Imagine having six free, extra hours every week. How would you use them? Binge-watch a good Netflix series? Read that book that’s been collecting dust on your nightstand? Take those pottery lessons you’ve been promising you would?

In a recent survey, it was found that 74% of marketers say that email automation can save them up to six hours per week. Why? Email automation gets rid of all the guesswork and automates a process that could become quite tedious and time-consuming, with quite a lot of room for human error.

Email automation doesn’t only save time. It also yields big results. Automated email marketing messages produce over 70% higher open rates and a 152% higher click-through rate. Automated email marketing has proven to boost conversion rates to up to 50%. That (and a few hours freed up each week) is a very good reason to dip your toes in the email automation pool.

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the hustle and bustle of the festive season is just around the corner. If you’re not already using email automation as part of your campaigns for these important key dates, now is the ideal time to start.

Here are our top email automation ideas for making the most out of the biggest shopping days of the year.

Get trigger happy

Simply sending the right email at the right time to the right person can be a powerful tactic to add to your marketing arsenal. The best way to achieve this time and time again is to have triggers in place through email automation.

Triggered emails come in a myriad of forms. But finding the right one for your automated email campaigns isn’t difficult. One of our top email automation ideas that you should be implementing before the festive season is to use triggers to get the ball rolling.

Over 75% of email automation revenue is generated as a result of triggered campaigns, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all campaign.

An email automation idea that involves triggers would be a welcome email to your new subscribers. Welcome emails have been found to be opened to 10 times more often than most other emails. So, if you’re taking the time to use triggers to welcome your new email subscribers properly, you’re unlocking a whole new world of engagement opportunities.

In terms of email automation and triggered emails, welcome emails would be automatically sent after a new subscriber has completed the opt-in process. Typically, these messages make the reader feel welcome whilst providing them with the all-important calls to action (CTAs) that lead them right to the content you want them to explore. Depending on how your subscribers interact with your welcome email, you can then set up a set of triggers to segment your audience and ensure they’re being sent the right email at the right time based on where they are in your funnel.

Try out an onboarding campaign

Let’s say that your welcome email was a big hit and you’ve now got leads following in at a steady pace. One issue that many marketers come up against at this point in their email funnel is that users often don’t return after signing up. Using email automation, you can keep subscribers motivated to stick around to find out how they can get extra value from your products or services. Another one of our email automation ideas is to create an onboarding campaign.

The best onboarding emails are those that address the pain points users are facing and what solution your brand provides to these challenges. Using email automation, you’ll then want to create a well-designed user journey that checks in with subscribers on a regular basis, providing them real value to encourage them to convert.

For example, if someone has opted in for a free trial of your subscription-based service but has not yet indicated that they’re interested in signing up for your premium service, you can segment them into an automated email onboarding campaign where they are regularly reminded (yet not overwhelmed) of the value of your service.

Create an abandoned cart series

Recent research has found that around 81% of online shopping carts are abandoned. In other words, shoppers are interested enough to add your product to their shopping cart, but there is something stopping them from going through with the purchase. It’s quite possible that this percentage could increase when it comes to Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.

Another one of our top email automation ideas is to recover possible lost revenue from abandoned carts by creating an automated series of emails that encourage users to return to their basket and convert. Savvy businesses are recovering 63% of revenue by having effective abandoned cart campaigns in place.

Your first email of the series, which we recommend you run using triggers, should remind users what was in their shopping cart. Your second email should address why users may be hesitant to complete their purchase and convince them that your product or service is worth buying. When your automation detects those users still haven’t converted after those two emails, you can follow up with a third email that offers a discount or special. You might also want to add copy to these automated emails that elicit feedback from users. This way they can share why they are not purchasing the product and you can use this information to better plan and inform your digital marketing activities in future.

Final thoughts

According to a recent report by HubSpot, email marketing generates around a 4,200% return on investment (ROI. In fact, for every £0,73 spent, marketers are seeing a £32,29 return – that’s massive! If you’re not one of the 64% of small businesses using automated email marketing to reach customers, you’re missing out.

We wish you all the best with your Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and festive season marketing campaigns and we hope that these email automation ideas have given you the inspiration you need to make the most of your email marketing.

If you need any assistance putting together your automated email marketing, you can reach out to our team of email experts who can create and implement an epic festive season email campaign for you.