In our Maxenews newsletter we are always saying that one of the important success factors of an email is its relevance to the recipient. Part of what makes up relevance is the time they receive certain emails.

With the Maxemail API you can automate all of the manual processes in setting up a campaign; therefore enabling you to send campaigns to a small number which otherwise would not have been worth the effort.

Here are some types of automated email organisations in different could create:

> Travel

Brochure Request follow-up One week after someone has requested a brochure on your website you could set-up an email that has the latest packages available with links through to further details.

Pre-holiday reminders to cross-sell Before someone goes on their trip an email could be sent with a list of excursions available or perhaps reminders about travel insurance or other related services you offer.

Post-holiday follow-up When someone arrives back from their holiday then it could be a good time to get them to book for next year. Alternatively why not ask them how the holiday went with a short survey.

> Retail

Cross-selling email after the purchase In some cases when someone makes a purchase there is the opportunity to sell added extras or complimentary products. A quick email to these people should ensure that easy extra few percent of sales from these customers.

Shopping cart abandonment email For those that add items to their shopping basket but don’t complete that final stage of the purchase process then a reminder email the next day with a link back to the basket will also increase conversions.

Satisfaction surveys post-purchase How many of your customers buy regularly from you? Those that buy on a regular basis find out why and those that do not find out the things they do not like about you.

Discount incentives to inactive customers If someone has perhaps not purchased in the last few months incentivise them by delivering a special discount voucher by email.

> Other sectors

Welcome or training programme to new customers & subscribers When someone signs up on your website why not send them a series of introduction emails. This could also be used for a series of training emails over a period of days.

Reminder emails throughout any free trial period If you offer a free trial of any service then you can schedule emails to be sent at various points throughout the trial including when they join, half-way through and at the end of the trial.

Subscription & Renewal reminders When your car insurance runs out you may get a postal reminder but nowadays insurance providers are increasingly using email to ensure they renew. This technique could be used for targeting prospects as well as customers. Of course this can also be applied to other renewals outside of insurance such as magazine subscription renewals.

These are just some of the ways automated campaigns can be used. Of course many people already do this in addition to an email newsletter. However this is often handled internally. There are many advantages of getting your email marketing platform to send these emails including:

* Deliverability – email marketing platforms on the whole offer substantially improved delivery rates over internally developed email systems * HTML emails – many internal systems cannot send * Bounce and unsubscribe management – Solutions such as Maxemail are far superior at handling bounce and unsubscribe requests keeping all email sending history in a consolidated history file * Tracking & Reporting – open, click and conversion rates can be tracked * Testing – for ultimate sophistication these campaigns can be combined with advanced techniques such as A/B testing and dynamic content to improve their performance.