Email automation campaigns can improve overall email health for associations by engaging past members, generating new prospects and cleaning email lists. Email automation gives organizations the ability to schedule personalized email campaigns to improve engagement rates and save time! It doesn’t matter how big your organization is or how sophisticated your technology is – automated email marketing campaigns can be implemented to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your overall marketing strategy.
McKinley recently collaborated with the American Inns of Court, a chapter-based association that inspires excellence in the legal profession, and the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB), a credentialing organization for pharmacy technicians, on their automated marketing campaigns, and we have compiled a quick list of tips for kicking off your automated email campaign strategy.
Establish goals.
Set goals for your campaign and use them to inform your audience segmentation strategy. Try to follow the SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound) guidelines for goal setting!
Here are some guiding questions to help shape your goals:
- How many leads are you hoping to generate in three months?
- What email metrics are most important to measure the success of your campaign?
- How many units are you aiming to sell?
- Which segment are you hoping to see grow the most?
Let your audience segment themselves.
Once you create your strategy, allow your audience to opt-in for the types of campaigns they would like to receive. This helps nurture the audience and lead them down the marketing funnel. This is also beneficial for your email health by weeding out people who aren't as interested in hearing from you, making it less likely your emails will end up in spam.
PTCB implemented an email campaign that delivered segmented value-based messaging to customers and prospects based on their prior email engagement. These emails resulted in a higher conversion rate, a 46% average open rate, and over 18,000 pharmacy technicians added to a “hot leads” list.
Less is more.
Simplify your approach! Experiment with your email automation platform and determine its capabilities to see how it can best fit your segmentation goals. Write the messaging for your email campaigns, schedule and run with it.
Be mindful not to bombard your audience with emails when they express interest. If you have multiple email campaigns, make sure to stagger the campaign send dates so that your audience does not receive multiple emails a day from your organization.
The American Inns of Court’s original alumni (lapsed member) engagement campaign started as a complicated web of automated emails. We looked at the results from their campaign and saw that 93% of engagement was from the first three emails. From these insights they streamlined and refocused the campaign, and reallocated their time and energy to other marketing priorities.
Measure your results and make edits based on data.
Set up conversion tracking or track your open and click rates. When you understand how your audience is reacting to your email campaigns, you can adjust the frequency and messaging based on the data you are receiving.
PTCB realized a 68% increase in certificates sold during their seven-month email automation campaign. Based on campaign metrics, we saw that customers were more likely to engage with content that included career growth stories and peer testimonials. The PTCB marketing team used insights from the marketing automation campaign to adjust their overall content strategy.
Email automation can help elevate your marketing campaigns and ensure you provide relevant information to your audiences. From membership recruitment and engagement to credentials and publications, leveraging available automation tools can deliver tangible results for your organization. Check out email automation examples from HubSpot to learn more. Reach out to McKinley Advisors to get started on your email automation campaign!
