Hold on, what is email marketing automation and why does my business need it?

Email marketing automation is the process of setting up automated emails to be sent to your customers when they perform specific actions on your website. If your business has an online presence, you obviously can't be there to communicate with your customers day and night.

Email marketing automation will ensure that every lead that you’re able to capture will benurtured into a paying customer — anytime of the day.

Is someone requesting information about your new 3D printer at 1AM? Automatically trigger an email to them filled with product information. Did someone buy a shirt from your ecommerce shop but hasn’t returned in a few months? Trigger an email with a little discount to get them to come back and explore your new stock.

Email marketing automation will save you time and energy by working hard in the background while you spend your time doing other important things for your business.

Now ask yourself, am I capitalizing on every opportunity to turn my visitors into paying customers?

Am I getting the most ROI out of the emails I’m sending to my audience?

Finally, have you thought about saving yourself time and money with email marketing automation?

If any of your answers were a skeptical “no,” then sit back, relax, and learn about these 8 email marketing automation workflows that you can easily implement in your business strategy.

Read more: http://blog.wishpond.com/post/115675436735/8-email-marketing-automation-workflows-html-templates

One easy way of doing this is crafting creative subject lines that grab notice and are easy to see on smaller screens.

Also keep in mind that mobile users are often on the run, so keep your messages concise. Making your messages responsive can also aid you.

Begin Including Videos

Video has always been a strong marketing force, and with the availability of tools like YouTube, this has become even truer. Having videos in your email marketing announcements will increase your click-through rates.

When marketing for a small company, this bit of added visibility can go far.

Related: 7 Ways to Craft Effective Welcome Emails

Concentrate on Mobile Optimization

When designing an email marketing strategy, it is imperative to keep mobile users in mind. This has long been the case, but now that over 50 percent of online searches come directly from mobile devices, it is even more vital.

This means you will have to create attention-grabbing subject lines that simply fit onto a small screen.

Also remember that people will likely be reading these on the go, so keep it short and simple. Put some time into making your messages responsive as well.

Related: 7 Tips For Growing Your Email List

Maximize Other Campaigns' Visibility

Email marketing serves several purposes, but bringing attention to your other small enterprise marketing campaigns is one of the most significant. Include social share buttons in your messages.

Provide content previews that buyers then need to visit your site to finish. There are many ways you can easily introduce people to other corners of your marketing campaign. And in the end, this means increased visibility for your company.

Related: Learn the Benefits of Combining Email and Social Media

Although email might not be as popular as it once was, email marketing is going nowhere.

Every organization that recognizes this will be more prepared for the future, and by following the aforementioned tips, your local business will remain competitive.

We have all experienced a scenario where we no longer wish to receive emails from a sender, but the company makes it incredibly difficult to unsubscribe. If people are not able to easily unsubscribe, they will probably mark your messages as spam.

Eventually, this results in major email providers thinking you are spamming their customers and your marketing messages will start going straight to spam folders. In this post, we're going to identify some popular email marketing mistakes that may be avoided.

3 email marketing mistakes to avoid

Making It Difficult to Unsubscribe

Have you ever tried to unsubscribe from a contact list only to find that the firm makes you jump through hoops?

This will annoy customers, and in the end, many will simply mark an email as spam to ensure they do not have to see further correspondence.

This makes major email providers believe that you are spamming people, and this could lead to your marketing messages actually going right to spam folders everywhere.

Inconsistency isn't a Strategy

Businesses that do not generate a consistent marketing strategy are losing the race before they're able to get started. Customers need to be aware that something is always taking place.

Don't send so many emails that it is annoying, but undoubtedly have a weekly or bi-weekly newsletter.

Not Testing Out Emails

Marketing messages need to be tested before they are sent to customers. Using this method, if there are graphic or formatting errors in a message they can be adjusted prior to being viewed by actual customers.

Deliver test emails to multiple servers, like outlook, gmail, and yahoo, to look at the formatting that the recipient might find on their end. In this way you know your final product looks professional and is truly sending the correct message.

Recent scientific studies found email marketing accounts for nearly 7 percent of customer acquisitions. Don't let your numbers lag by making avoidable errors.

Chances are you've probably wondered how you can combine the huge reach and networking ability of social media with your email marketing. After all, email is still a top-notch method for marketing, and social media can deliver huge audiences you may not have been able to contact as yet.

So how exactly can we combine the massive reach of social media with the functionality and marketing potential of email? Here are 3 tips to get these two working well together.

3 Methods for Combining Email and Social Media

Deploy social media sharing icons in your emails – This really is easy to do, and can yield great results. Facebook and Twitter users are the best at sharing your emails, between 30-40% for every 100 emails opened. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are tops for clicks on shared emails, averaging between 6.2 % (Facebook) and 7.9% (LinkedIn). Make sure to have these visible and prominent in your emails, because you want to encourage your readers to share. You'll be surprised at just how many are willing to do so.

Put opt-in forms on Facebook and Twitter – Now you can even mine your favorite social networks directly by adding opt-in forms directly in the platform. Obviously the same rules apply here, as you have to offer something deserving of someone giving you their email for you to add to their ever-growing email inbox. This can be a PDF report, webinar invite, a video series or your favorite lead magnet. This can deliver a brand new audience to your marketing that has not seen your offers yet.

Use Retargeting Campaigns on your Social Networks – While retargeting is the trendiest way to increase revenue, you can optimize this type of marketing by building retargeting lists of people who've clicked links in your emails, and thus build an audience to whom you can send ads and has already shown an interest in your offers. Kind of retargeting on steroids. Facebook and Twitter are the best places to try this tactic just now.

Utilize these 3 methods for combining email and social media and you'll soon see the power of combining these methods.

It's always on everyone's mind: the best way to get more visitors to your blog. You might be creating awesome content there that no one's seeing, and losing money (and your mind) in the process.

With many choices for delivering visitors to your pages, it's easy to forget about what is probably the best way available: increasing the size and scope of your email subscriber list.

Building your list while at the same time getting more visitors to your blog is the best of both worlds. Let's have a look at first how to collect subscribers, and then how to best utilize this technique for greatest effect.

The mechanics of building a larger subscriber base

There are basics to ensuring that you're doing the best job you can collecting new emails. Here are just a few…

• Don't forget to put opt-in forms on all your pages
• Try using an exit popup
• Entice subscribers onto your list with a lead magnet
• Run a paid ad campaign to your opt-in pages or lead magnet
• Hold a webinar and ad the signups to your list
• Make videos leading to your offers and lead magnets

Use the methods you are most familiar with and get started! Running paid ads and videos will provide the fastest results. Make list building a lifetime-of-your-business priority.

How to leverage your list to your blog

Here is where the magic comes in. Whenever you publish new content on your blog, you simply email your subscribers about it, offering a short preview and including several links to the blog post.

Make sure your content is worthy of sharing and you may find that not only will this email get your subscribers there, but if your content is worthwhile it will get forwarded and shared far and wide.

Be sure to take advantage of visual content like videos and images, and even offer a bribe to get them there. By all means make sure you have social media buttons active in your email as well, as you never know who has a massive following.

Not only will you get the benefit of additional traffic over time, you will also discover that suddenly a lot more of your posts are ranking organically, because of the traffic, social signals and incoming links.

Sounds like a win-win all around, right?