15 most popular automations to grow your business

There is still something in your cart’ or ‘Tomorrow you have an appointment at 09:15’: automated mailings, also called automations, appear daily in your inbox. This way you will be alerted to upcoming sales, you will receive useful reminders or you will receive a confirmation, for example of an order or reservation. In a world where speed, efficiency and trust make a difference, marketing automations are essential.

Whether you are a start-up an eCommerce store, a coach or a dental practice: automations are an absolute must and almost the driving force behind your company. For example, they are very time-saving because they take care of all kinds of manual tasks and they always give the contact exactly the right information at the right time. This not only strengthens confidence, it can also significantly increase your turnover.

But which marketing automations are really effective? Here are 15 most popular and powerful automations here.

1. Welcome email with new registration

You only get one chance for a first impression: it must be good, preferably perfect. Do you have a subscription to your newsletter and therefore a new contact for your mailing list? Welcome him or her with an automatic welcome email: not only does this look like a warm reception, you also increase the chance of conversion. Make it extra cordial with a discount on the first order; this will take the first step towards a sustainable customer relationship.

Did you know that at Brownmailer we even work with ready-to-go automations for a warm welcome?

2. Abandoned shopping cart emails

One of the most popular and well-known automations? That is the abandoned shopping cart and therefore a typical automation for Online store, also called the reminder that you get when you have added products to the shopping cart, but have left the page early and therefore have not completed the purchase. Did you know that more than 70% of the shopping carts are not settled? With a friendly reminder you can still convert a large part of this, especially when you emphasize that ‘there are few pieces left’, which increases the urgency. It is therefore good to examine in advance from which moment you send a reminder for the abandoned shopping cart: this can feel intrusive after 3 hours, but after 3 days possibly too late: therefore, find out which time for your company works best.

3. Automatic invoicing and reminders

Imagine: all invoices for your customers that you should manually prepare and process. Or, that you always have to remind your contacts that they have not made their payment yet. That's how much time it takes you to have a full-time job. Thanks to automatic invoicing and reminders, you not only have a lot less manual work, but also payments are processed much faster. How? Think, for example, of sending out automatic mailings in the form of invoices with an Paypal directly payment link: with a few clicks, your customer has already paid. For contact, it is quick and easy: something that is essential for contemporary success.

4. Lead scoring and sales automation

You have several contacts that are interested in your offer: yet you give one lead a higher chance to quickly become a customer with you than the other, for example because contact A has only just discovered you and contact B has already shown more interaction. In this case, you will work with lead scoring: the higher the score of the lead, according to a potential customer with interest, the faster it will be linked to a sales employee. Think, for example, of a lead that downloads a whitepaper and then looks at the price page: it sends more signals of interest than the contact that only the giveaway looks at, but does not connect a follow-up to this. Therefore, work with lead scoring and sales automations to experience where you have the most chance at that moment - and therefore with which lead.

5. Follow-up of quotations

You know it: someone shows interest in your service or product, but after you have sent a quote, you will no longer hear about it. The potential customer may drop out for financial reasons, but it may also be the case that he or she has not thought about it anymore. For example, this person did look at it, but something came in between and the quotation was eventually forgotten. For this reason, it is perfect to draw up a marketing automation that sends a kind of reminder after 3 days, such as: ‘Do you have any questions about the quote?’. 

With this you wake up the thought of the quotation, which can therefore ensure that people now do commit an action to it. Does he or she have doubts? Then that imaginary threshold to questions is now lowered and you can possibly remove an objection. Or, there was no objection, but the action still failed. So send automatic follow-up mailings and leave no quote.

Do you want to use your email marketing as effectively as possible? Then it is important that you have arranged a few things in advance to achieve the highest possible result. When you choose an account with Brownmailer.com, you immediately lay the first stone and therefore a strong foundation for your email marketing. Brownmailer’s email marketing platform provides all the tools you need to go for online success.

6. Engagement automations

A while ago someone had registered with you and maybe even bought a product from you. Still, you suddenly notice that the interaction with your company has decreased and the last visit has already been 6 months ago: that is why you want to bring this person back. For this you use the engagement automation: one that keeps track of completely automatically when contacts last interacted with your company. Win them back in this way or unsubscribe when a follow-up campaign is not forthcoming: also a handy way to keep your mailing list clean and healthy.

Automation to keep track of the engagement of contacts

7. On-boarding flow for new customers

Every beginning is often just as difficult or used to, because as a new customer you do not always know what to do or how ‘it all works’, such as the use of our software. It is of course super nice that a contact gives confidence in your company, so you can do something in return. Therefore, ensure perfect onboarding in the form of automatic mailings in which you guide this new customer step by step in the process. Think, for example, of a series of 3 mailings with tips, a contact person for help and possibly instructional videos to immediately make a flying start. The better and therefore understandable this onboarding, the higher the customer satisfaction. It can also happen that your customer leaves early.

8. Reactivation campaign for inactive customers

Many entrepreneurs constantly think of recruiting new customers, which makes sense. But, did you know that you can also make a huge amount of profit from your existing contact list? When a contact has once registered with you, for example a year ago, this person has already shown that he or she is interested in your offer. Time to see if it still is! Has a customer not bought anything from you for 6 months? Send a reactivation email with a special and personal discount to rekindle the interest. Also, recalling existing customers is much cheaper than attracting new ones, so be sure  find out what opportunities you can get from this.

9. Birthday mailings

It makes every person happy: a personal message at special moments and therefore the feeling that you are being thought of. Your contacts and customers also appreciate it when they receive an attentive message from you. Did you know that personal communication also ensures a better connection with your company and that you increase customer loyalty? Therefore, set up automatic birthday mailings and add a nice gift or personal discount code.

Sending automated birthday emails to your contacts

10. Send review requests for customer trust

For repeat purchases, it is extremely important that customers have confidence in you. A good way to build trust is to send a review request a few days after the purchase. Send an automation in the form: ‘How did you experience us?’, for example 5 days after the purchase. This shows that you think the opinion of the customer is important, which therefore increases customer confidence and can increase conversion. It is also an easy way to immediately see where it can be better.

11. Stock Notifications

Sometimes you look forward to a certain product, but suddenly you see that your size is no longer available. Do you work with an item that will be back in stock soon? Keep your -potential- customers involved by indicating that they can receive a signal when the product is back in stock: for this, they only need to leave their email address. Even if it is (temporarily) sold out, you still keep your customers involved. Therefore, set up automatic mailings around stock notifications, because customers who were once interested will come back to you quickly.

12. Reminders for an appointment or event

Nothing is as annoying as customers or guests who don't show up after they make an appointment or reservation. Do you want to avoid as many no-shows as possible? With an automatic reminder, such as 1 day or 3 hours in advance, you point out the appointment made, reservation or the upcoming event, which greatly reduces the number of no-shows. Especially when you bring this in a nice and non-strict way, your contacts will only appreciate this. It may just be that they had sincerely no longer thought of it, which also prevents all kinds of inconveniences.

Automatedly send your contacts a reminder with the right information

13. Contact tagging based on behavior

In order to communicate as effectively as possible, it is essential to know what a contact or customer likes to receive from you and what lies in his or her area of interest. The more relevant to the contact and therefore more tailored to the interest, the higher the conversion. For this reason, you are strongly advised to work with automatic tags. Does your customer click on the link that leads to ‘sustainable business’? Then give this person the tag ‘sustainability’. The more you segment, and thus distribute your contacts across specific audiences based on certain data, the better you can tailor the content. Segmentation is therefore crucial for sending relevant content.

14. Automatic customer satisfaction measurement (NPS)

Your company is running well and customers are also satisfied, but it may still be a bit better. To find out where your improvement options lie, you can send automatic mailings in the form of customer satisfaction. For example, send a mailing 30 days after purchase asking how likely it is that the customer recommends your company to others. Maybe you often get positive reviews, which is of course great, but possibly there is just a useful tip in between.

15. Go for a CRM integration

Owning as much information as possible about your customers and contacts is of course great, but is it in all kinds of different places? Then it can get quite chaotic. Therefore, ensure a CRM integration that ensures that all data comes together in one central place. Did a customer place an order in your webshop? Automatically add the contact to the CRM with purchase data and preferences: this allows you to send more targeted follow-up mailings in the future, such as product recommendations.

In short...

Automations are not only very time-saving, it also increases consistency because they always automatically respond to an action from your contact, which together ensures a higher conversion and therefore better results. Did you know that you do not need any technical knowledge to build a marketing automation with our platform? This way you choose exactly the elements you want to use for your automation or you use one of our ready-made templates to start your first automation today. 

Smart marketing automations ensure that your contacts or customers receive constantly relevant information: from confirmations for building customer trust to recommending the right products so that they come back for repeat purchases.

Do you also want to use the power of automations and use them as the driving force behind your online business? Start today with a trial account at Brownmailer.com!