Automating Your Email Marketing: Autoresponders vs. Automation

Do you need to automate your e mail advertising campaigns however aren’t positive which GetResponse device you need to use – Autoresponders or Marketing Automation? Then maintain studying, and it’ll all be clear in just some moments!

Table Of Contents

Autoresponders vs. advertising automation: fast abstract

In a rush? Here’s a fast desk that highlights the important thing variations between the 2 options and what they’re finest used for.

Autoresponders

Using Autoresponders, you possibly can effectively arrange e mail drip campaigns, follow-ups, and easy lead nurturing sequences.

This characteristic is out there in all paid plans, ranging from the Email Marketing plan.

💡 Learn how Sharvette Mitchell, the CEO of Mitchell Productions, makes use of Autoresponders to automate advertising communication and develop her advertising company.

How it really works

Let’s say you’re a advisor and need to create an e mail course on how you can develop an e mail checklist in underneath three months. You’ve determined that the course will consist of 1 welcome e mail and 12 particular person emails, every containing one lesson.

You can arrange your e mail course utilizing autoresponders in order that your classes might be despatched one after one other in particular time intervals.

For instance:

• Your welcome e mail might be despatched proper after somebody joins your course
• The first lesson might be despatched 24 hours after the welcome e mail
• After that, the subsequent classes might be despatched each seven days

Thanks to this setup, at any time when somebody joins your e mail course, they’ll obtain the identical sequence of emails. And it received’t matter in the event that they be a part of you this week or the subsequent month. They’ll obtain the identical messages in keeping with the schedule you’ve created.

Below, you possibly can see what this schedule would appear to be for the primary 30 days. Note that if we need to ship the welcome e mail instantly, we should set it for day 0.

Example of a easy e mail course put collectively utilizing the Autoresponders characteristic. Here, introduced utilizing the calendar view.

The similar e mail course constructed with Autoresponders, introduced in an inventory view.

Important: If you need your contacts to enter your autoresponder sequence, you must guarantee you may have assigned them an autoresponder day. Ideally, you’d do that upon including them to your checklist.

If you’re utilizing exterior integrations, guarantee they’re arrange appropriately and the autoresponder day will get assigned. If that’s not potential, try our assist heart to learn to manually add a contact to the autoresponder cycle and troubleshoot in case your autoresponder messages aren’t being despatched.

Pro tip: When establishing your autoresponder messages, you possibly can additional modify the timing of your emails. For instance, you possibly can determine that your messages received’t be despatched on weekends or that they’ll be despatched at a selected time of the day.

Here’s how one can modify the time at which your autoresponder messages might be deployed

Pros and cons:

When it’s finest to make use of Autoresponders

Autoresponders are good if you wish to arrange easy, linear e mail sequences, like:

• Welcome emails
• Email programs
• Email drip campaigns
• Lead nurturing sequences
• Sequenced promo campaigns

If you’re a advisor, coach, affiliate marketer, or basic marketer and solely have to ship your messages at particular intervals, autoresponders would be the good selection.

For extra superior eventualities that contain tagging, filtering, or re-engaging your contacts routinely, you’re higher off utilizing Marketing Automation.

Marketing automation

With Marketing Automation, you are able to do the whole lot you are able to do with Autoresponders – and extra! Whether you need to ship lead nurturing sequences, re-engagement campaigns, or ecommerce-specific post-purchase follow-ups, you possibly can accomplish that utilizing automation.

This characteristic is out there within the Marketing Automation, Ecommerce Marketing, and MAX plans.

💡 Learn how Ken Furukawa, a web based coach and affiliate marketer, elevated his income by greater than 100% by utilizing automation flows as his major messaging and speak to administration device.

How it really works

Unlike in Autoresponders, in Marketing Automation, you don’t simply put your messages right into a sequence and set the time intervals between them.

You construct so-called automation workflows the place utilizing three sorts of blocks (situations, actions, filters), you possibly can:

• Specify what’s going to begin the workflow – e.g., it might be the truth that somebody joined your checklist, deserted a buying cart, or acquired a tag
• Specify what motion ought to then happen – e.g., you possibly can tag, rating, ship them a message, and even transfer them to a brand new workflow
• Specify what further filters to use – e.g., choose a selected buyer section and solely talk to them

Examples of various sorts of blocks obtainable in GetResponse – Conditions (gentle blue), Filers (orange), Actions (darkish blue)

Here’s the way it works:

Let’s say you’re a enterprise coach providing first-time managers a management program. The program consists of a number of emails, every resulting in a distinct video lesson that talks a few particular subject.

Using Marketing Automation, you possibly can create a workflow that’ll:

• Send each e mail at particular time intervals
• Tag every contact who clicked on one in all your classes (e.g., topic_1, topic_2)
• Score every contact based mostly on their engagement along with your emails (e.g., 5 factors for each clicked hyperlink)
• And far more!

Here’s what this automation workflow would appear to be for the primary two classes:

Marketing automation workflow that delivers an e mail course and likewise tags and scores recipients who work together with the content material

What’s very helpful is that you may join totally different workflows collectively. So, for instance, within the state of affairs above, we’ve been including scoring factors based mostly on the recipient’s engagement. If somebody reached a selected rating, say 50 factors, that would set off one other workflow focusing on solely these particular folks.

Here’s what this second workflow would appear to be:

Marketing automation workflow that targets recipients who achieved a rating of fifty or above

As you possibly can see, due to Marketing Automation, you possibly can goal your viewers with laser precision and make each message depend.

Pro tip: There are some ways you need to use Automation to automate your communication. If you’re simply beginning, I like to recommend you try our prebuilt workflow templates and browse our documentation.

Pros and cons

Pro tip: If you’d prefer to strive Marketing Automation with out making any commitments, you are able to do so within the first 30 days of making your account. And for those who’re already a paying consumer, at present on the Email Marketing plan, you possibly can check out the prebuilt e mail templates or join the 30-day increased plan trial.

When it’s finest to make use of Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation is ideal if you wish to construct extra superior communication eventualities, like:

• Advanced lead nurturing sequences with tags and scoring
• Re-engagement campaigns to dormant subscribers
• Abandoned cart reminders for ecommerce
• Post-purchase follow-ups to your clients

You’ll need to use Marketing Automation for those who’re a coach, advisor, company proprietor, basic marketer, or ecommerce marketer and need to talk along with your viewers with sniper-like precision.

💡 Find out how Sabaton’s digital advertising workforce turns e mail subscribers throughout the globe right into a legion of loyal followers.

💡 Discover how LandCafe.pl, a web based retailer promoting espresso beans and brewing equipment, achieves a 54% gross sales fee by way of their automated welcome sequence.

Autoresponders vs. Automation: which one you need to use

Autoresponders and automation can work collectively very nicely and may serve totally different functions. It all depends upon your wants and the probabilities of each options. It’s not like one characteristic is clearly higher than the opposite. It all boils right down to HOW you propose to speak along with your viewers.

How to determine what you need to use? To help your resolution, begin by outlining frequency, circumstances, and recipients. How usually do you need to ship messages? In what circumstances do you need to ship it? Who ought to obtain your emails? Once you’ve obtained that, you possibly can contact my fantastic Customer Success Team on LiveChat, and we’ll provide help to select the precise device!

But as a lot as we’d love to speak to you, the purpose of this text isn’t simply to ship you to the chat. Let me share my recommendation with you right here and now in tremendous easy phrases:

If you’re in search of simplicity in your communication, go together with Autoresponders. They’ll be nice for traditional communication circulation the place you, for instance, ship one message a day or per week to 1 mailing checklist.

If you need a sophisticated communication plan based mostly on totally different variables, select Automation. You’ll save time on stuff you would usually have to do manually and have the pliability that autoresponders merely don’t supply, equivalent to reaching out to folks on a number of lists.

For some eventualities, autoresponders are greater than sufficient, however different, extra particular plans would possibly even require you to make use of automation if you wish to make them occur easily.

Dogfooding: How we migrated our worker onboarding course from autoresponders to automation

At first, we had been utilizing Autoresponders in my workforce to distribute coaching content material to new teammates. Every day, you’ll get a distinct e mail with a distinct lesson to make sure you have all the identical info. That was tremendous for a while, however we wanted a bit extra as our workforce, coaching program, and coaching wants grew. And that’s when Automation got here in.

I wrote a weblog submit on creating an onboarding course in Automation that received us a world award. Check it out right here for those who’re curious – How to Set up a New Employee Onboarding Process Using GetResponse.

Why did we transfer our Autoresponders to Automation? We needed to make use of the probabilities of Automation to supply a extra various and polished coaching expertise to our new teammates. In that story, they had been our clients, and we needed to verify they obtained the perfect expertise potential whereas automating our a part of the job.

What do you say we transfer to a extra sensible half? I’ll present you some fundamentals on how you can construct workflows and how you can migrate your autoresponders to Automation, and I’ll share a few of the classes I realized the onerous means so that you just don’t must. 

Let’s begin with the fundamentals of automation workflow constructing. You at all times begin with situations. They’re like a door to your own home. And your own home can have many alternative doorways! That’s why it’s the primary query we ask you while you open a workflow – based mostly on what motion would you want to start out your automation course of? In our home metaphor, what ought to folks achieve this that you just allow them to into your own home? So, lesson #1: you at all times begin with situation components, not filters or actions.

A basic workflow instance helpful to anybody is a welcome message despatched to somebody subscribing to your checklist. In our metaphor, a good friend comes over to your own home – that’s the subscription course of. But which checklist, which home is it? I can determine that within the Properties tab. 

What’s the very first thing you do when you may have a visitor over? Why, you welcome them, in fact. In GetResponse phrases, that may be like sending them a message, so including a ship message motion in your workflow.

Specifying the place to begin of your advertising automation workflow

Now, you possibly can try this with an autoresponder and, let’s say, a signup kind. That requires some handbook work, however with Automation, you are able to do the whole lot in a single place – that’s what I positively favor.

I discussed migration from autoresponder – how we did it’s tremendous easy. Even for those who created some autoresponder messages however favor to have the whole lot in Automation as we do, choose properties of ship message motion. You can choose your current autoresponder from a dropdown or create a message from scratch. You can do it based mostly in your current messages or templates you have already got.

Lesson #2 – use your earlier designs and keep constant. Remember that much less content material is typically extra – maintain your e mail quick and use buttons to ask folks to your web site the place you possibly can clarify extra!

Choosing the message you need to ship after somebody joins your advertising automation workflow

Now, lesson #3, and that one’s tremendous necessary – to keep away from sending the identical message twice – each by way of Autoresponders and Automation, make sure that to disable that autoresponder when you not want it. Using the autoresponder on your automation doesn’t take away the autoresponder – it’s simply utilizing its content material to create a brand new message. The outdated one stays, although.

It’s an ideal second to say one of many greatest benefits of utilizing Automation in comparison with autoresponders. In your communication circulation, you would possibly need to ship totally different content material to folks based mostly on some exterior situations, just like the age of your recipients, chosen curiosity, and even the e-mail area they’re utilizing! You can acquire such knowledge when folks enroll in your checklist within the type of customized fields, and it’s fairly simple to utilize it in your workflow. Let’s give a heat welcome to dynamic segments! First, create your section and provides it a significant title you’ll perceive. Then, add a dynamic section to your workflow, and voila! The workflow can have a modified logic. People who be a part of the workflow and meet its standards will transfer by way of a distinct path than individuals who don’t meet the section’s standards.

Creating a section of people that’ve been assigned a tag “csonb_finished”

Using automation to filter contacts based mostly on the section they’re a part of

In our case, we used such a section to make sure that solely folks with a sure e mail deal with ending can use our coaching program. It’s a pleasant means to make sure your content material is reserved just for folks inside your organization. That was lesson #4 – use your information about your contacts due to dynamic segments. And for those who don’t have such knowledge, have a second to consider what you wish to find out about your contacts and embrace such fields in your subscription course of or post-subscription types.

One of the errors I usually see when troubleshooting buyer workflows is misusing situations for tagging or customized fields change. Let’s have lesson #5, we could, and that one is about how you can use the precise Automation component. For instance, someplace in the midst of your workflow, you’d prefer to test in case your contacts have a specific tag assigned. It’s a typical mistake to make use of the “tagging” situation in such a scenario. Why? There might be many causes, however in my view, the commonest is that we expect that when it comes to tags and customized fields, we consider such situations as “If I have a tag/custom field”, whereas in actuality, these situations work like “if I get a tag/custom field” or to be extra exact “WHEN I get a tag/custom field.”

So, as a substitute of utilizing such situations, use a dynamic section as a substitute if you wish to test in case your contacts have already got a tag or customized area. Unless you need to even have them wait till they lastly get a given tag or customized area – in that case, use a situation.

The workflow on the left waits till a contact will get assigned a tag. The workflow on the precise checks if a contact is a part of the section and continues down the trail with out ready

Speaking of tags, we actually like utilizing them in my workforce. Especially while you’re designing a coaching program, you would possibly need to know what stage of the coaching course of your contacts are going by way of. Assign and take away tags for that goal. Remember that when an individual will get a tag, you can begin a very unbiased workflow with a very totally different communication course of. Use that to your benefit and personalize the expertise on your contacts!

What labored for us in that state of affairs? First, we ship a message to a brand new contact. To mark the stage they’re in, we assign them a tag. Each of our coaching messages has one particular button. That button must be clicked when somebody is prepared for the subsequent lesson from our course. Once clicked, we take away the tag for that stage, ship one other message, and assign a brand new tag – to signify the passage to the subsequent stage within the studying course.

After sending each message, we assign a selected tag to mark the recipient’s stage. We take away it solely after they’ve moved onto the subsequent stage.

Here’s lesson #6 – you possibly can reproduce such a state of affairs for those who use a Link clicked situation and set it to attend indefinitely for somebody to click on a button. You can try this in situation’s properties. It’s an effective way to extend your contact’s engagement in messages. Remember at all times to test all potential properties of your automation components to get probably the most out of them. And for those who want additional assist, we at all times place hyperlinks to our Help Center that will help you perceive how they work.

So that’s the onboarding in my workforce for those who put the entire thing on repeat. We finish it with a tagging motion that initiates a distinct workflow with a distinct coaching program. But it’s not the one kind of workflow we use. We arrange a publication program that begins independently from totally different trainings, and it informs our workers about totally different procedures within the office. You can consider it as, I don’t know, quick, helpful e mail tips about how you can use your product. Or incentives to make use of your service. Here’s lesson #7 – use wait actions to time your communication excellent. For instance, we use wait actions to attend with our communication both to a selected day in a month, or it may be the final day of the month or the primary day of the subsequent month. We couldn’t obtain it with Autoresponders, however we are able to with Automation.

Here’s how we arrange the workflow to ship the messages at 12 PM on the primary day of a month

What’s good to say right here is the truth that you possibly can modify the times of the week throughout which the ready time might be utilized. In our case, to separate the sending technique of our messages, we used Wait actions that work solely between Monday and Friday, and because of that, our communication isn’t despatched throughout the weekends. What’s even higher? In Automation, when sending messages, you possibly can ship them solely throughout particular hours. It’s a pleasant mixture of utilizing the Wait actions I described.

We can go on and on, however sooner or later, your contacts will attain the top of your deliberate workflow. What occurs then? Well, they finish their journey. Even for those who add new components to the top of the workflow, they received’t work for contacts who already completed their journey. But I need to share with you lesson #8 – with Wait motion, you possibly can “freeze” contacts in your workflow. Add Wait motion on the finish of your workflow and set the motion to, say, 999 days. Contacts who attain that component will anticipate that variety of days. If, within the meantime, you determine to broaden your workflow, add some extra components to the top, save the workflow, enter it once more, and reduce that ready time from 999 days to, say 1 hour. If somebody has already waited an hour, they’ll merely transfer to the subsequent obtainable workflow component.

Neat little trick: by including a “Wait for 999 days” component we make sure that our recipients don’t depart our workflow

If you found that your contacts might need prematurely completed your workflow or didn’t find out about that trick I simply talked about, don’t fear. There’s a means. Time for lesson #9 – how you can get contacts again into your workflow. Create a brand new tag for that goal. Open your workflow and add a tagging situation. Link its inexperienced path to the a part of the workflow you need folks to rejoin. Make positive to test if the linked components have the “run multiple times” toggle enabled. Save your workflow and tag the contacts you need to reintroduce to your workflow, and voila.

To add contacts again to your workflow or so as to add new ones at a selected stage, you need to use the situation “Wait until the tag is assigned” and hyperlink it to the stage you need them to enter

We’re operating out of time, so I’ll depart you with a remaining lesson #10 – take a look at your workflow earlier than going reside along with your clients. It’s at all times helpful to get the attitude of your potential readers for those who undergo the identical expertise. You would possibly make errors – and it’s okay! Make them in a protected surroundings of your individual take a look at e mail addresses, or invite associates or colleagues to check your course of. How? You simply have to be sure to are in your contact checklist and that you just meet one of many preliminary situations of your workflow. I’m positive you’ll discover out throughout such exams that you may enhance your workflows and guarantee all hyperlinks are working and the workflow works as per your plans.

And you already know what’s nice? Even if it doesn’t work and also you need assistance determining why, tell us on chat. We’ll do our greatest that will help you on the spot, and if want be, we’ll brainstorm inside the workforce and supply an answer then.

Automate e mail advertising your means!

By now, you have to be all conversant in each Autoresponders and Marketing Automation, and know when it’s finest to make use of every device.

If you’d prefer to be taught extra about them, I like to recommend that you just create a GetResponse account and take a look at them out your self.

Even for those who select to remain on the free plan, you’ll have 30 days to take advantage of out of all our premium options.

If you ever have any questions or wish to discover different methods to make use of GetResponse instruments, be at liberty to achieve out to our award-winning Customer Success Team, or go to our Help Center, Resources, and Webinars Library.

Happy automating!