Email campaigns’ efficiency declines: according to Gleanster research, OR dropped 4 times in the last 5 years. Marketers can no longer ignore the fact, that newsletters as we know them work worse than they used to. Luckily, email marketing isn’t only about newsletters! Let’s dive into autoresponders!
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What is Autoresponder
An autoresponder is a mechanism for planning email sending as a response to person’s actions, such as form filling, clicking the link inside the email, message opening or adding to a campaign stage.
In other words, autoresponder works like this:
If the user does X, then send message Y.
How Autoresponder Works: Customer’s Point of View:
Company reacts to my interests.
- I watch an item -> I receive item’s offer via email.
- I click a link in the email -> next message contains personalized content.
- I’m interested in an event -> I receive an event reminder.
- If I’m NOT interested in something, a brand doesn’t spam me with information about it.
By including autoresponders into your arsenal, you increase messages’ effectivity. They become more fitted to what interests a particular person, what makes the overall communication more personalized. Moreover, you avoid spamming with the offers that don’t interest your customers.
Your mailing quality is made not only of the emails you send, but also those you don’t. Any unnecessary (for recipient) email lowers your liability; thus, you should reduce the number of such messages.
How Autoresponder Works: Marketer’s Point of View:
-> I decide what actions trigger autoresponder.
-> I create the message.
-> I test the message to see how it will look like on recipient’s screen.
-> I activate the autoresponder. From now on Marketing Automation system reacts to triggers, and sends messages when a person meets predefined conditions.
For a marketer, autoresponder implementation means leaving the traditional campaign-oriented mode, where email sending is one-time act – instead of creating and sending one email, you build a process.
Autoresponder Cycle (Drip Campaign)
Autoresponders can be combined into cycles, i.e. one event triggers multiple messages which recipient will receive within few days or weeks.
Before we focus on perks of mechanism implementation, let’s explain some terms.
Autoresponder vs. Dynamic Email
Autoresponder, same as dynamic email, is sent as a 1-to-1 message. However, the autoresponder has the same content for every addressee, when dynamic email’s body varies depending on the person who receives it.
Both messages work on a one-off basis, and are send in an individually picked moment, but the autoresponder is simpler.
Autoresponder vs. Drip Campaign
Autoresponder equals drip campaign: they work using the same logic – different names for the selfsame process.
Term “Drip campaign” term is often used to describe the autoresponders’ ecosystem, i.e. the set of linked together messages.
Autoresponder vs. Transactional Email
Transactional email is in a subcategory of autoresponders: it stands for an automatically sent message with transactional details (order confirmation, shipment information, etc.). In the same category, you’ll find system messages, such as restoring the forgotten password.
Ok! We established what autoresponders are. Let’s see what they can do for you.
When You Should Use Autoresponders?
Autoresponders have a wide range of applications. You can use them for::
- Content distribution
- Customer education
- Increasing engagement
- Communication personalization/ customization
- Increasing email campaigns’ efficacy: according to Emma revenue generated by this kind of messages is 18 times higher.
Frequently Sent Autoresponders
In Marketing Sherpa’s research, marketers pointed what kinds of automatic emails they send. The results:
- Welcome messages: 50% of respondents
- Thank you messages: 48% of respondents
- Transactional messages: 40% of respondents
- Activating messages (how to use the product or service): 26% of respondents
- Post purchase messages (product review, customer survey): 25% of respondents
- Upsell/cross-sell messages (dynamic, similar product recommendation, premium offer): 25% of respondents
- Date triggered messages (birthday, subscription renewal): 24% of respondents
- Behavior – triggered (e.g. website visit): 18% of respondents
- Reactivating messages: 15% of respondents
- Messages recovering abandoned shopping carts: 9% of respondents
As you can see, autoresponders are constantly present in a marketing landscape. Let’s take a look at some autoresponder campaigns, shall we?
Welcome Messages
Welcome message after subscribing to a newsletter is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. It shows that you care about the user to remember you better. If the first message arrives a week after subscribing, she may already forgotten your company’s name (do YOU remember what newsletter you subscribed to a week ago?) and thus will ignore your email, or even delete it or mark as a spam. Moreover, welcome messages are simply polite: it’s like to say “Hello” to a person, who just stepped into your store.
In this message, you can ask your client about her preferences using a short poll. It might become helpful when you want to assign her to a segment and personalize her messages from the very beginning.
Onboarding
Don’t forget about your fellow employees! Prepare a package of the crucial information, that every department freshmen should learn, links to the most important blog articles, relevant procedures’ description, company’s structure, essential contact list – everything that helps a new person to feel more comfortable in your company. It upgrades onboarding flow.
Reactivation
If a customer doesn’t react to emails, nor visits a website, it’s a good practice to send her a message with a special offer. Campaigns dedicated to dormant and inactive users allow us to deliver them some unique value and win them back (or spot contacts that should be deleted from your database).
Educational Cycles
One of the autoresponders category is an educational cycle, or in other words Lead Nurturing: It’s a batch of messages, in which you present some information that is crucial in a decision-making process. Despite the fact that initially this technique was used only in B2B, recently it was adapted by B2C and ecommerce. That’s how companies meet prosumers’ needs, so they can be well-informed and well-prepared before making a purchase. In the educational cycle, you can explain how the product is made, how to use it, what rules you apply, what are your values, etc.
The cycle mustn’t be all about the product. It can also present some additional advice: it isn’t designed to sell, only to prepare the ground for purchase, acquaint with the brand, deliver useful information and answers, to bond and build trust.
The cycle should be run when a person visits a specific website destination and spends there some time. If someone read, not only scanned, a gluten-free pancakes recipe, he’d probably like to find more gluten-free dishes.
How to prepare the cycle? If you blog on a regular basis, you probably already have some materials you can use. Take a look at the analytics and spot the information that is the hottest ticket in town, and the most read content.
Autoresponder Setting Checklist. The Best Practices
You shiver full of excitation already? Before you set the autoresponder, please read some ending thoughts.
- Limit the number of messages sent to one client. There’s nothing worse than sending 10 autoresponders… plus bulletin.
- Make it short and to the point. The autoresponder is reaction: you know customer’s need, so stick to that!
- Set the goal. Define the problem you want to solve, and decide which metrics you’ll use to determine its accomplishment.
- Know your target audience.
- Make sure, that the message corresponds to the event that triggers it, and that the entire action-reaction process makes sense.
- Exclude time-limited offers. Double-check not to address the special offer that ends in one month. Treat autoresponder like a regular practice.
- Test to find the best content format. What works best: short note or essay?
If you claim, that email marketing is dead, or that this medium doesn’t work in your case, try autoresponders. Switch from email marketing to Marketing Automation and change communication philosophy: use data, monitor customer’s behavior, react to her actions. You’ll see how personalized and customer-focused email brings real change and real benefit for your company.
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