Automation empowers most major brands in every industry you can think of. While automation may bring to mind AI or computer-powered production lines, it's the same concept that pops up with a chatbot, schedules your healthcare appointments online, and sends emails to your prospects.
In sales and marketing, email automation is vital as it allows you to reach a wide audience directly and become more efficient in your outreach. However, reaching the masses does you no good if your emails don't get responses or clicks.
By continually improving your automation workflows and sequences, you can up your conversions and conversations. Here are a few tips to keep in mind.
1. Review the analytics
As you begin to build out automation sequences, keep a close eye on your analytics. If your email gets a 50% open rate and a 40% click-through rate, you've created a great email that is working well. However, if you're getting a 5% open rate and 0.18% click-through, then it's time to change things up.
If you're prospecting and finding hundreds of people to put into lead nurturing email sequences, but they aren't getting back to you, check those analytics and see where things are falling off. Either your messaging isn't landing, or you're talking to the wrong people.
Let your data guide your improvements. See where people are unsubscribing or disengaging in each of your sequences. Take a look at the recipient, the font, the messaging, the length, the subject line, etc., and figure out how to make it more inviting, more engaging, more intriguing, and ultimately more clickable.
2. Include a video
Video is more engaging than text for many people.
If someone sends me an email that is longer than two paragraphs, I'm going to skim it. If someone I don't know sends me an email that is longer than two paragraphs, I'm going to delete it. If I'm being honest, I just don't want to take the time to read that much.
By sending a video in your email, you've now caught my attention. You've sent me something digestible and engaging. Bonus points if it's a video from a sales rep I've already been in contact with or is personalized to my specific needs or pain points.
By sending a variety of different forms of content, you're more likely to hit on the type that resonates best with your prospects. And your data can help you determine what methods are having the best results.
3. Include and revise your calls-to-action
Without a great call-to-action, what's the point of the email?
We all get so many emails. If you're including vague or open-ended emails in your sequences, it's no wonder your click-through rates aren't doing well. Rather than just having an open-ended email with no clear next step, include a call-to-action and, more importantly, include a call-to-action with an action verb. Send your recipient to a meeting link, your website, a great article from a trusted resource, or a link to a specific blog post about their problem. If you can keep them intrigued or provide a ton of value, that is going to help you stand out and make sure they need to click through or respond.
A great call-to-action gets results!
4. Personalization tokens
Automation doesn't mean that you can't send a personal email.
If you're using sales automation software, it likely has some personalization tokens to help you speak one-to-one with your recipient. Be sure to use these tokens to the best of your ability.
Add their name, their website, their company name, etc. — whatever is pertinent, use it. The less an email feels like a blanket statement that was sent to hundreds of people, the higher opportunity for engagement.
Automation is changing our lives every single day. We all have a million responsibilities and messages vying for our attention. By creating automation to support your manual efforts, you can improve your efficiency without losing any effectiveness. Which frees up time to focus on the other important attention-grabbers in your life.
If your HubSpot sequences aren't working as well as you'd like, consider an audit. Regular audits of your software, data, and processes are an ideal way to stay data-driven and make improvements that will actually work. Our team can run a HubSpot Audit to help you identify what's working well and where there's room for improvement. We'll look at your Sales Hub and sequences, along with Marketing, Service, Operations, and CMS Hubs.
