Email marketing can be a powerhouse of a small business marketing channel. It is a cost-effective way to reach out to potential customers and existing customers. It is a great way to stay top of mind, nurture new leads and drive customers to take action.

Small businesses can be used to promote products, announce special offers or educate customers on a particular topic. It can also be used to build relationships with customers, increase brand awareness and measure customer engagement.

One of the biggest benefits of email marketing for small businesses is automation. With email marketing software, like the Marketing 360® Nurture app, small businesses can create automated workflows that send out emails based on customer behavior and preferences. This allows for more targeted messages tailored to each customer and increases the chance of conversions.

In this blog, we’re going to cover three email marketing automation ideas you can start using to connect with leads and customers.

#1. A welcome journey for new leads

Most leads won’t convert the first time they’re exposed to your brand or marketing messages. In fact, there’s an old marketing adage that says that it takes seven times of exposure to your message before someone will take action.

With email marketing automation, you can set up a welcome journey for new leads. This is a series of emails that are automatically sent out to new leads when they fill out your form and are added to your CRM. The emails can include a welcome message, an introduction to your brand, a special offer and more.

When creating your welcome email journey, think about what kind of questions a new lead may have and need answered, like:

• What do you do?
• What makes you different from the competition?
• How have you helped other people like me?
• What do your customers have to say about working with you?

Use the answers to these questions to create a series of emails welcoming a new lead into the fold.

Schedule the first email to be sent out the day the lead fills out your form or otherwise gets added to your CRM. This email should include a welcome and any necessary details about what the next steps are and what to expect.

The next day, send them an email with a case study, glowing testimonials or a video success story. Then maybe a few days later, send them an email featuring your top products and services and explain the advantages of choosing to work with you as opposed to one of your competitors.

The goal of the welcome journey is just to keep dripping on new leads with emails to work them through your sales process.

#2. A feedback/reviews request email

These days, most people read reviews before working with a new local business or buying a product from a new brand. That’s why it’s important to collect reviews from customers and leads. And luckily, one of the best ways to get more reviews is simply just to ask.

With email marketing automation, you can set up a journey for requesting reviews and feedback from customers. This could be triggered when a customer buys a product or signs up for a service.

The first email should be sent out shortly after the customer has made a purchase or a service has been completed for them. It should thank them for their business and ask if they’re happy with their purchase or service by either clicking a thumbs up or thumbs down button.

If they hit the thumbs up button, direct them to a landing page on your website that has quick links to your review sites, like Google Business Profile, Yelp or Top Rated Local®. This helps to distribute your reviews on a variety of different review sites and can help you build a strong overall reputation online.

If they hit the thumbs down, take them to a page on your site asking for feedback so that it remains private to your organization. This allows you to respond to the feedback directly and use the information to get better, while also preventing the customer from going straight to Google or Yelp to leave a negative review.

When you create this automation, only send two to three review requests — and no more. Set up your email marketing software to automatically remove customers from the review automation if they click any links. This way, if they click the thumbs up or thumbs down, they won’t continue to get asked for reviews.

#3. A monthly check-in journey to keep you top of mind

Email marketing is one of the best small business marketing tools for keeping you top of mind with your customers. To stay relevant, you need to create a campaign that helps you touch base every month.

One of the ways to organize your email marketing campaign around holidays. Almost every month of the year has a holiday you can talk about, from National Pizza Day to Earth Day.

Set up this automation to be triggered on the first day of each month. Then, create an email that talks about the upcoming holiday and how your customers can get involved.

Like with any email marketing campaign, you should always look for ways to add value. This could include adding valuable information relevant to your industry, upcoming news and discounts, educational or motivational information, or even something funny, like a meme or a joke.

Another way you can organize this kind of email campaign is to consider the seasonality of your business. For example, a lawn care business may offer snow removal in the winter, yard clean-up in the spring, lawn care maintenance in the summer and leaf removal in the fall.

Create a series of emails that talks about the seasonal services you offer and how they can help, with tips, tricks and advice for your customers. This will help your customers know what to expect from you, educate them about your services and help create anticipation around certain services, like spring clean-up or fall leaf removal.

The value of these types of campaigns is that they keep you top of mind. This ensures your customers are always thinking about you and your brand. That way, when they need the products or services that you offer, they think of you first.

These are just three ideas to get you started with email marketing automation. But, there are a lot of other ways you can use this powerful tool to nurture leads, increase conversions and stay top of mind with your customers.

From the Nurture app to the CRM app, Marketing 360 has everything you need to make the most of email automation for your business.

Learn more and see our plans and pricing. And for more tips and advice on how to fuel your brand, subscribe to our YouTube channel.