If all businesses could agree on one goal they want to attain, it is automating the process of converting more leads into customers.
To be honest, not all leads would give much time to your business. And if they did, it would be at the first interaction with you when they are still highly interested.
As a business, you should make the best out of that interest peak. And an email autoresponder is one of the most effective ways to nurture your leads and convert them to customers. Right at the moment when they are most interested in you.
When you go through this guide, you’ll learn:
- What is an email autoresponder series (hint: it is not a basic Wikipedia definition)
- 7 best autoresponder email template examples that actually work (you’ll want to copy)
- How to set up email autoresponder series (in baby steps)
What is an Email Autoresponder?
An email autoresponder is a series of pre-written emails that are typically sent out to new subscribers in a pre-determined sequence at pre-determined intervals.
This is great to use when notifying customers you have received their email and they will get a response in a pre-determined time frame. Email autoresponders are sent in the order and frequency you choose.
Email autoresponder series are a perfect use as a confirmation email for a customer purchase or subscription.
Let’s say you have a five-part email autoresponder that delivers a tutorial for your potential customers. They’ll find beneficial and valuable and prepare them to become loyal customers.
This autoresponder series will nurture your leads, but it will also give the same experience to all your prospects.
You don’t have to manually send an email to leads who are interested in your business. It is a fully automated process, it works even when you’re grabbing a drink on a Saturday night.
What is the purpose of an email autoresponder?
Any automated email campaign you set for your business is directed toward growing your sales and revenue.
Email autoresponder series can help you:
- Welcome new subscribers
- Onboard your new users
- Nurture your leads
- Convert leads to customers through your email funnel
- Confirm customer purchase
- Encourage customer referral
- Promote an upcoming event/webinar
Let’s see these objectives illustrated in examples.
7 Best Autoresponder Email Template Examples That Actually Work (And Why)
1. Welcome new subscribers
Greet your brand new email subscribers with a welcome drip campaign.
It’s your opportunity to take advantage of the early excitement and curiosity of new email subscribers. It is a must.
A welcome email campaign is great because:
- You and your subscribers can learn about each other.
- It builds momentum and drives new readers to your old content.
- It takes the relation further.
In the first email of your welcome campaign, you should introduce yourself or your company.
Talk about the history of your brand. This lets your subscribers take a peek behind the scenes.
If you are running B2B email marketing, you should ask a relevant question and request a reply to engage faster with your leads.
This is a great way to engage your new subscribers and sell faster
Suiteness does a good job of outlining what makes them different from their competitors. They tell that they’re not a typical hotel booking website and what the user can get from the company in order to plan the perfect vacation.
Include your social buttons at the end of your welcome email. It could be beneficial as a social proofing and might help you grow your Instagram followers too.
Never limit your welcome email autoresponder to one email, you could follow up the example we used with other emails:
- Introducing the story behind your business
- Providing further benefits of doing with you
- Demonstrate the next steps to take
- Promoting each service you provide
I’d recommend using about 3-5 emails in a welcome campaign. And dispatch it in a well-mapped timeline.
2. Onboard your new users
User onboarding email autoresponders are SaaS best friend.
User onboarding campaigns perfectly if you want to educate your new users on how to use your product or service.
You have to keep your new users motivated about your business, so they learn how can get value out of your product. For this, you need a user onboarding autoresponder series.
This first step to creating a fantastic onboarding autoresponder begins with a goal. In this case, your objective should be converting leads into active users/customers.
Discover your products ‘Aha moments’ that can solve a solution for your leads.
You’ll want the new user to learn about these as it helps them decide on doing business with you.
You could use this autoresponder email template to pitch your Aha moment in your first email:
“Our (products/services) help (customer segment) who want to (job to be done) by (verb e.g., reducing, avoiding, etc) (customer pain) and (verb e.g., increasing, enabling, etc) (customer gain).”
Focus on the challenges of the users and the solution to these challenges.
I recommend you dispatch your onboarding user steps in 3 to 5 email, depending on the complexity of your product/service.
3. Nurture your leads
Acquiring new email subscribers is never considered a sale. And no lead makes a purchase after only one email you send. Unless you are the email marketing Avenger.
You create awesome welcome email autoresponders. But, these leads have not converted into customers.
They want to weigh their options, compare you to your competitors, and need more convincing before taking an action.
To increase your chances of converting these captured leads, you’ll need a lead nurturing autoresponder workflow.
This could follow-up your welcome email autoresponder series.
Canva loves to nurture their leads with educational content right after the subscribe.
The purpose of lead nurturing email autoresponder is to educate the prospect further, build awareness of your organization and products.
All this makes it more likely that the lead will convert smoothly through your email sales funnel.
Speaking of funnels, let’s see how to convert leads through an autoresponder email sales funnel.
4. Convert leads to customers through a mapped sales funnel
Your autoresponder sequence template represents your email sales funnel.
It includes a series of pre-written email destined to attract, convert, sell and delight your customers.
Here is an example of a pre-written autoresponder series that explains your email sales funnel.
Leads at the first stage of your autoresponder email sequence are marketing qualified leads. At that stage, you focus on nurturing and gaining their trust.
Once your leads reach the second stage, they become sales qualified leads and are more likely to buy from you.
That is an example of how you could convert your new blog subscribers into customers in seven days email marketing plan. With one autoresponder series.
5. Confirm customer purchase
Confirmation emails are a huge part of the success of many online retail stores.
Simple because no one wants to leave their new customers hanging after making a new purchase.
I’m not going to share stats on the importance of confirmation email for your business, because it is literally unnegotiable.
Your confirmation email is an autoresponder triggered by specific customer action. Which is placing an order.
Your confirmation email autoresponder series could also be sent for:
- Registration
- Booking
- Shipping
- Subscription
6. Encourage customer referral with post-purchase email autoresponder
Triggered email autoresponder sequences are a great practice of promoting your referral program after every new customer purchase.
Maude did create a stunning post-purchase email autoresponder to promote their referral program.
7. Promote an upcoming event/webinar
Turning your webinar registration into attendees and leads isn’t easy. That’s why it’s crucial to create a solid webinar email autoresponder series.
Let’s have look at an example to make it simpler for you.
Suppose your visitors opt-in to your upcoming webinar through a landing page.
Right after a new lead joins your webinar registrants link, you’d want to send an autoresponder email with further information regarding your webinar.
The same way SamCart did in their webinar email autoresponder.
The first email is about communicating important information and confirming the attendance from your leads.
You can include more emails into the sequence such as a reminder email, webinar link email, post-webinar thank-you email, etc.
The above webinar email workflow example is created on Automizy, an email marketing automation provider.
How to Set Up Email Autoresponder Series
You will need to register to email marketing automation software, that would allow you to easily set up your automated autoresponder sequences.
Here a step-by-step process on how to set up an email autoresponder sequence in Automizy.
Autoresponder emails are opt-in based emails that send to your customers on a subscription or filling a website contact forms.
To automate your autoresponders, firstly you need to connect your website forms to your email list that visitors will opt-in.
Step 1: Create an opt-in email list
You can create an opt-in email list, so you have different lists depending on which form your website visitors subscribe through. It depends on your email list management strategy.
You can connect the existing forms on your web page to Automizy with Autodetect feature. It will connect your existing website form to a specific email list.
Open your Automizy account and go to “Manage contacts” then click on “Signup forms” and click on: “Connect From Website“.
This way you can create an opt-in email list for your new users that you want to send autoresponder email series to.
Step 2: Select your email trigger
Set up your autoresponder trigger by selecting one of these options in Automizy:
You can create personalized autoresponder email messages that can get triggered when a contact:
- Gets a tag
- Gets added to a list
- Submits a form on your website, or
- Clicks a link in an email
- Etc.
Step 3: Create a behavior-based autoresponder series
Now that you’ve selected your trigger for your new email subscribers, you have to craft your autoresponder messages that you want to send.
You can add your autoresponder emails into Automizy real quick, like the following example demonstrates.
One email doesn’t put your new subscribers into your email sales funnel.
Consider making your autoresponders a drip email sequence that welcome new subscribers, nurture them, and do the sale.
This autoresponder email sequence could be more sophisticated with behavioral email workflows.
Let’s see how to take this to the next level.
Step 4: Set up email automation with conditions
Suppose you send a double opt-in confirmation email to your new subscribers or trial users.
In your first email, you include a confirmation button.
Applying conditions in such a case can help you learn who opened your confirmation email, who clicked the button and who did not.
After the waiting period, apply the condition “Has opened an email” and split your automation for the two branches, “Yes” branch and “No” branch.
Based on the interaction of your contacts with the first email, you can define the rest of your autoresponder series.
For instance, contacts who did not open the first email, receive a reminder email to confirm their email address. It could increase your email open rate.
For contacts who opened your first email, apply another condition to check on link click of the confirmation button.
For contacts who contact who opened the first email but didn’t confirm, you could send them a reminder email too.
But, for contacts who opened and clicked the confirmation button, your autoresponder sequence can proceed to onboard them.
Your autoresponders are automated email campaigns, you can send emails to each new contact based on his/her behavior.
Think about your customer journey or what kind of content you want to share with your new users before setting up your email sequence.
Conclusion
I’d love to end this guide with a question, would you rather answer your customer emails one-by-one or set up your autoresponder series?
The answer is pretty obvious, I don’t imagine a business with +100 email subscriber per month, and someone sitting behind a screen answering.
It is about working smart and setting up the smartest email autoresponders. I showed you why and how to create one, now the ball is at your court.
Feel free to share with us your winning autoresponder sequence and get featured on our guide ?