What is messaging. What is email distribution. What automatic mailing looks like from the inside

and little tricks

In today's article, we will talk about what automatic mailing is, why it is needed and how to work with it. I have already promised to tell you about this more than once - and now, finally, I got together!

Automatic mailing - what is it and why?

So the first question is: what is automatic mailing? I think it is already clear from the name that this is a mailing that occurs automatically. This is usually a series of letters (sometimes even one letter) that is sent automatically when certain conditions are met.

What conditions exactly? In fact, very different. From subscription to the newsletter to the expiration of some period after sending the previous letter. At the same time, a lot depends on the service through which the mailing is carried out and on its capabilities.

By the way, today we will consider automatic mailing using the GetResponse service as an example. I think that for most of our readers, its capabilities will be quite enough.

Why is such a distribution necessary? The main task is to facilitate the work of marketers. After all, it is much easier to automate your actions to get results than to do everything manually, tracking the fulfillment by subscribers of a wide variety of conditions. And here everything is simple - set it up once - and reap the benefits.

The second, but no less important task is to increase conversion and, accordingly, increase the number of sales. After all, mailing automation allows you to give each subscriber exactly what is needed and interesting specifically for him.

Clicked on the first link? Get related information. For the second? This means that the information you need is completely different. Birthday? Catch congratulations! Read one letter, get another. Fulfilled the goal on the site - here's a letter for you!

In general, the number of different chains that we can offer our subscribers, depending on the actions they take, is almost limitless.

Which email works best after a certain condition is met? How long does a chain of letters lead to a larger average check? And so on and so forth - there are, in fact, a lot of opportunities for tests.

What are the conditions for mailing activation?

So, what conditions for sending emails does GetResponse offer us? There are only 8 main conditions. This is sending a letter:

at a given time;
by click;
after reading;
when subscribing;
upon reaching the goal;
when data changes;
along with another letter;
on your birthday.

Moreover, each of these options has additional settings.

Setting up automatic mailing

Let's see which ones, using the example of the first option - sending a letter at a given time. And at the same time, we will figure out how exactly automatic mailing is configured.

For starters, we can choose exactly when the email will be sent. As you can see, by default we have the option "On Day 1". This means that the email will be sent the next day after the contact enters the auto-response cycle (that is, after the specific email address is on our list of those who receive automatic mail).

If you want the letter to be sent on the first day, then enter the value "0" in this field.

The second field allows you to choose which mailing list subscribers will receive this automatic series. For example, I have the same e-mail campaign that subscribers of our blog receive. By the way, if you have not yet subscribed to our newsletter, then it is not at all difficult to do this - just use the subscription form on the right.

Let's move on to the next form fields. So what is there to choose from. First, the exact time the email was sent. The default is "at the time of subscription". That is, the letter will be sent at the same time when the person subscribed to your mailing list.

You can also choose the options "with a delay in" a certain number of hours after the moment of subscription and "exactly at" a certain time (although a certain time does not include minutes, only hours). By the way, when choosing the last option, you can also enable time zone tracking. But that it works correctly, I'm not sure.

The next block allows you to select the days of the week when you need (or do not need) to send letters. For example, only on weekends. Or, on the contrary, only on weekdays.

And, finally, the final chord is the choice (or creation) of the letter that we will send. And also inventing a service name for the letter (that is, a name that will be visible only to you). I recommend making it as conversational as possible, so that later you don’t get confused in a bunch of letters with similar names when trying to view analytics.

As you can see, everything is very easy to set up. For the rest of the condition options, the setting looks about the same - the corresponding items are simply added.

For example, when sending a click-through email, choosing a link that the subscriber should click on…

...and when sending a letter when the data changes, the data that it changes.

On the one hand, it seems that the choice is small. On the other hand, thanks to the possibility of fine-tuning, you can create very complex and intricate chains that intersect in different ways, continue and pass one into another. The main thing is not to get confused and start sending the same emails to the same subscribers!

What does automatic mailing look like from the inside?

So, now you know what automatic mailing is and how it is configured. Let's look at a couple of examples of what a ready-made automatic mailing looks like.

All autoresponders are divided into two types - by time and by action. By time - these are those that are sent after a certain time after the subscription. And by action - those, the conditions for sending which are some actions.

GetRespose allows you to use two options for viewing automatic distribution - all results together (with the ability to select only specific types) or separately distribution by time, separately - by action.

Here, for example, is a small automatic mailing of three letters:

As you can see, the first email is sent at the specified time, the second email is sent by click, and the third email is sent by subscription. By the way, do not pay attention to 0 contacts in the first letter. For messages sent at a given time, this column indicates only the number of subscribers to whom the letter is sent today (that is, on the day of viewing).

And here is another sorting option - by types of letters. Here in the first place are letters sent by time:

As you can see, everything is arranged in the form of a calendar. And when you click on a specific day, you can add a letter for that day. And, of course, do not be surprised that there are 33 days in a “month” - after all, in fact, this is not a calendar, but just a counter of days from the moment the contact entered the autoresponder cycle.

So my story about what constitutes automatic mailing has come to an end. If you have any questions - ask them in the comments, and I will definitely answer them.

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Suppose a person lives in an apartment building. All houses have. And there are ads from time to time. A resident leaves the apartment and sees advertising leaflets sticking out of all the mailboxes.

What is Bulk Email

Mass sending of letters is one of the directions of marketing.
Any marketing campaign is aimed at attracting customers to you. And sending letters to e-mail is another of the channels through which customers can come to you.
Email can mean:

sending emails;
sending SMS messages.

These are email newsletters. Marketers are actively using this channel to inform and attract customers.
With the right strategy, mailing can attract and interest the audience, lead through all stages of the sales funnel and encourage a person to perform the main action for which all efforts are made - to buy a product or use a service.

If you go too far with letters, write to the user too often and intrusively, then there is a risk that you will lose a person from your contact database. He will stop reading the same type and uninteresting letters, send them to the spam basket and unsubscribe.

In order not to lose people, constantly replenish the address book with new addresses, you need to make the newsletter useful and necessary for the user.

Types of email distribution

information letters;
transactional messages;
commercial letters;
event letters.

Newsletter is needed to inform the client. Such letters do not force him to buy or place an order, they do not ask him to take advantage of discounts. They give the recipient food for thought. They talk about something new.

For example, a person can subscribe to the newsletter of a portal. And he will receive collections of news for the week in the mail.
Newsletter should help a person to solve his problem. She can tell an interesting story, tell about your experience, suggest an interesting life hack that a person can immediately use.

Such letters allow you to gain trust with your audience. We said that people love it when their problems are solved. And if in your letters a person can find an answer to a question that worries him, which is interesting to him, then in the future he will turn to you.

Letters must be topical. If you are the owner of an online pet products store, then the mailing list should be appropriate. Include in it materials about the maintenance of animals, interesting facts about their lives. And if there are articles about installing plastic windows, this is at least strange.
These letters work for a long-term result. Their task is to increase the interest of the audience, to warm it up.

If you want to talk directly about your products and invite a person to the site to shop, organize a commercial mailing list.

Commercial mailing

Tell the user about your products, discounts or promotions. And invite him to take advantage of such an advantageous offer.
Typically, sales letters are sent out periodically. Do you constantly arrange promotions and discounts? Tell the person about it, include descriptions of several products in the letter - give them the opportunity to choose.

Transactional mailing

These are automatically generated emails. They confirm the action that the user took on your site.
For example, a person placed an order for cat food. Confirm this action by emailing him a check. Specify the order amount again, make a list of products that the user bought. Show him that his order is being worked on.

Trigger mailing

These are also letters that are sent automatically. But if a transactional email just makes it easier to use your site or service, a trigger email is sent depending on the condition.

You can plan entire chains of trigger emails. A person has registered on the site - send him . A person only buys cat shampoo from you - inform him about new discounts on these products. A user buys goods from you once a month - thank him for his loyalty and present a discount coupon for the next order.

As a rule, such letters are personalized. Their goal is to keep a person, to sell him goods. Therefore, such letters are personalized. User profile data is used, the letter is personalized. The person is addressed by name, if possible, the addressee's personal information is included in the text.

Another type of classification of mailing types is by direction:

by target audience;
by region;
mass.

Mailing to the target audience involves the selection of people who will be interested in a particular letter. If you want to inform the buyer of your online store about a new promotion, first select the recipients who will be interested in your offer. For example, a person orders only cat food from you. It is hardly necessary to tell him about discounts on dog leashes. Such a letter will cause nothing but irritation of a person.

Mailing by regions - sending letters in accordance with the geography of the subscriber. The address base is collected and segmented by geographical parameters.
Bulk email is . Sometimes people buy databases of email addresses and just start sending emails to them. This is a dubious method of attracting customers. Such emails usually go straight to the spam folder.

How to send out emails

For email marketing to work, you need to work on every email campaign.

Collect the address base.
Do not use ready-made purchased databases of addresses. You should only send your emails to people who agree to receive them. The most effective method is to send a letter to the subscriber's mail with a unique code, with which he can confirm his consent to receive your letters.
Think about infomercials.
You can't send letters mindlessly. Every message should have a purpose. Tell us about new products and services. Make a selection of the best materials published on your site to interest a person.
Make a distribution schedule.
Find a time that is convenient for your subscribers. For example, some people check their mail more often during their lunch break - at 12 noon Moscow time. But suddenly you have people from the Far East, where is a completely different time zone?
Check letters.
No one is immune from typos and errors. Always check email before sending. Send yourself a test letter, see if everything is written correctly, if it is correctly laid out and displayed.
Add the option to unsubscribe.
A person must be able to remove his address from the database. His activities, interests may change, the cat may run away. And your letters may become redundant. Leave an unsubscribe link in the email. You can ask a person to leave a review, describe the reason why he no longer wants to receive your letters.
Keep the database of addresses safe.
The list of addresses should not be shared with anyone. And the newsletter should only be received by people who subscribed to it.

How to organize a mailing list using services

There are services that help to make email newsletters. You can set up automatic collection of data from your site into mailing lists, segment the lists by many parameters.

You can customize the template. If you do not know how to type letters directly, you can use the block constructor.

Be responsible with your email campaigns. It is a powerful tool that can be used in marketing. The newsletter will help you build trust with your audience, tell about your business and attract customers. But, as in any business, it is important to understand whether what you are doing is effective.

Set up UTM tags, see how many people open emails, how many people follow links. Do you even need what you're doing.

Sakharov Ilya

What is an email newsletter?

Examples of email newsletters

For example, this is how a letter from chain stores DNS:

Services for internet marketers Carrot Quest:

St. Petersburg project organizing open scientific lectures "A pinch of salt" :

Why are email newsletters relevant in 2018?

Because many types of communications still take place in e-mail. This is especially noticeable in business correspondence: people are not yet ready to conduct serious negotiations from their Vkontakte page. Social networks remain the realm of photos of children and cats. Messengers are used mainly on mobile devices and are not very suitable for official business communication in terms of their functionality.

Hence, the good old post is still relevant. Therefore, there is an audience with which to interact.

Still don't believe? Then learn email usage statistics in 2017 .

Types of email newsletters

There are quite a lot of classifications and divisions of email newsletters on the Internet. But one way or another, they all have the same basis: whether the letter is sent by trigger or manually.

trigger emails
Trigger emails are emails that are sent to the user automatically after they have performed a particular action.

For example, trigger emails include a welcome email after a person has subscribed to your mailing list. Or confirmation that the payment for the goods was successful. Or a reminder that the free trial period of the product is coming to an end.

Trigger emails are created in special services. For example, Sendsay , ExpertSender or Carrot Quest .

First, the trigger itself is created.

In this context, a trigger is a particular action after which the user receives an email. For example, you can create a trigger that will fire every time a person clicks on a certain button on your site.

After the trigger is created, you need to write the text of the letter, format it in any service convenient for you and run it.

Trigger letter from Expecto:

handwritten letters
These are letters, the content and time of sending of which cannot be predicted. They usually contain news information. For example, a selection of the latest blog articles or information about promotions and special offers.

Such letters are written and typeset as needed.

Hand letter from "Expecto":

Email campaign performance metrics

Number of subscribers
One of the most important and obvious indicators of the success of your newsletter. The more subscribers, the better.

Email open rate
If you're sending emails to people, it's certainly important to know if they're reading them. Or at least what percentage of people open them. This statistics, as a rule, can be viewed in services for working with email newsletters.

Target action completion percentage
Each letter has a particular target action, which, ideally, the reader must perform. For example, buy a product, go to the site and read an article, sign up for a test drive. Using statistics and analytics, you can calculate what percentage of those who received the letter completed this action. The higher the percentage, the better.

Percentage of unsubscribes and complaints
Unsubscribing and spamming after launching an email campaign is inevitable. It is important that the percentage of people who “dislike” you does not cross the critical mark. Otherwise, you can get a ban from Yandex or Google-a.

Let's get straight to the point...

What is mailing

Types of mailings

You, like any other Internet user, have your own email address. And periodically you receive letters in your mailbox. Of course, letters from friends do not belong to mailing lists.

But I am sure that you have received letters from online stores where you once bought something and entered and confirmed your email address when buying. Thus, you have given your consent to receive information in your mailbox. Such mailings are called informational.

There are also mailings copyright. For example, by going to this address, you can subscribe to my newsletter and in the first letter, you will receive an e-book for free. And in the future you will receive letters on the topic of online earnings.

Another type of mailing is spam. Illegal mass mailing of letters to email addresses obtained from open access.

Internet mailing services

For the convenience of mailing, there are many specialized services on the Internet. Thanks to them, anyone can create their own mailing list and send thousands of letters at the same time. Another question is how to build your own subscriber base. But we will talk about this in other articles ...

The most popular Russian-language email service in RuNet is just click

True, Justclick has long been paid and costs about a thousand rubles a month. But this service, in addition to mailing, has other useful functionality.

For example, you can organize your affiliate program there. It is possible to set up accepting payments through the service, but only if you are registered as an individual entrepreneur or LLC.

The service also has the functions of auto webinars and auto trainings. You will not find such functionality in other mailing services.

From foreign services you can advise Unisender and mailchimp.