Create a Powerful Workflow for Your Email Campaigns in 2023

Automating an email workflow is one of the most powerful steps you can take to ensure that you're leveraging the full power of email for your business. An automated email campaign workflow is a series of steps that take your contacts from initial outreach to eventual conversion, helping you move them down the marketing funnel and generating more leads.

An automated workflow is a series of emails you create to welcome new subscribers, follow up after a sale, reactivate inactive leads, respond to shopping cart actions, and more. For each workflow, you create one or more emails with triggering events (like a newsletter signup or opening the previous message). You can set up emails to send immediately when a triggering event happens or after a delay of a certain number of hours or days.

Let's dive into why you should be using email workflows and how to create automated campaigns that work for your business.

Email Campaign Workflow (Why Does It Matter?)

According to SALES Manago, an automated workflow is so powerful that it can drive a 173 percent higher open rate and 223 percent higher clickthrough rates for newsletters and sales mailings.

In addition to being an excellent tool for nurturing your contacts, automating an email campaign workflow can also save you time by allowing you to set up automated processes that run in the background without any manual intervention. That frees up your time to create more campaigns and generate more leads.

What is a Workflow in Email Marketing?

An email campaign workflow is a sequence of automated emails sent to contacts based on their interactions with your brand.

Each workflow step is triggered by an event or action, like signing up for your newsletter, downloading an ebook, or adding items to a shopping cart. Based on what leads do, they'll receive a series of emails that are tailored to their interests and needs. This helps you nurture your contacts more effectively, pushing them down the funnel toward conversion.

What Kinds of Email Workflows Should You Create?

The most common email campaign workflows include:

• Welcome sequence for new subscribers

• Nurturing emails based on content browsed or downloaded

• Up-sell or cross-sell emails to existing customers

• Cart abandonment emails

• Customer reactivation campaigns

• Birthday, anniversary, or other milestones

• Rating, review, or referral requests after a sale

• Back-in-stock or waitlist email series

What Are the Stages in Email Campaign?

Your email campaign workflow should guide the customer through the buyer's journey. When you choose the event that triggers the campaign, you can build a series of emails that moves your contact from being aware of your brand to becoming an advocate.

Typically, there are three stages in the buyer's journey:

1. Awareness: This is the stage where the customer is learning about your industry, business, and products. If your customer is downloading a buying guide or browsing general content, they are still in the awareness stage. You'll want to serve them content that gets their attention and educates them about your brand.

2. Consideration: In this stage, the customer evaluates options before purchasing. An email series triggered by a shopper downloading a buying guide or requesting pricing information will be aimed at this stage. You can now assume that they are aware of your brand and products, and your email will be focused on persuading them to choose you over your competitors.

3. Conversion: In this stage, the customer is ready to take action and convert. You'll know this because they've placed an item in a shopping cart, set an appointment, or requested a demo. Your emails should now be focused on closing the sale and following up after the purchase.

By creating email workflows that move customers through these stages in the buyer's journey, you can nurture them more effectively and increase conversions.

How Do I Automate an Email Campaign? (Step-by-Step)

Creating an email campaign workflow is a simple process. Here's a step-by-step guide to setting up an email workflow:

Step 1: Identify Your Goals

Before creating an email workflow, identify your goals. What do you want to accomplish? Increase customer loyalty? Improve customer satisfaction ratings? Identifying your goals will guide your workflow.

Step 2: Define Your Audience

The next step is defining your audience. Who are you targeting with this workflow? For example, are you speaking to new subscribers or to customers? Understanding who you're targeting will help determine what steps should be included and what messaging should be used.

Step 3: Identify Your Triggers

Once you know your audience, it's time to identify the triggers that will kick off the workflow. What kind of action or event will launch the sequence? Will it be a signup form submission? An ebook download? A purchase? Whatever event you choose should be relevant to your audience and goals.

Step 4: Set Up Your Emails

Now it's time to set up your emails. What kind of emails will you be sending? Will they contain product recommendations? Educational content? Special offers or promotions? Be sure to create relevant and engaging messaging and tailor your subject lines and calls to action for each email.

Step 5: Automate Your Workflow

Once you set up your emails, it's time to automate the workflow. You can set up automated email workflows in most email marketing platforms. Simply select the triggering event and the sequence of emails, and your workflow will be ready to go.

Step 6: Evaluate and Monitor Your Workflows

Finally, it's vital to evaluate and monitor your workflows. Keep track of your open rates, clickthrough rates, and conversion rates to see what’s working and what’s not. This will help you identify areas where you can improve the workflow or create new sequences for other audiences.

How Do You Structure an Email Campaign?

Here are some of our top tips for setting up an effective email campaign workflow:

• Start with a welcome message: A welcome message introduces your brand and sets the tone for future interactions. This can be triggered when someone makes their first purchase or signs up for your newsletter.

• Personalize based on customer data: Personalization should be at the core of every email campaign workflow. Use data such as purchase history, interests, and demographics to create content that resonates with your customers.

• Segment your audience: Segmenting your audience allows you to target different groups of people with tailored content. For example, this could be based on past purchases, geographical location, or other criteria.

• Keep messages short and sweet: Make sure your emails are concise and to the point. Use short sentences and bullet points for easy skimming.

• Include a call-to-action in every email: Always include a call-to-action to get your subscribers to take the next step. This could be subscribing to a newsletter, visiting a product page, or downloading an ebook.

• Test your emails: Test and refine your emails to ensure they are performing as expected. Keep track of open rates, clickthrough rates, and other metrics to see what's resonating with your audience.

The beehiiv platform gives you all the tools you need to create an effective email campaign workflow that will help you meet your goals and drive customer engagement. Sign up and start building your campaigns right away!