What's The Difference Between Newsletters And Automated Emails?
What's the difference between newsletters and automated emails?
Email marketing has become a fundamental tool of successful online businesses. When it comes to driving sales, two types of emails are key for your email marketing strategy – newsletters (also known as campaigns or broadcast emails) and automated emails (also known as triggered or flow emails).
Understanding their functions and the benefits they each bring to your email marketing strategy can significantly and positively impact your business.
As an email marketing expert, in this blog post I cover the difference between newsletters and automated emails, and why you need both to deliver a brilliant marketing strategy.
Why Do You Need Both Newsletters and Automated Emails?
Newsletters – Keeping You Top of Mind
If you are running a thriving online store filled with great products, how do you ensure your customers remember your brand and keep coming back to your site?
Enter newsletters, a crucial piece to your email marketing plan. These regular communications serve a vital purpose – keeping your brand at the forefront of your customers' minds. A well-crafted newsletter not only provides value in the form of informative content, promotions, or updates, but also encourages your audience to explore your site.
Newsletters establish a direct line of communication with your subscribers, allowing you to showcase your products, share relevant news, and reinforce your brand identity. They're like a friendly reminder that your brand is right there!
And once you’ve found what kind of content works best for your audience, you can refresh and repeat them. Newsletters don’t always have to be created from scratch. Popular formats I see work for my clients include New Arrivals, Highlighting a single category, Heroing a single product, and of course, Sales and promotions.
Automated Emails – The Power of Responsiveness
Automated emails are a dynamic and highly effective part of email marketing and e-commerce marketing. These emails and email flows don't just deliver messages but respond to user actions, making them a critical tool for boosting sales.
For example, a potential customer might visit your online store and add a few items to their cart, then get distracted or decide to have a think before they purchase. Without automated emails, you might lose that sale forever. With the right setup however, you can automatically send a gentle nudge to remind them (about their abandoned cart, for example).
Automated emails are not only timely but also highly relevant. They tap into the user's intent and needs, increasing their open and click-through rates. The best part is that once you've set them up, they work automatically in the background, doing the heavy lifting for you.
The Impact of an Integrated Email Marketing Tool
While newsletters and automated emails serve their individual purposes, it's essential to maintain consistency and organisation in your email marketing plan. That's where a must-have email marketing tool comes into play.
As an email marketing expert, my go-to email marketing tool is Klaviyo. Especially beneficial for product-based businesses, Klaviyo allows you to manage all your email marketing from a single platform. This combined approach ensures a consistent look and feel across all your emails, creating a seamless and memorable brand experience for your customers.
With Klaviyo, you can design eye-catching newsletters, set up and customise automated email flows, and use analytics to monitor their performance, all in one place. It streamlines your email marketing channels, making it easier to drive sales and maintain a strong presence in your customers' inboxes.
Implementing Email Automation
Having covered the importance of both newsletters and automated emails, what are the next steps? If you haven't already, consider integrating email automation into your email marketing strategy.
Here are a few key email marketing tips to get you started –
Identify Trigger Points – Determine the key points on your website that can prompt automated emails. Common automated email flow examples can include a welcome series for new subscribers, abandoned cart and post-purchase flows.
Construct Compelling Messages – Create personalised and engaging email content for each automated email flow. Tailor your messaging to the specific user actions and goals of each email.
Set up your Email Marketing Tool – Whether you choose Klaviyo or another platform, configure your automated email flows to trigger based on the identified user actions.
Test and Optimise – Monitor the performance of your automated emails. Use analytics to evaluate open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates to identify areas for improvement. This can help you refine your messaging and design.
Scale and Expand – As you see positive results, consider expanding your automated emails and email flows to cover more user trigger points.
Maximising On Your Email Marketing
In online business, email marketing remains a core marketing and digital marketing tool for driving sales and building customer relationships. When combining newsletters with automated emails, you can create a comprehensive email marketing strategy that keeps your brand at the top of your customers minds and can maximise your sales potential.
A collective email marketing tool like Klaviyo can help you streamline your efforts and maintain a solid brand image across all your email communications.
Email marketing is not just about sending messages, it's about creating connections with your audience and driving sales.
If you're an e-commerce business and you need help from an email marketing expert with your email marketing strategy, selecting the right email tool, or getting your initial email flows in place, please get in touch.