails in instantly email automation software

And when sourcing from Google sheets, make sure that there are no formatting issues. To do this, Select all your rows and columns with Ctrl/Cmd + A, and then click format → number → plain text.

csv formatting for email automation

Next, ensure that your Google Sheets link is publicly accessible, and then click on import.

importing email leads from google sheets

Create Automated Follow-up and Nurture Sequences

An automated email campaign designed to turn prospects into paying clients is called an email nurturing sequence. Nurturing also gives emphasis on providing value to prospects consistently.

Personalized email sequences are powerful for nurturing clients. Consistent communications and content will keep prospects thinking about your business. Automation helps you achieve both consistency and timeliness in sent emails.

Sequencing means thinking about the sequence of emails you want to send to customers. Each individual can be at a different point in their purchasing journey. Emails need to be tailored to this factor.

Here’s how you create automated follow-ups and nurture sequences:

1. Make sure the first email your leads receive has your subject line and body text pasted in.

automated email outreach sequence

2. When creating a cold email sequence, select "Add step". The delay between procedures can be changed based on preference. Step 1 allows you to specify the number of days Instantly should pause before delivering Step 2.

While there is no limit to the number of follow-up actions you may include, Instantly suggests no more than three or four steps for the majority of a cold outreach campaign.

automated follow up emails

3. Preview and test email steps. Your email preview will appear in a pop-up window. It allows you to enter a test email address to which you can send a sample message.

email campaign preview button

Insert Variables to Personalize Every Email

The next step is to personalize your nurture sequences with “Variables”. These are the interchangeable aspects of your email that keep things personalized. Examples of variables can be the prospect’s name, company, or job title.

Custom Variables can be imported as column header names in your email copy editor. If you have a column with Title, it will upload that as a Custom Variable, which you can use in the copy as {{Title}} to dynamically insert that contact's title.

automated email personalization

Utilize a Library of Tried and Tested Email Templates

Instantly provides a wide variety of templates for different needs. You can also use your own custom templates that you’ve used in the past. Click the template icon in the bottom editor to find pre-built templates.

cold email outreach templates

Another option is to draw inspiration from prebuilt templates or change them up a bit to fit your brand image. You can save your own email copy or changes to an existing template as a new template.

save email as template

Schedule Emails to Send at Optimal Times

Timing is crucial when it comes to cold email nurturing. We’re not just talking about a specific time of the day.

Scheduling emails needs to be based on where customers are in their purchasing journey. This defines what type of email to send and who to send it to. Triggers and conditions using “steps” help us automate this process.

Instantly also simplifies scheduling sending dates and times. Here’s how to do it:

email automation schedule

Just select the days you want to send the emails and adjust the timing and the timezone. Remember, customers might have different time zones, and being able to cater to each will greatly improve your open and engagement rates.

Use AI for Advanced Email Variation

Personalized emails mean each recipient receives a unique email. But sending emails in bulk and personalizing each one is going to take hours.

To speed up the process, Instantly can use AI for advanced email variation. Easily generating unique email bodies for your leads is now possible with the help of simple sentence or word variations using “Spintax”.

Here’s an example of it in action:

{{RANDOM |Hi | Hello | Hey}} {{firstName}},

{{RANDOM|Can I schedule a meeting with you this week to show you more? | Are you free this or next week for a quick call about this? | Do you have time for a quick meeting in the coming days to see if we can do the same for you?}}

{{RANDOM | Best, | Regards, | Cheers,}}

Track Key Metrics With Your Custom Tracking Domain

Instantly embeds tracking code into the text of your emails so that you can monitor actions like who opens them and who clicks on links. This unique identifier is often a URL, like xyz.inreg1.com.

Using a custom tracking domain acts as a proxy/mask for the tracking end-point and keeps your sender reputation separate from the general user population of shared tracking domains.

A/B Test Your Emails

Email marketing is a fickle process. Oftentimes things don’t always go as planned. The key to improving your campaigns is to conduct A/B testing.

This helps you identify what went right and how it can be improved. More importantly, you get to see what went wrong, why it did, and the necessary steps to make it work.

As a rule of thumb, it's important to just tweak one factor while doing A/B tests. Otherwise, you won't be able to pinpoint the difference.

Monitor Analytics, Make Adjustments, and Grow

Monitoring analytics and A/B testing go hand-in-hand. During each campaign, A/B testing should always be looked at in tandem with analytics to verify data.

Analytics provides insight into the open and click-through rates, deliverability, and more. These metrics are important factors in determining the success of your email marketing campaigns.

Before every campaign, set up your brand’s goals, identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) most relevant to your businesses, and make sure to tweak something from previous campaigns.

Key Takeaways

Email automation is a powerful tool that every marketer should have in their arsenal. No matter the business or industry, email automation can help with the following:

  • Streamlines business processes - Email automation cuts the time it takes to draft an email, source leads, and schedule the sending.
  • Personalized emails - Personalization can significantly increase sales and conversions. Automation helps personalization through AI-powered subject lines, drafts, and other variations.
  • Improves Deliverability Through Automated Warm-ups - Automating warm-ups ensures that new email accounts can improve their authority. This helps email service providers view the accounts as trustworthy, making sent emails more likely to reach their recipients’ inboxes.
  • Builds Customer Relationships - Automated and personalized emails keep a brand top-of-mind. It helps with notifying customers of relevant product info, discounts, offers, and more.
  • Increase Revenue - Personalized emails can help improve sales by providing relevant content that can lead to conversions through email nurturing and sequencing.

Instantly provides you with powerful AI-driven email automation software that helps you take your outreach campaigns to the next level. Try the 14-day free trial to see how it can streamline your email recruitment campaigns. Click here to learn more!