A comprehensive inbound marketing campaign contains many elements that are designed to work together to deliver your message to consumers, increase traffic to your website, and drive sales.
From using SEO to drive traffic to your website, to your landing pages that convert visitors into leads, inbound marketing is a process. Ultimately your goal is to reach your target market, deliver the information that they are seeking, convert them into leads, and then nurture them through their buying process to close the sale.
One key component of the nurturing process is email marketing.
Automating your nurturing process by using an email scheduling software can increase an email's effectiveness and can keep your message in front of your prospects by sending a series of emails.
Good email scheduling softwares will allow you to segment your email list and deliver the proper message to the right prospect at the right time. Therein lies the beauty of automated marketing. By scheduling your emails in advance, you can remain top-of-mind with your prospects as they travel along their buying journey.
If you already work with apps like Outlook or Gmail to handle sending and receiving emails throughout your day, that's great. But while these are great tools to meet your daily needs, scheduled sends and emails intended for larger groups require something a little more robust – they need to be prepared to send every email blast as well as any targeted nurturing emails your company wants to send.
The following tools offer a host of features. All can organize your contacts into targeted lists, add new contacts easily using signup forms, and integrate well with other apps. Almost all can add new subscribers from your online store, contact forms and address book automatically.
Here are six email scheduling software packages you should try to automate your sales process.
HubSpot allows you to schedule sales emails directly in Gmail. You can schedule as many messages as you want, to as many different lists or recipients as you need. Simply click the schedule mail icon in the Gmail compose window and choose a time.
Scheduled emails are automatically saved as drafts so they can be edited or updated any time before they are scheduled to be sent. It also allows you to create sequence emails, create templates out of your most effective emails, and track opens, downloads, and link clicks.
If you send emails about events or sales to drive traffic to your brick and mortar store, Constant Contact is a great choice. Even if you have a digital business, conduct live webinars, or offer limited-time discounts, Constant Contact is a great app for you.
This app allows you to schedule upcoming events and spread the word via scheduled emails and social network posts. Add subscribers easily and even create a registration page to log attendees.
GetResponse has a built-in email designer that lets you see what your email would look on a phone or computer while you're drafting it, eliminating the need for a test message.
You can add images from Facebook and other sites, include PayPal buttons in your emails to sell products, and even reuse text from previous emails. If you're promoting products online, GetResponse offers tools to import contacts from Facebook forms and Twitter ads.
MailChimp is an online app that is serious about email marketing. It's an all-in-one app that has a suite of tools to help you create dynamic, beautifully designed emails and build rich subscriber profiles that track your contact interactions with your email.
MailChimp's mobile app lets you send emails, check your stats, and add new contacts to your lists on the go. It has the ability to automatically find the best time to email based on other campaigns or subscriber time zones. It also features a customizable form and landing page builder, and it has drip tools to send and schedule email campaigns.
Hatchbuck is another online platform that offers a suite of email and contact management tools. A simple Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) keeps you organized and provides hot lead alerts that let you know when a prospect is ready to buy. Hatchbuck's marketing automation tool schedules email drip campaigns and creates autoresponders. They also have deep analytics tools that can track and tally contacts, deals and email campaigns.
Hatchbuck also integrates with Zapier, a software that moves information between web apps automatically. With this added bonus, sharing information between applications is a simple as point and click.
Email scheduling is a critical element of a comprehensive online marketing strategy. Before you make a commitment, check out the six tools and their features. Think about how you use email and how automating your email marketing efforts can fit into your existing marketing plan.
Creating segmented lists, targeting your message to your prospects unique needs, and nurturing your prospects through the buying cycle can translate directly to your company's bottom line through higher-quality leads and increased sales. These six email scheduling tools are a great place to start!