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way2online-blog · 7 years ago

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All You Need To Know About The Benefits Of Marketing Funnel

Before you try to sell your products, you have spent long hours to learn about the best digital marketing tools and techniques that you can apply. You hope that these will help you generate a huge impact on your marketing funnel.

However, when you start tracking the progress, you see that the actual reports vary significantly as compared to what you have hoped. You find that your website is getting much attention, the traffic that your site gets is huge, but people are hardly converting.

So, is there something wrong that is clogging up your marketing funnel? Let me explain.

When people buy a product, they usually go through a multi-layered process from introduction to conversion. It is a process where people learn about you, trusts your business, and finally converts. You cannot expect them to buy your product when they are not ready yet.

A question might have popped up in your mind by now. What does it take to make your customers ready?

Is there any strategy which can convert these people?

The answer is Yes! The strategy that can help you to convert your traffic into customers is by creating a Marketing Funnel. The fundamental reason for having a marketing funnel setup is to make your buyer’s journey smoother.

What is Marketing Funnel

You might have a great website with excellent products. However, if people are not aware of your business, you cannot generate any revenue.

You have a good amount of traffic flowing into your site. Now, you want the visitors to take some action on your website, like signing up for your website, fill out a form, or purchase a product. You can do it by placing a call-to-action (CTA) on your site. The marketing funnel is a few steps that your visitors or subscribers need to go through before they click on the CTA and take any action you want them to take on your website.

The reason for calling it a marketing funnel is due to the shape it assumes as the volume of people that passes through subsequent stages reduce as you go down. When you spread the awareness about your business, there are a lot of people who will show up. However, gradually, as they continue their journey towards the buying process, some of them keeps dropping out of the following steps. The benefits of marketing funnel can be realized by maximizing the revenue by nurturing the interested leads into purchasing your product or services, which occurs during the subsequent marketing stages.

The marketing funnel is the journey that every visitor goes through before he/she is converted into a customer. One of the best ways to increase your revenue is to make the top of the marketing funnel wider or generate more lead. As the top grows wider, the chances of getting more people to convert will increase.

Understanding the funnel

So, even if you generate huge traffic, only a few of them will show real interest in your products. Among these interested people, the number of people buying your product will be even less.

Therefore, when a visitor comes to your website for the first time, you can consider him as Top-of-the-funnel customers. You need to have a different strategy for these customers as they are still not familiar with you or your products. They are having a look around and are yet to decide if they want to engage with you.

Keep track and identify the people who looks more interested and provide more value to them. You need to nurture their interest in buying your product by convincing them subtly of the value of your product.

The third part or the bottom-of-the-funnel consists people who are almost decided on purchasing your product. You need to approach these section with a different approach. Moreover, you need to keep these people remain loyal to your business even after getting transformed into your customers.

So, you can see that the number of people who buys your product is only a fraction of the total number of people who visits your site. Thus, if you are looking to increase your sales and revenue, you need to produce more engaging content for the visitors. However, as they move towards lower down the funnel, you need a focussed approach to nurturing them towards the buying process.

Key benefits of marketing funnels

Understanding the fundamentals of the marketing funnel is not difficult. The benefits of marketing funnel are many. Thus, if you can apply proper strategy to every step, it can help you to reach your goals faster. The primary benefits of marking funnel are:

Increase sales through personalized nurturing of leads

Provide detailed insights on the leads’ behavior, easier for the sales team to close deals

Can be automated – saves process time and effort.

Create awareness and trust among your leads, helping you create a brand value

Fewer errors due to less human intervention since the system can be automated

All of the factors helps you to generate more leads and close deals faster. In addition, you can fast-pace your business at an optimized cost.

How to set up Marketing Funnel

Setting up a Marketing Funnel requires a few steps to be followed. These steps are quite easy to set up, and you can maintain them for an extended period without any significant changes.

1.Awareness of your product

Before trying to sell your product to your subscribers, understand that you are a stranger to most of them. Your subscriber does not know you or the value of your product. At this stage, expecting that your subscribers would buy your product is not so feasible.

To make people realize the value of your products, you must establish your credibility in your domain. Create content that can educate your subscribers, or showcase the value of your products. Try and build a relationship with the subscribers. Make them aware of your brand name, to earn the trust of your subscribers.

Since you are addressing the top of the marketing funnel here, you can also send out free contents, exclusive coupons and can use other such tactics. Use them to introduce yourself and your business. Remember, not all of the prospects at this stage will be converting into your customers.

One method you can follow is to know

how to send personalized emails

. Personalized emails are quite useful in invoking some curiosity and awareness among your subscribers. You can use various email personalization techniques in the subject line, or the preheader text along with the main content of the email to try and get closer to your subscribers.

Example:

Let me give you an example.

Grammarly is a tool that you can use to enhance your English writing skills. You can use the free version to proofread your articles, but it will only show you the fundamental errors. The premium version comes with advanced checks, but you have to pay a moderate price for it.

Now, check out the email that I received when I signed up for the Grammarly tool. It is a welcome email with no sales pitch. It just tells me that Grammarly can improve my writing abilities.I have broken down the email into multiple images. You can see that never even once, Grammarly tells me to buy their product.

Once I started using Grammarly, I found it to be quite useful. The fundamental errors are taken care of, and my articles started showing less errors. However, I cannot check any advanced errors, though the software suggested that there are some.

2.Consideration of leads through targeted content

When you have generated some interest among your subscribers, a few of them filters down to the second stage or the consideration stage of the marketing funnel. These subscribers are now interested in you and your product. They show more activity in learning more about you.

Since you are dealing with your subscribers for some time, you know about their interests. At this point, provide them with targeted content, addressing their specific pain points. Precise solutions to their problems make them believe in your potential of catering to their needs. Show them what more they can do if they choose your product.

Try to be helpful in the consideration stage. You must remember that the subscribers have not yet converted into your customers, but have started to depend on you.

Example:

Once again, check the second email from Grammarly now.

The Grammarly team is not speaking about buying, but are just showing you the benefits of the tool and what more could be done with the free subscription. Since I was using the free version for quite some time now, I know that it is helpful. The email only points out about the free account and the extent of the facilities that I can avail. With the second email, they are merely showing the benefits of premium version that I am missing out.

Moreover, Grammarly sent a casual follow-up email to me asking me to buy their product.

3.Lead Nurturing and improve buyer intent

After you have built a steady relationship with your subscribers, slowly start pitching your products to them. Explain them the benefits of your products and convince them to buy your product. This is the third stage of the marketing funnel where you start making attempt to reap the benefits of the marketing funnel.

While sending out these sales pitch, create a sense of urgency among your subscribers so that they can purchase the product right away. You can invoke interests in your subscriber by following the seven sins of email marketing. It will help you to send promotional emails with offers and discounts which is relatable to your subscribers. Tell them why your products are better than your competitors’. Additionally, show how your products can help your subscribers if they buy them.

Lead nurturing is the most critical phase of the marketing funnel. If you can do it in a right way, you can push them to the subsequent stages of the funnel, else, they might lose interest and opt out of the buying process.

Example:

At this point, let me share the third email that I received from Grammarly. Grammarly knows the quality of service it provides. They know that sooner or later, your interest to buy the premium membership will increase. They sent an email offering a discount and describing the benefits of the premium tool so that I can buy it soon.

To increase my intention of buying, they offered more discount in their next email. So, the sender shoots you another email to follow-up with the buying process.

As you can see, the Grammarly team offers you a discount of 50% on the price. Check out the subject line too. They know that you have not yet decided about buying the tool, but your interest has grown. They just nudge you a little towards the bottom of the funnel by providing you 50% off in their third email.

In addition to the multiple follow-up emails offering a discount, they used the year-end to instill a sense of urgency in me, as shown in the following image.

You can follow the above example to tweak your marketing emails. You can write your email subject line in a manner that can invoke a sense need among your customers, as done by Grammarly in the example. A well targeted and thought inspiring subject line gets your job half done.

4.Conversion

Finally, you have convinced your subscriber to purchase from you. Don’t sit back now. Provide them with inputs regarding the product they have bought. Tell them the benefits of the product and how it is better than your competitors.

Sometime it may happen that a tricky customer has reached this stage. Even though he is interested in your product, he is not committing to make the final purchase. To handle these types of customers, offer a discount, or a free trial of the product, or some freebies that convince them of the benefits of the products.

Remember, your ultimate agenda is to convert people in your marketing funnel by showcasing the values and benefits of your product.

Example:

So, if you remember the example of Grammarly, this is what their fourth email looked like. Here is the email that the Grammarly team sent after you purchase the premium version.

In the final email, they tell you about the best features of Grammarly. They provide you the complete analysis of the benefits that the premium version has.

Automation and drips for customer retention

When a subscriber sees the benefits of buying from you for the first time, you can expect them to buy from you again. So, you must keep connecting with them with updated content and product.

Over a prolonged interaction, you will see that your customers have turned into your most loyal fans, and referrers. They refer your business to their friends so that any future conversions become more comfortable for you.

When you have acquired a few customers, instill a sense of loyalty in them so that they value your business more than ever. Show your gratitude with a thank you email. Appreciate them for associating with your company.

Create an series of drip emails to educate the customers about the features, benefits, and updates regarding the product they bought. A constant supply of great content will increase their trust and confidence in you.

Though it might look tough, creating drip campaigns becomes easier once you automate it. Therefore, you need to select an email automation tools which has some basic featured essential for drip campaigns. However, you need to know and understand these features to make the most of them.

Make sure your automation tool has features like drip emails, welcome emails, and provision to include dynamic content to use it effectively. Remeber, you need to nurture your leads and conversions even after they had passed through the marketing funnel.

Example:

Check out this weekly email from Grammarly after I bought the premium version. It shows me the improvement that I have made with Grammarly.

Automated tools that take care of multiple activities can help you managing future campaigns in your

marketing funnel. You can provide them updates regarding your business, or the launch of any new product. Since your existing customers are already loyal to you, they can give you a lot of referral traffic, which you can nurture for your future marketing campaigns.

Points to remember

By now you must have a pretty good idea of what a marketing funnel is and how it works. You also know about how to set up a marketing funnel, the benefits of it and how useful it is in lead generation, lead nurturing, and making a sale. The example of Grammarly shows you the complete journey of acquiring a lead and nurturing him to the final process of buying. Moreover, they made the process of convincing you very subtle, as they made you understand the real value of the tool in every email they sent. Thus, even after purchasing the software, it is you who felt more satisfied.

So, it is time to create the marketing funnel that can help you to fulfill the objectives of your business. By developing a perfect marketing funnel, you can convert your traffic into leads, your leads into customers, and your customers into your fan. In doing so, you can generate more money out of your marketing campaigns, which is the ultimate goal of any business.

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way2online-blog · 7 years ago

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11 Powerful Reasons why you need email signature marketing

Email signature marketing is a simple concept with a remarkable promotional ability.

A professional email signature can give you a marketing opportunity as well.

Here’s an interesting fact for you:

In an article published by Forbes, a corporate employee sends out an average of 38 emails daily (Source: Radicati’s Email Statistics Report). Imagine, if the number of employees in a company is 50, sending out business emails for total 250 days, then there will be a total of 475000 total sends! You can imagine the brand awareness and visibility email signature can help that company get.

Before we go deep into the topic, let’s quickly summarize what is email signature marketing.

What is email signature marketing?

You already know that your subscribers receive a lot of emails every day. If your subscribers get an email that doesn’t sound mechanic but instead gives a personalized feel, it will engage them. That’s when the personalization of emails come in! Know how you can make your emails awesome using personalization strategies to engage your subscribers. However, did you imagine you can also personalize your email signature and make it work for you?

The idea is to use the email signature space and make it useful.

With signature marketing, you can use the outbound personal emails of your company for promotional purposes. It leverages business emails that you send out.

Let’s understand the concept in simple terms:

You and your colleagues send out hundreds or thousands of business emails every day to your users. Imagine how many emails you will send in a year. Millions! You can use the bottom space of the emails, which goes unused generally, to market your company or anything you want to advertise or promote.

The idea is to leverage the unused space in emails to your benefit.

Below is an example of a business email signature.

You will see that the email signature contains all the necessary details of the sender, his designation, and his contact details along with the name of the company. The sender wants to add more weight to his email signature by highlighting his company name.

You will notice that the email signature talks about the company’s latest achievements as well. It helps the recipient to know more about the company and its status.

The basic idea is to make the email signature look more professional and at the same time serve the purpose of a brand reminder as well.

How can your email signature be an effective marketing tool?

Let’s start with the most apparent thing about email signature marketing. It can ensure an overwhelming open rate because there is a pre-existing relationship in the first place and its personal mail communication email also being used for promotional purposes!

Remember, your business or company email signature can fetch you a definite business.

When you are absolutely sure that your recipient will open your emails and read, you can achieve a lot! You can use this feature to your advantage. It will help you build trust and confidence between you and your readers.

Here are some powerful reasons why you need email signature marketing.

Reason 1: Promote new products or new features of your product

One of the primary objectives of any business email is a clear description of benefits. You need to convey your message to your readers very clearly. You should not waste their time by beating around the bush!

Your message should be crisp and concise.

Your readers will notice your email signature because it contains your contact details! You can use some space in it to promote or market your campaigns.

The screenshot below shows how the sender used the corporate email signature block to promote their online and mobile services. It says very clearly what benefits the readers will get.

The sender used the space very intelligently with images and short texts.

Reason 2: You can connect with your readers on social media platforms

You can include your social media accounts links in your email signature. People can follow you on various social platforms and which can in-turn improve the engagement with your brand.

Below is an example where you can see the sender is asking people to follow them on social platforms.

Reason 3: You can promote your events

You can use your email signature to raise awareness and promote your upcoming events. You can mention an upcoming event in your email signature. Further, it is an excellent way to promote the event organically and get more people to join. It is a subtle and efficient way to raise awareness too.

Below is an example. I created the email signature to show you how you can highlight an upcoming event.

Reason 4: You can promote your YouTube video

If you have a video that you want to promote, your email signature can instantly make your readers notice it.

You can get more subscribers, shares, and views by just including your YouTube video app in your email signature or by giving a link to your YouTube video. It will help you in promoting your YouTube channel and videos by many folds in a single click.

Below is an image created just to show that you can optimally use your email signature to promote your YouTube videos.

Reason 5: You can promote your latest blog post

Now you can use your email signature as a reader-magnet!

You send many emails in a day. Those can be an effective tool and attract people.

Wondering how?

You can use your email signature to attract more readers by including the link to the blog where you have published your latest blog post.

Below is an example where you can see the link to my latest blog post.

Reason 6: You can promote contests

Are you planning to organize a contest soon?

Or maybe you are hosting a quiz show to promote social awareness!

You can use your email signature to highlight or promote it. It will undoubtedly help you in spreading the word. You will also be able to raise awareness among your target audience.

Let’s take a look at the example given below. It is an image created just to show how you can promote a contest in your email signature.

Reason 7: You can promote your upcoming webinars

Whether it’s a seminar, workshop, lecture, or presentation, you can increase the engagement with your email signature!

Sounds interesting?

Here’s how you can do it.

You can include a link in your email signature to promote upcoming webinars.

It can undoubtedly serve as a useful tool to get you more viewers.

Given below is an image that will show you how you can use the email signature to promote webinars.

Reason 8: You can do a survey or ask for feedback

You send emails every day. How many you think you send out? Ten? Fifty? Hundred? Each email that you send out can be an opportunity to understand your readers.

Use your email to ask for feedback and improve your customer service or client relationship, etc.

See the example given below. It is a recreated image that can be used to demonstrate how you can add a survey to your signature.

Reason 9: You can promote your sale event

Are you planning a sales event soon?

Do you have something that can convert traffic into sales? Maybe Yes!

It’s your email signature.

You can use your email signature to promote sales events.

Here is an example that is created just for you!

You can see how the email signature is used to promote a sales event.

People who have kids will be hooked on the “70% sale” and will give it a try.

It will also encourage people to buy because it has something for them too.

Reason 10: You can promote your app

There are millions of apps in Appstore & Playstore! Driving installs is not an easy task!

Moreover, how do you promote your app? Here’s an excellent idea:

You can include your app link in your email signature.

Additionally, you can include icons of the mobile phone play stores where your app is available.

Users can download it directly just by clicking on the images/icons.

Given below is a recreated image just for demonstration.

Reason 11: You can showcase your store

If you are an owner of a newly launched store, you can use your email signature to promote your shop/store. You can offer people lucrative offers, coupons, etc. and it will also increase your footfall

Here is a recreated image for you to understand.

Final Thoughts

Email signature marketing is not just your online business card. It is a high-returning, low cost, and powerful marketing tool.

According to statista, the number of worldwide email users in the year 2017 was 3.7 billion and the figure would rise to 4.1 billion by 2021!

In case you are thinking that email marketing is dead; email marketing is not dead! It’s an email marketing myth. It’s alive and kicking. Know what are the email marketing mythsthat are stopping you from realizing email marketing’s true potential. Before realizing the full potential of email signature marketing, know how incredible email marketing can be, and of course, know what are the email marketing facts and myths. It’s only when you have a clear idea about email marketing, you can realize how effective can your email signature be!

Email is presently the most preferred medium of communication in businesses. Moreover, it is an opportunity for you; you can take advantage of your signature.

A well-designed and crisp email signature will help in improving your business. Additionally, it is also capable of leaving a lasting impression in the minds of your readers.

You just have to make sure that you do it right!

So what do you think of this post on email signature marketing?

Let me know if you have some awesome business email signature, company email signature or corporate email signature examples and email signature ideas.

#email signature #email signature examples #professional email signature #company email signature #email signature marketing #signature marketing #email signature ideas

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way2online-blog · 7 years ago

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4 Must-Have Features To Be Present In Email Automation Tools

Before we get into the topic, essential features in an email automation tools: “Must-Have Features To Be Present In Email Automation Tools”

Imagine this:

How good life would be if the email campaigns would run by themselves?

Imagine the email marketing tools and email monitoring tools working on their own!

You could get closer to your subscribers, engage them, and understand them better.

Although it seems a very futuristic idea, you can now automate your email campaigns.

All thanks to email marketing automation tools!

Email marketing automation tools can eliminate the tedious and mundane tasks of email marketing by optimizing time.

Read on to find out more about the fantastic benefits of the email marketing software, and how to choose the best one for yourself.

What is Email Automation?

You already know that personalized and relevant emails engage your subscribers the most. You can engage your subscribers with your stunning emails when you choose your right audience, personalize them, and compose a simple yet strong message. These tips are very useful when you want to write powerful and effective emails.

However, personalizing every email can be a very tedious task. You won’t be leaving your desk even for lunch!

Email automation tools can help you send emails to your subscribers at the desired time and in lesser time.

You can also analyze your subscribers’ behavior and engage them at the same time.

It’s true that automation sound a bit robotic, but it’s not!

In fact, it’s the opposite.

Email automation tools can help you develop a healthy relationship with your subscribers by creating brand awareness and maintaining effective communication.

An automated email is timely, focused, and more relevant as compared to traditional ones.

Automated emails can act as a workflow that can send emails automatically on a schedule or a specific trigger. It can be an efficient email marketing software.

Why do you need email automation tools?

Email marketing is mainly about connecting your subscribers with relevant emails at the right time so that you can generate more revenue out of your business.

Similarly, email marketing automation reaches out, engages your subscribers, and ensures the same result but in LESSER TIME and LESSER EFFORT!

You can now strategize your marketing campaigns more efficiently without breaking a sweat!

Automated emails can engage your subscribers and boost conversion rates!

Imagine you are walking down the road, preoccupied with your thoughts. A stranger calls you by shouting “Hey, You!” Would you respond? The chances are thin.

It is natural that you would pay attention whenever a person addresses you using your name. The same applies to email marketing too!

You can personalize your automated emails using automation tools. It will give your email a personal feel.

Even a simple email with a personalized subject line can make a good impression on your subscribers’ minds! A personalized subject line can improve your open rate by 50 percent!When you personalize the subject lines of your emails, you can expect your subscribers to open your emails.

You can even engage your subscribers with automated transactional emails as well.

While sending out transactional automated emails to your customers, you can include information and offers on similar products or services. As a result, it will encourage your subscribers to know more about your range of products/services.

You can include a CTA button, which can encourage your subscribers to visit your website and continue shopping.

According to Experian, automated transactional emails can generate six times more revenue and have eight times more open rates!

Email automation tools: Features to look for

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln.

Success requires a sound planning!

Similarly, your email marketing campaigns need proper planning too.

You will have to understand and identify your requirements first and then look for an email automation tool that can take care of those needs.

There are many email automation tools available, but you don’t need all of them.

You need an email automation tool with features that are beneficial to you.

Take a look at some of the essential features:

Dynamic Content

The data that are gathered such as behavioral patterns, contact information, demographics and preferences of subscribers determine the content in dynamic emails.

Automated dynamic content can deliver quality and value to you. It ensures seamless customized and personalized content without your manual intervention.

Below is an email that I received a few days back.

It talks about the tips and tricks of a tool that I use regularly.

You can see the email containing relevant information about the tool.

Dynamic content can be very efficient or less useful depending on the data it leverages.

You should execute your welcome programs in such a manner that it captures both preference and demographic data of your subscribers.

Trigger Campaigns

Trigger campaigns are one of the most successful email marketing techniques in present times.

Automated triggered emails are those emails that are sent out to users when they meet a specific trigger. It can be at a time when they purchase a product or service, subscriber or register for a website/blog they get an acknowledging email.

You can set subscriber response or action as a trigger. The trigger can also be a date or a website update.

You can establish business criteria or rules around subscriber behaviors. It will help you decide the right time, right user, and the right message.

Automated trigger campaigns are customer driven, and that is why it is handy.

Your emails won’t prove to be annoying or unwanted because the subscribers initiate them in the first place; not you!

Given below is an automated triggered email that I received as soon as I subscribed to an investment news blog.

Once you set up your automated trigger campaign, the program will work automatically. It doesn’t need day-to-day management.

The most common type of automated triggered emails are the welcome emails.

Welcome emails programs can help you gather basic information about your subscribers.

Welcome Programs

The welcome program is undoubtedly a must for your email automation campaigns.

You can send welcome emails automatically as soon as a subscriber meet a specific trigger.

A trigger may be an event when a user subscribes to your newsletter, registers with your company or places an order.

A welcome program must be automated in the tool as it will ensure the delivery of welcome emails on time. It will save you time, workforce, and money.

Welcome emails can serve as the first step towards a healthy relationship between you and your subscribers. It can present an ideal opportunity to start gathering essential information about your subscribers.

Gathering information through welcome emails through methodical steps of data capture and engagement is more convenient with email automation tools. You should know all about the marketing funnel before starting with automation tool. The process includes funneling of subscribers and taking them to the landing page that features data capture forms.

Below is a welcome email that I received when I registered for a news website.

You will see there is a link in the welcome email that the reader must click on to complete the registration process. The link will redirect the user to the landing page of the official website.

The landing page of the website has a CTA button that the user has to click on to complete the final stage of registration.

The user will have to feed his/her necessary information for the final registration.

Beside the registration form, there is also a clear description of the membership benefits that the user will get. It will encourage the user to register with the website.

You need to remember that your subscribers’ first point of contact should not trigger the welcome programs. Instead, trigger your emails when your subscribers reach a new stage.

Drip Emails

The drip email campaigns leverage things that can help the subscribers succeed!

Drip email is a communication-based email marketing strategy. It sends out or ‘drips’ a specific and sequence of messages to subscribers at regular intervals and the preferences and behaviors of subscribers do not drive it. Instead, you will be the one who will be driving it!

You can include educational content such as guides, white papers, and webinars; invitations to a tradeshow, a networking event, or a seminar; or special offers for your subscribers in the drip email.

Take a look at the image given below. You can see how drip campaigns work.

You can try including special offers, event, or compelling content in your emails to give your subscribers something that benefits them.

Summary

Email automation tools can undoubtedly deliver you a wide array of opportunities.

It is crucial that you invest in an email automation tool that will take care of your email campaigns.

While choosing from the email automation tools ensure that you choose one with welcome programs, dynamic content, trigger campaigns, and drip emails.

Automated email tools can improve your subscriber engagement, email deliverability, and most importantly your reputation.

Automated emails can engage with many subscribers at the same time with relevant messages.

Not only they can engage your subscribers but can also help you improve your conversion rates.

Email automation tools can be an active contributor to the performance and superior ROI of your email marketing strategy in the long run. It can be an integral part of your best marketing strategies as well.

It would be awesome to know your thoughts on email automation tools.

All the best!

#email marketing #Email Marketing automation tool #automation tools

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