Email automation: when should I automate my emails?

Email automation allows you to send the right message to your customers at the right time. It saves you time, means that you can personalise your communications, and improves your customer’s retention rate.

Automating your emails sounds like a great idea, and you can automate many of your interactions.

However, some email communications are better when they aren’t automated.

Why? Because sending a campaign (which isn’t scheduled months in advance) ensures it’s relevant to current affairs/events in your brand’s industry.

For example, if you run an eco-friendly business that sells sustainable cotton bags, you could send an unautomated email about Plastic Free July. Sure, you could automate this communication, but if you created it at the start of the year, you might not know what events are happening in July.

When should I automate my emails?

  1. Welcoming your customers

    Automated introduction emails are an amazing way to reintroduce the customer to your brand, tell your story and remind them why you exist in the first place.

  2. Specific points in your customers’ journey

    Order confirmations, refill prompts, empty basket reminders, and new subscriber emails are all great examples of this.

  3. Customers who may be thinking about leaving your brand

    These types of communication are best automated as they reach the right people at the time when they’re showing an intention of moving on.

When email automation doesn’t work as well

  1. Current affairs/events

    Keeping up with what is happening in the world and your industry is essential for giving your customers current and relevant content. And you can’t predict the future, so these emails need to be current. Sending emails when an event is happening ensures you provide your customers with the type of personalisation that shows them, you’re sharing the experience with them.

  2. Seasonal events

    Christmas, Easter, and any other seasonal event that is relevant to your business is another example of when automated emails don’t work as well. That’s because similar to current affairs/events, you can’t predict the future – you might not know what sales you will have on offer then or what products will be in stock.

It might help to consider your unautomated emails similar to live news coverage. Essentially, any event, season or specific period that is unfolding is better to be talked about whilst it’s happening.

Try our tips

Do you find that your business automates all your emails? Or maybe you haven’t tried automating any emails yet? Use our tips and see for yourself just how well unautomated emails work and/or how much time you can save by automating your emails.

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