You work hard to create responsive, personalized email marketing campaigns that impress and delight your target audience. And if you’re using Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC), great choice! But ask yourself if you’re following your customer’s overall business journey with your campaigns. If not, you may be missing the entire purpose of your email marketing efforts.
One good way to touch base again with your email strategy is to understand the different types of campaigns you can run in SFMC. And thanks to a number of customizable Salesforce email templates, you can create an email based on your particular business strategy or goals. And if your SFMC email specialist is aware of email template production as well as Salesforce email marketing best practices, you can definitely create amazing SFMC email campaigns time after time!
In this article, we want to show you the 7 types of SFMC email campaigns that you should use for your brand. Read this article along with our article on Salesforce email marketing best practices and strategies here to help you make the most of this amazing platform! For more information on email template production, check out our article here [LINK].
So, let’s get back to the types of emails.
1. Welcome Email
- Welcome emails are 9x more likely to convert than typical emails
- Subscribers who open welcome emails show 33% more long-term engagement with a brand (Source: Salesforce.com)
With a welcome email (or series of emails), you can take the first step towards establishing a good customer relationship. You can start to familiarize your audience with your brand’s unique voice and gently guide them towards their next steps.
Best practices for Welcome emails:
- Send them immediately. A late welcome email is as good as no email at all
- Personalize your message (at least with the recipient’s name)
- If you’re running a series, the first email should focus on the most high-value action
- Keep collecting information about your subscribers and tailor the content in subsequent messages based on their earlier responses
2. Post-purchase emails
A purchase should not mean the end of your brand’s relationship with the customer. Nurturing the relationship and continuing the conversation with them can keep them onboard for longer.
Existing customers are 9x more likely to convert compared to new customers (Source: thegood.com)
Then why not make an effort to keep them on-board? And a post-purchase email is a great way to do this!
There are many types of post-purchase emails that you can send:
- A thank you email
- A request for a product review email
- Information about the product email: features, care instructions, disposal instructions, etc.
- Upsell or cross-sell email
Best practices for post-purchase emails:
- Send them immediately, especially the ‘thank you’ type of emails
- Keep the tone non-aggressive and non-‘salesy’
- Make it possible for the customer to say No
- Ensure that the content focuses on the value to them, rather than to you
3. Abandoned cart emails
In 2017, almost 60% of customers abandoned their carts (Source: Freshrelevance Real-time Marketing Report Q4 2017).
Abandoned cart emails allow you to lead interested-but-not-quite-there-yet would-be customers over the final hurdle towards purchase. This type of email can be particularly powerful if your abandoned cart rates are very high. This is akin to lost opportunities that are recoverable, but only if you take action quickly. Send abandoned cart emails, pronto!
Best practices for abandoned cart emails:
- Remind the customer what was abandoned
- Create a sense of urgency that encourages them to complete the purchase
- Provide product recommendations to encourage them to keep shopping (Einstein AI can help!)
4. Newsletters
A newsletter is a great way to share new content from your business blog with your audience. This may not have a direct effect on your sales or profits (although it can), but it’s a great way to provide value to your audience in the form of content that they’re likely to find useful, relevant or interesting.
Best practices for newsletters:
- Include useful content and present it in a visually appealing way
- A good format to use is an image paired with a headline, a brief summary and a CTA for recipients to read more
- Include videos wherever possible
5. Transactional emails
Transactional emails get triggered by a specific action taken by a user and usually enable them to complete that action. They may seem like the most obvious kind of emails to send, but it’s shocking how many brands get these emails wrong. Many don’t bother to send them at all, leaving a lot of frustrated customers in their wake.
By sending transactional emails, you can take advantage of subscribers who are already fresh and actively engaged with your email communication, thus keeping them onboard with your brand for longer. A happy customer today is more likely to be a returning customer tomorrow, and transactional emails play a big role in making this happen.
Best practices for transactional emails:
- Include a highly customized call-to-action
- Stick to the purpose of the transaction. Don’t confuse the user with too much information that’s not relevant to the transaction
- Make sure the information in the email is correct, especially if it pertains to money (purchases, subscriptions, gifts, etc.)
- Create an email personalized with the person’s name
6. Engagement and re-engagement emails
If some of your subscribers have been inactive for a while, send out re-engagement emails to re-establish contact and earn back their goodwill. One way to do this is by asking for their feedback. Another is to send them invites, special offers or even surveys.
Best practices for engagement/re-engagement emails:
- Make it worth their while by providing value. Ask yourself – why should they pay attention to you?
- Give them the option to Unsubscribe. In many places, this is required by the law. But it’s also common sense (unless you’re okay with annoying people by sending ‘needy’ emails!)
- Use an attractive design and title
- Include an unambiguous CTA. Shop Now, Explore More, Complete Your Profile, etc. are all proven to work
7. Holiday and birthday emails
Holiday emails are a great way to drive more conversions while sending best wishes to your subscribers. If a particular holiday is especially relevant to your brand, then you should definitely create an email marketing campaign for that day. One disadvantage could be that your competitors will also create their own campaigns, but if you can differentiate yourself from the crowd, there’s no reason why your holiday email campaign cannot succeed at garnering more sales. Holiday emails can also be used to share news, make new announcements or simply to have some fun with your subscribers.
Birthday emails too are a fantastic way of engaging with your subscribers and letting them know that they’re valued. And if the email has a special offer attached to it – email personalization at its finest! – it can have a huge impact on your conversions. You can even send birthday emails before the subscriber’s birthday to generate greater excitement for them (which can again mean more conversions for you). After all, who doesn’t appreciate someone making a big deal about their birthday?
Best practices for holiday emails:
- It’s a holiday for all but that doesn’t mean you ignore personalization! Segment your subscriber list to create personalized emails
- Consider adding emojis to your subject line
- Include a special, limited-time offer to create a sense of urgency
- Use power words in your subject lines, e.g. discount, exclusive offer, appreciation, etc.
- Include a visible CTA button with short, to-the-point CTA text
Best practices for birthday emails:
- Make the content fun and engaging. It’s a special day for the recipient so boring is a big no-no!
- Include a special, limited-time offer to make them feel even more special
- Ensure that the email is mobile-ready
Wrap Up
There are a lot of noisy brands out there vying for consumers’ attention (and wallets). But the 7 types of email marketing campaigns we have covered in this article can play a huge role in keeping your subscribers engaged and loyal to your brand. For example, welcome and transaction emails usually get amazing open rates. If you leverage this and get off to a strong start, those same subscribers are more likely to open your subsequent emails. And as long as you follow some of the Salesforce email marketing best practices we have highlighted for each type, you will see amazing results for your efforts.
If you need information about Pardot templates or Pardot email marketing, get it here!