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mayo 3, 2021
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Marketing Digital
In the world of email marketing, workflows are sequences of emails that are sent automatically through automated marketing platforms.
Marketing software has tools and options to set up one email after another, in a flow format, days or hours apart. They are useful when you have a list of 1,000 subscribers and you don't have the time or resources to send the emails manually.
In the following lines we will explain in greater detail what an email marketing workflow is, what it is used for and how it works.
What is a workflow in email marketing?
A workflow is a succession of emails that are sent automatically based on predetermined criteria to increase personalization.
Each workflow should contain conversion goals (for example: get 100 registrations on the website in the first 15 days of May 2021) that help guide a user through the conversion funnel: from initial contact to purchase and loyalty.
Email workflows can be dynamic or linear. Your campaign objective will determine which type of flow, or combinations of flows, will work best for your strategy.
Elements of a workflow
A workflow is composed of several elements. These are:
infographic-elements-of-a-workflow
Contact segment
This is the group of recipients who will participate in your email sequence. They all have to have a common characteristic, because they will receive specific emails based on their interests or requested actions.
For example, everyone who subscribes to your blog (action requested) and is American (common characteristic) will receive a particular series of emails.
The contact segment must be classified with a label to identify it. It usually appears at the top of the workflow, since each person who enters it, regardless of when they do so, will systematically receive the scheduled emails.
Tags
These are keywords that are used to classify contacts that perform a certain action within the workflow. For example: “Leads from the United States”
Emails
These are the emails that are part of the workflow. Within the automation tool, emails are designed in advance, using templates, and then added to the flow.
Shipping times
Send times are options added to the workflow to indicate when an email will be sent. The first email can be sent as soon as a person joins the contact segment, the second after 3 days, and so on.
Triggers
Triggers are conditions that are set up within the automated marketing software so that a certain workflow task happens or not, depending on the actions of the contacts.
For example: if a person does not respond to an email in 3 days, a trigger is activated to send them a reminder autoresponder. If, on the other hand, the user responds, another specific email is shared with them, indicated in the flow.
Self-answers
Autoresponders are messages that are sent to users automatically, and can be scheduled in conjunction with emails. When an autoresponder cycle is set up, messages will go out on a specific day during the contact's subscription period.
What is the purpose of creating an email marketing workflow?
An email workflow is a great tool for:
Imagine how long it can take your marketing and sales teams to send more than 10,000 emails manually – days, weeks, months? In reality, it is time and effort that is wasted unnecessarily and that could be invested in more creative and strategic tasks, if workflows are designed.
Although designing a workflow takes time, it takes practically a couple of hours to structure the entire flow and a few minutes a day to observe its performance.
In fact, there must always be a person in charge of managing workflows: it is a mistake not to monitor automated processes, as there may be programming errors or disabled functions that are important to modify in time.
Increase your conversions
When a person fills out a contact form on your website and decides to poland number for whatsapp share their personal data (name, position, email, phone number), they should automatically enter a conversion funnel (successive stages of the purchasing process) and become a lead.
Likewise, after that first interaction, the user begins to form part of a segment of contacts linked to a workflow, which triggers a set of automated actions so that a lead advances through the funnel until becoming a client.
In this sense, email flows help you shorten the sales cycle because they allow you to implement lead nurturing, upselling and cross-selling campaigns at different times when users might be interested in your content, products or services.
Personalize your messages according to the stages of the users' conversion funnel
Email marketing platforms link to business emails, contact forms, CRMs, documents in XSL and CVS formats, among other formats, to add recipients more easily.
Taking these databases into account, automated marketing software allows you to personalize the subject or body of the message with the recipient's name, and select exactly the emails you want to send them based on their interests or previous actions.
By sharing personalized content or service proposals with a contact at the right time, you increase your chances of achieving a conversion.
How does an email marketing workflow work?
1. Starting point
A contact form records a user's email address. Such a form can be present on a landing page, a newsletter subscription pop-up, or a registration page.
2. Creating contact segments
Registered contacts are grouped into lists or segments to build a targeted database of recipients. This process can be automated with the help of a CRM and an automated marketing platform, which stores and organizes the data.
3. Sending emails
Contacts entering the workflow will receive a sequence of predetermined emails over a period of time.
4. Trigger activation
Depending on the actions that users perform, such as clicking on a call to action or not, triggers or conditions are activated.
5. Conversions