One of the best online channels for marketing to your audience—as well as for staying in touch with existing customers—is email.
With email marketing, you can send people helpful industry info, product recommendations, and more. What’s more is that, with Nutshell, you can do so right from your customer relationship management (CRM) platform—the same place where you store and analyze all your customer data.
That means you can apply your data insights directly to your email campaigns to help make them more effective at engaging leads and customers. CRMs such as Nutshell also enable you to automate aspects of your email marketing.
But how do you go about setting up automated email campaigns? Which email tasks can you automate? That’s exactly what we’ll explore in this blog post. Keep reading to learn more.
What is CRM email automation?
CRM email automation is the process of using your CRM and email automation tools together to organize your contacts, store their data, and automate email campaigns that reach the right audiences at the right time. Some CRMs include email marketing and automation features, while others integrate with different email automation tools.
Using your CRM for email automation lets you laser-focus your marketing efforts on the exact leads and customers you want to reach with your message using email lists generated from your CRM contacts. You can also automate several steps in the email marketing process by creating and scheduling automated email campaigns that will reach prospects at the right stage of the sales pipeline.
CRM vs. email marketing
CRM systems and email marketing software are two different types of tools that typically focus on solving different problems. Usually, a CRM is designed to manage contacts and enable sales automation so sales teams can work more efficiently. Email marketing, on the other hand, is a type of outreach marketers use to engage with contacts via email.
However, you can combine a CRM with an email marketing tool to get the best of both worlds.
The benefits of using a CRM with email integration abound. From enabling more effective collaboration to helping you connect with leads more efficiently, linking CRM and email marketing for small business teams ultimately allows you to strengthen connections with contacts and close more deals.
Setting up CRM email automation
Sending out automated marketing emails is a great way to stay in touch with your audience without having to spend too much time on it. But how can you automate your email campaigns? Although email CRM platforms operate differently, here’s an overview of how to automate email management through your CRM:
1. Creating email templates
One of the most valuable ways to use CRM email automation is to create email templates. When your CRM automatically sends out marketing or sales emails, it doesn’t make them from scratch. It relies on preexisting templates—templates you have to create.
You can set up several templates for different types of emails, all of which you can personalize by target group. When something triggers your CRM to send out an email, it will choose the appropriate template, fill in any personalized fields based on the person receiving the email, and then send it out.
Using templates for your automated marketing emails helps them be more consistent and saves you the time you’d otherwise spend rebuilding each email before you send it out.
2. Setting up automated email sequences
Odds are, there are particular situations where you want to send out marketing emails. You don’t want to do it at random—you want to send emails when people take particular actions. You might also like to send a series of emails in a specific order. However, you don’t want to manually send out those emails every time one of those situations comes along.
Thankfully, you don’t have to. You can automate your CRM to send out emails in response to specific circumstances. For instance, if you earn a new customer, your CRM can automatically send out a welcome email. You could then send an automated series of emails explaining your product or service.
Rather than sending out these emails manually, you can set some triggers in your CRM. When those triggers occur, it will send out emails to the relevant people.
3. Segmenting email lists
Another way to improve your automated email marketing campaigns is to segment your email lists. Not everyone in your audience is the same, so why send them all the exact same emails? A better idea is to send different emails to different groups of people so you can better personalize them.
You could segment users into different groups based on factors like:
Demographics
Location
Browsing behavior
Purchase history
And more!
By dividing up your users in this way, you can create emails specific to each group. The more specific and personalized your emails are, the more effective they’ll engage users and drive conversions.
4. Track and measure automated marketing email performance
Finally, you can improve your CRM email automation by tracking the performance of your automated campaigns. With Nutshell, you can track the performance of your email marketing campaigns right in your CRM and get insight into metrics such as:
Open rate
Conversion rate
Click-through rate (CTR)
This information will help you figure out which email campaigns are most effective at driving results. You can use that information to help you identify what sorts of campaigns to create in the future, helping you more effectively reach and convert your intended audience.
Frequently asked questions about CRM email automation
As you consider combining your CRM with your email automation tools, you may have a few more questions. Here are some frequently asked questions about CRM email automation:
What is CRM automation?
CRM automation is a process of automating various tasks in your CRM software to streamline your operations. You can use CRM automation to increase efficiency in several areas, including:
Data collection and analysis
Customer engagement and communication
Workflow and pipeline management
What does CRM email automation cost?
The cost of CRM email automation varies from $5 per month to several hundred dollars per month, generally depending on the number of marketing contacts your company has. In Nutshell, you can send 150 emails per month for free without paying for a Nutshell Campaigns account.
What is the best CRM for email marketing?
If you’re on the hunt for the best CRM for email marketing, Nutshell is the answer. Nutshell is a powerful CRM with Nutshell Campaigns, our email marketing platform, built in. Nutshell Campaigns allows you to create, send, and track automated emails for your CRM contacts. Here are a few of the features that make Nutshell the best marketing CRM out there:
Intuitive email design tool: You can use one of our pre-built email templates or create beautiful designs of your own from scratch.
Email audiences from your CRM contacts: Filter your contacts in Nutshell by any combination of characteristics, then easily create marketing audiences for different email campaigns.
Drip sequence triggers: Set triggers to automatically send your email drip sequences, so your content gets to your audience at the right time.
Nutshell Campaigns reporting dashboard: Track your audience’s engagement with your emails so you can improve your outreach and connect with potential buyers.
Plenty of email marketing integrations: If you want to stick with the email automation tool you’re already using, Nutshell can help there too. Nutshell’s long list of integrations includes plenty of other popular email tools, like Constant Contact, Gravity Forms, MailChimp, and many more.
Nutshell is your CRM email automation solution
Using CRM email automation can boost your email outreach and simplify your marketing tasks. Plus, you don’t have to wire multiple platforms together to get the functions you need.
If you’re looking for a CRM that can also help you design, automate, and track your email campaigns, Nutshell is the perfect solution. With Nutshell, you’ll get a powerful but easy-to-use CRM, built-in email marketing, and access to our friendly customer service team to help you through any questions.
Still not sure if Nutshell is the right choice for you? Just check out our 14-day free trial to see what Nutshell can accomplish for your business!
