Email marketing is a powerful tool that can help businesses in South Africa build relationships with their customers, drive sales, and boost brand awareness. One of the most effective ways to achieve these goals is by using workflows in email marketing.

An email workflow is a series of automated emails that are sent based on the users contact details, behaviour, or personal information. These emails work together to accomplish a goal, like on-boarding a service, purchasing a product, and more. Workflows automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks and streamline communication processes, allowing marketers to create and send targeted, personalised, and timely email campaigns to their subscribers.

In this post, we'll take a closer look at the benefits of using workflows in email marketing, and how they can be applied to specific types of email campaigns.

Benefits of using workflows in email marketing

Workflows allow for a number of benefits to both subscribers and businesses alike, including:

1. Segmentation: Workflows allow for segmentation of your email list based on subscriber behavior, preferences, and demographic information. This results in more targeted and relevant communications, which can lead to higher open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. According to a study by DMA, segmented and targeted emails generate 58% of all revenue.
2. Automated email campaigns: Workflows automate the creation and sending of email campaigns, freeing up time for marketers to focus on other tasks. Automated email campaigns can include welcome emails, birthday emails, anniversary emails, and abandoned cart emails. According to a study by Omnisend, abandoned cart emails have an average open rate of 45%, and a click-through rate of 21.5%.
3. Increased efficiency: Workflows streamline email marketing processes and ensure that all steps in a campaign are completed on time and with minimal errors. This can help businesses save time and money, and improve the overall effectiveness of their email marketing campaigns.
4. Improved customer experience: Workflows allow for the creation of personalized and timely email campaigns, leading to a better overall customer experience. Personalized emails have been shown to improve open rates by 29%, and click-through rates by 41%.
5. Better data analysis: Workflows generate detailed reports on the performance of email campaigns, enabling marketers to track their effectiveness and make data-driven decisions. This can help businesses optimize their email marketing campaigns and improve their ROI.

Applying automated workflows to e-Commerce platforms

Email Workflows are commonly used on e-Commerce platforms to increase sales conversion rates and drive engagement with consumers. At Tecbot, we try and incorporate the following three e-Commerce workflows into every e-Commerce store we design and build:

1. Abandoned cart emails: Abandoned cart emails are a type of automated email campaign that can help businesses recover lost sales. When a customer adds items to their cart but doesn't complete the checkout process, an abandoned cart email can be triggered. This email can remind the customer of the items in their cart and encourage them to complete their purchase.
2. Browser Abandonment Emails: Browse abandonment emails are triggered when a shopper takes a specific action on your ecommerce site (in this case, viewing a product page)—which makes them a highly personalized means of communication.
3. Review emails: Review emails are a type of automated email campaign that can help businesses collect feedback from their customers. After a customer makes a purchase, a review email can be triggered, asking them to leave a review of the product or service they received. This can help businesses improve their products and services, and provide social proof to potential customers.

Browser abandonment emails and abandoned cart emails are similar in that they both aim to recover lost sales by targeting visitors who have shown interest in a product but have not completed the purchase. However, there are some key differences between the two. Browser abandonment emails target visitors who have left a website without completing a specific action, such as filling out a form or subscribing to a newsletter. These emails are designed to remind visitors of their interest in the website and encourage them to return to complete the desired action. On the other hand, abandoned cart emails target visitors who have added items to their shopping cart but have not completed the purchase. These emails typically remind visitors of the items left in their cart and provide incentives to encourage them to complete the purchase, such as discounts or free shipping. While both types of emails can be effective in recovering lost sales, they are tailored to different stages of the customer journey. Browser abandonment emails are aimed at visitors who are still in the consideration phase, while abandoned cart emails are aimed at visitors who are closer to making a purchase but have not yet completed it.

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In conclusion, workflows play a crucial role in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of email marketing efforts in South Africa. By using workflows to segment their email list, automate email campaigns, increase efficiency, improve the customer experience, and analyze data, businesses can achieve their email marketing goals more effectively. And by applying workflows to specific types of email campaigns, such as abandoned cart emails and review emails, businesses can drive sales, collect feedback, and build relationships with their customers.

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