Behavioral Emails: How to Optimize Your Strategy According to Your Customer’s Actions

Maybe, you already perform proactive customer service, and your customers are generally happy with what your company provides. Chances are, though, there is still room for improvement when it comes to the way you interact with your audience. One example? Email marketing. And while sending hyper-personalized emails to your contacts is a great way to boost loyalty, satisfaction, and, ultimately, profitability, there is something else you should be incorporating into your email marketing strategy: behavioral emails. If you don’t know what these are and would like to find out how to leverage their potential to supercharge your results, then our guide right here has all the answers.

Table of contents

• What are behavioral emails?
• Why is behavioral email marketing effective?
• Types of behavioural emails
• Tips to remember when creating behavioral emails
• Conclusion

What are behavioral emails?

When we talk about “behavioral emails”, we refer to automated emails that are sent to contacts based on how they act and behave toward your brand’s products and services. You can build and send a behavioral email following an interaction with a customer (or potential customer) on a range of different channels, including your website, your social media accounts, and more.

Why is behavioral email marketing effective?

There are several reasons why using behavioral emails as part of your main email marketing strategy is so effective. In the next section, we are going to highlight the four main ones.

1. It generates leads

If scaling up your business is one of your company’s goals, then behavioral email marketing is for you. With behavioral emails, in fact, you can expand your reach by connecting with a much larger pool of users.

In this way, you are able to generate and nurture new leads, with the end goal of turning them into happy, returning customers. But why does this happen, in practice? Because behavioral emails contain deeply personalized content and are only sent at specific times, they are far more likely to get your recipient’s attention.

This, in turn, shows your leads that not only do you care about them and their wants and needs but that you also respect their preferences. Don’t be too “salesy” in your communications, and always have the right solution to their pain points.

2. It adjusts to customer needs

The extreme level of customization that behavioral emails feature also means that you will be able to know precisely what each individual user needs and offer it to them just when they are expecting it.

Think about behavioral emails as a way to truly maximize the overall customer experience. When the customer experience is so smooth, pleasant, and personalized, the likelihood of a user making a purchase (and coming back for more) skyrockets.

3. It leads to customer personalization

It’s worth mentioning again: with behavioral emails, customer personalization is taken to a whole different level. Not only does behavioral email marketing allow email marketers to find out what a specific customer is interested in, but it also lets them discover how and when to best present them with the winning content.

4. It boosts conversions

When personalization is done properly, and your email content genuinely hits the spot, what do you think happens next? Yes – more conversions. It’s all very simple, really: get to know your customers on a much more profound level, offer them exactly what they want and need at the right time and in the right way, and see a steady rise in sales and profits.

Types of behavioural emails

If you thought that behavioral emails all looked the same, then you might need to think again. The world of behavioral emails, just as the world of email marketing, is very multi-faceted, as we are about to explain in this next section.

1. Welcome email

Perhaps the most popular type of behavioral email, and one that you might be familiar with, is welcome emails. A welcome email does exactly what it says: it greets a new customer by welcoming them as part of your brand.

Welcome emails are usually sent straight after a user has taken some specific action, whether it be buying a product from you, subscribing to your newsletter or VoIP-hosted services, commenting on your blog posts, or anything else of a similar nature.For a welcome email to be effective, it should be thought of more as a way to onboard new customers as opposed to a simple email message to check in with them. So, pay particular attention to your email subject, its content, and the CTA that you add at the end – more on all this later. You can also use an email verification process to boost deliverability and engagement rates.

2. Post-purchase email

When a customer has bought something from you for the very first time, you can take advantage of a specific type of behavioral email called “post-purchase email”. The aim of a post-purchase email is to keep the conversation going now that the customer has clearly shown a tangible interest in your brand.

But a post-purchase email can do so much more if you want. You can use these types of behavioral emails to keep your customers up-to-speed on their order status and progress, offer them further information about what they bought (think product instructions, video tutorials, tips for caring for and maintaining their products), and even ask them to let you know what they thought of the product you ordered.

3. Win-back email

Win-back emails are another widespread type of behavioral email and a crucial one at that. In our fast-paced, digital world, customers are constantly bombarded by a myriad of information at rapid speed and are literally spoiled for choice when it comes to deciding which brand to opt for.

All this might mean that some of your customers get a bit lost in all this external noise and might lose touch with your brand even after being loyal to it for some time. This is the prime time for a win-back email. These are usually short messages that aim at capturing your recipient’s attention right away by showing them a genuine interest in how they are doing right now.

In a way, win-back emails can be seen as one of the most “emotional” types of behavioral emails. They target specific feelings of the recipients, such as tiredness, overwhelm, frustration, sadness, and more. By touching base with a customer at a potentially difficult time of their lives, your chances of that customer coming back to you rise exponentially.

Tips to remember when creating behavioral emails

Now that you know the basics of behavioral emails, it’s time to get creative and start crafting your first behavioral email. In this next section, we will reveal the five essential features that can take your behavioral email marketing strategy to the next level.

1. Track your customer activity

Email marketing trends are one crucial aspect when it comes to building your overall strategy. But, if you want to go the extra mile, you have to ensure that those trends actually make sense for your industry. A sure-fire way to verify this is by tracking your customer activity.

Knowing when a specific customer has bought a specific item from you or when they have decided to subscribe to your blog or newsletter, can tell you A LOT about that individual. Based on these insights, you can gradually start building email content that is utterly tailored to their unique circumstances.

2. Segment audience

As it’s probably clear by now, customer data and email marketing benchmarks are essential in determining your behavioral email marketing strategy. One extra step you’ll need to take in order for all this to come to fruition is to segment your audience.

This is the ultimate method that enables you to find out how each of your email contacts behaves, and how you can target those behaviors with the right type of email. It enables you to streamline your email strategy.

3. Schedule your email sending appropriately

Did you know that certain days of the week and times of the day have a much higher incidence of email open rates? The caveat, though, is that these tend to vary significantly depending on the industry.

Do a bit of research on your sector to find out what the best times are and start firing out your behavioral emails then.

4. Create content based on customer insights

Email content is a crucial aspect of a successful behavioral email. Once you have gathered all the necessary information on your recipient, you will be able to craft a message that contains the most compelling, informative, and valuable content for that specific person.

5. Automate your email system

To maximize the results of your behavioral email marketing strategy, you need to rely on an autoresponder or email marketing automation software. Just as you already do with your secure electronic signature software, having solid technology in place to support your behavioral emails helps you become faster, more effective, and more successful.

Conclusion

Behavioral emails are the future of a solid and successful email marketing strategy. By knowing exactly what, how, and when your audience needs, wants and expects from you, you can create deeply personalized email messages that call your customers to act in a way that feels genuine, valuable, and compelling.Remember that, before your behavioral email campaign begins, you’ll need to keep testing that all the underlying software works perfectly (read this if you are wondering: what is continuous testing?), as this is the best way to ensure that your email reaches the right person at the right time and with the right message.