Email marketing is a great tool for generating leads. allows you to connect and engage with your leads and customers on an ongoing basis. At the same time, manual lead nurturing via email has its limitations. you can only send and reply to so many emails a day.
Fortunately, email marketing automation allows you to generate more leads in less time. you don’t even need an expensive tool to set up automated email workflows. gmelius allows you to create gmail workflows directly in your favorite email client.
we’ll tell you more about that next. First, let’s take a look at what exactly email workflows are.
what is an email workflow?
An email workflow is a sequence of emails that are sent automatically based on a prospect’s or subscriber’s personal information, behavior, or preferences. each automated email workflow has a specific goal, like onboarding a new customer or promoting a new product.
Because emails in automated email workflows are only sent when triggered, they reach the recipient at exactly the right time in their customer journey. and because they’re personalized or something, they have a higher chance of being opened.
here is an example of what an email workflow automation might look like for a b2b saas:
- trigger: someone has been a customer for exactly one year.
- start email workflow: receives an email thanking you for your trust, with an overview of the ways you’ve used your product over the past year.
- next: receive an email with features you haven’t yet they use but that could be beneficial, including a cta to see those additional products or services on their site.
- finally: they receive an email with a link to book a call with for discuss how else you can help them.
and here is an example of an email workflow for a b2c ecommerce:
- trigger: someone signs up for the newsletter.
- start email workflow: they receive a welcome email that includes a 10% discount on the entire store valid until a certain date.
- next: They receive an email with more information about the brand and its best sellers.
- finally: they receive an email reminding them that their 10% discount is about to expire, with an email to buy now.
why you should build email workflows
As with any type of marketing automation, email workflow automation allows you to stay connected with your list when it matters. It helps you nurture leads and customers consistently without having to come up with new ideas every time an email needs to be sent. this means you can spend time on other things and increase your sales productivity.
In addition, email automation makes it easy to measure and track the success of your email marketing campaigns. After all, if you’re sending the same sequence of emails to a large group of people at specific times, you can test by changing one element of your email workflow. This way, you can improve your email marketing based on real data and not just a personal impression of what your subscribers seem to respond well to.
some things to try are:
- sending hours.
- sending days.
- subject lines.
- accounts.
- intervals. </li
- length of the copy.
email workflows: when to use them + examples
In general, you can create an automated email workflow whenever you can send the same email to multiple people at specific times. the idea is that you don’t need to send thousands of emails manually and you don’t need to be at the computer at the time you want to send them.
Next, we’ll dive into some of the most commonly created automated email workflow examples within gmail using gmelius, followed by a few extras.
client onboarding workflows
When you have an extensive knowledge base or help section on your website, creating an onboarding workflow is a great way to guide new customers to these training materials. at the same time, you can use an onboarding sequence to educate them on how to use your product, offer valuable “insider tips,” or give them more insight into how you’ll serve them.
The trigger for an onboarding workflow is someone signing up for your service or purchasing your product, regardless of whether that happens on your website or by signing a contract or other form of agreement.
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Note that if you offer different pricing plans with different features, it’s best to create separate onboarding workflows for each.
free test workflows
If you offer a free trial of your product, whether it’s a saas, a course, or anything else, you don’t want to sit back, wait, and hope that people will convert at the end of your free trial. you want that conversion to be a no-brainer for them.
A free trial workflow for the paying customer is intended to help the user get the most out of their free trial. your emails may include:
- an overview of all the features.
- deep dives into the most popular features and how to use them.
- custom use cases based on user profile user.
- a preview of how much easier/happier/better things will be if they continue to use your product.
A workflow like this can be triggered when a user reaches the end of their free trial, but ideally, it will start as soon as someone signs up. in that sense, this type of workflow can serve as both an onboarding and conversion stream. First, you show the user how to use your product, and then you make sure they understand its value so they don’t want to go without it ever again.
Lead Nurturing Workflows
Sometimes the only purpose of an email sequence may be to stay in touch and nurture your leads. The trigger here could be that someone is subscribed and reading your emails, but hasn’t bought from you yet. maybe they’re not ready to do it, and so you want to stay top of mind for when they are.
Emails in a lead nurturing workflow will not be very attractive for sales. they will provide the potential customer with valuable content so that you can establish yourself as a trusted authority when they are ready to make a purchase.
sales workflows
Email automation doesn’t have to be the same as creating sequences of 10 emails for each trigger point in the customer journey. It can be as simple as sending a prospect a discovery form when they indicate interest in your services, or sending someone a calendar link when they fill out a form to book a discovery call.
customer support workflows
Email workflows don’t always have to result in emails being sent to prospects or customers. If you’re part of a customer support team, you can benefit from a workflow that automatically tags and assigns support requests based on the subject of the email, for example.
A workflow like this helps ensure that all customer support requests are answered and that each email is handled by the support member best qualified to handle it.
event workflows
Whether you’re hosting a live event or a webinar, getting someone to register can act as a trigger for an event workflow that informs attendees of what to expect and how to plan their attendance before the event, in addition to providing information during the event and a summary afterwards.
Here are two sample event workflows, one for an in-person conference and one for a webinar.
conference in person:
- trigger: someone buys a ticket.
- emails before the event: how to get there, where to stay, program information, …
- emails during the event: event agenda day, networking at night,…
- emails after the event: photos of the event, presentation slides,…
webinar:
- trigger: someone signs up.
- emails before the webinar: technical information on how to attend, link to join,…
- emails after the webinar event: webinar slides, webinar recording, …
milestone workflows
Emails that acknowledge and celebrate a birthday get a 481% higher transaction rate. that’s a number you can’t ignore, and once you have someone’s date of birth, it’s easy to use it as a trigger to send a happy birthday email or even a longer sequence.
Even if you don’t collect birthdays, there’s other data you can use to help your list celebrate milestones. You can let them know when they’ve been a customer for a year and how much your business has helped them in the meantime. you can also let them know when they’ve reached a certain usage milestone and congratulate them for doing such a great job.
Celebration workflows provide a great opportunity to suggest that recipients treat themselves (and buy something extra), offer them a discount or free gift, or make personalized recommendations.
survey response workflows
If you’re collecting customer data through surveys, those responses can also act as triggers for an email workflow. When running customer satisfaction surveys, for example, you can group customers into separate segments based on their responses and trigger a workflow for anyone in the “dissatisfied” segment.
Not only does this give you the opportunity to improve their opinion of your brand, but it also shows them that you’re actually doing something with your feedback.
Bonus: Advanced Email Marketing Workflows
In addition to the email workflow examples above, you can use gmail to set up more marketing-focused sequences, such as:
- welcome subscribers workflows: thank them for signing up, explain what they can expect, offer them a discount, and more.
- workflows Upselling: Recommend a product related to the one the customer just purchased, promote a new edition, or highlight the benefits of an upgrade.
- Purchase Renewal Workflows: remind customers that it’s time to stock up or use your service again.
decisions to make when creating an email workflow
1. Who will you email?
This boils down to determining which trigger will start the email sequence. examples are:
- new subscribers.
- existing customers who haven’t interacted with you in six months.
- cart abandoners.
- prospects who completed your contact form.
- users nearing the end of their free trial.
2. what is the purpose of emails?
what’s the one thing you want this email workflow to accomplish? some goals could be:
- Have recipients book a discovery call.
- Have recipients start a free trial.
- Re-engage inactive subscribers.
- feed potential customers.
- get recipients to buy your product.
3. What actions should be automated?
draw how someone would be guided through this email automation to identify the different steps that need to be automated. these include:
- how many emails to send.
- when to send them, including specific days, times, and intervals.
- what happens when they take action, like clicking a link. this could mean you need to update your crm or add them to another sequence using if/then logic.
The idea is to write the entire workflow in a way that the software you will use to configure the workflow understands.
4. create your emails
By now, you know what to email to whom and why, as well as when to email it. the next step is to create the actual emails. this involves everything from the subject lines to the email copy and any images or downloads you may include.
5. configure your workflow
Once you have all of your email assets, it’s time to set up your workflow. for the exact steps on how to do this, consult the knowledge base of the software you’ll be using.
6. take a test
Once you’ve created your workflow, be sure to check that everything is set up correctly. Ideally, you’ll also create a test list that you can trigger the sequence for so you can be sure it works the way it’s supposed to. this will also allow you to catch typos, broken links, or automation errors that you may not have noticed before.
7. publish your email workflow
once you’re happy with it, start your workflow. this can be as simple as posting it to your workflow automation tool. sometimes you may need to connect it to a contact form or link on your website if you ran an “offline” test first.
how to create gmail workflows
If you’re a gmail user, you’ll be happy to know that you don’t need a complicated external tool to set up email workflows. While Gmail doesn’t have a native stream feature, a tool like Gmelius allows you to automate your email outreach directly from your Gmail account so you don’t have to spend hours manually emailing dozens if not hundreds of potential customers. .
Read more about using “if this, then that” filters on the gmelius script page.
In addition, you can automate many of your gmail workflows with gmelius, and since it allows you to create a shared inbox, with shared labels, shared kanban boards, and more, it helps your team save time and spread out. email workload evenly.
here are some examples of things you can do with gmelius gmail workflow automation:
- Easily create, share, and deploy gmail templates to ensure your team communicates with a consistent tone of voice and all potential customers receive the same essential information.
- design marketing campaigns automated drips to keep prospects and customers engaged.
- automatically add labels to emails for easy categorization and prioritization.
- set up automated responses to let your customers know you’ve received their request and that’s best of all.
- Automatically assign emails to team members so every message is handled by the right person.
- Analyze the performance of your workflows gmail work and know what stage each recipient is in at all times.
As you can see, gmelius scripts help you do much more than automate your scope. By automatically organizing emails based on how recipients react, gmelius saves you a lot of time-consuming heavy lifting. when a lead responds to an email that’s part of a workflow, for example, their response can be automatically assigned to a salesperson for follow-up, and the lead itself will move along your sales channel. all this without you having to do anything manually! It’s like having a virtual assistant living in your gmail account.
To give you even more automation options, gmelius integrates with zapier. this means you can use your favorite tools as part of your gmail workflows.
for example:
- Add email addresses to a drip campaign by connecting your crm or google sheets.
- Receive a slack notification every time a new lead is added to a sequence.
- add google form fillers to a sequence.
Do you want to know more? check out our article on gmail automations and learn about our integration with zapier.
set up your gmail workflows and start saving time
Email workflows help you keep your leads engaged while you spend time on other tasks. they also allow you to automate internal email processes to keep things running smoothly. best of all: with gmelius, you can configure them directly in gmail.
Sign up for gmelius today and start building your gmail workflows.