SMBs, You Absolutely Need These Email Marketing Campaigns!

Choosing email marketing is a smart decision, particularly because it is such a cost-effective alternative to TV, radio, print, and outdoor advertising combined. But much of email marketing success depends on what kind of campaigns you’re running. 

On any given day, campaign management can flop owing to omnidirectional experimentation, too many live campaigns, set-and-forget scenarios, etc. 

In our experience, quite a number of SMBs are all too eager to launch campaign after campaign, only to realize a lopsided success curve. If only one or two out of your 30 campaigns performed well, you got a problem.

Narrow down to a few core email campaigns instead and start from there. 

Let’s reprioritize. If our work with SMBs is anything to go by, you’ll need these core email marketing campaigns to propel your business forward.

1. A welcome campaign

2. An acquaintanceship campaign

3. A pre-purchase campaign

4. A cart abandonment campaign

5. A post-purchase campaign

1. A welcome campaign 

A prospect’s interest in your brand is highest at the point of sign-up. This is the best time to launch a welcome series. To make a good first impression. 

You’re not out to sell right away. You want to get to know the subscriber, their preferences, and interests. 

Generally, a welcome series is made of 2-3 automated welcome emails.

For example, check out Patagonia’s three-part welcome series:

• Patagonia’s first email is a gratitude message to the new subscriber.
• The second email asks the subscriber to update their preferences. 
• The last email showcases Patagonia’s range of products and content, tailored, mind you, to the subscriber’s entered preferences. 

Given that these emails enjoy an average open rate of 83.63%, a welcome series is indispensable to your email program. 

A few tips:

• Send the first welcome email as soon as a prospect subscribes. 74.4% of subscribers expect to receive one immediately post signup.
  
• Ace the subject line. Personalize it. Express gratitude.
  
• Tell them why they did the right thing signing up to your list. Show them how they’re going to benefit from the subscription by
  
• Ask them to do something, such as enter their preferences, explore your resource center, follow you on social media, whitelist your address, etc.
  
• Tell the subscriber about your legal policy, customer support.
  
• Drop a reward for signing up, e.g. a first-purchase discount, exclusive  access to gated content, etc. 

2. An acquaintanceship campaign

As the name suggests, the next point is to let the subscriber get to know you. The acquaintanceship campaign is chiefly educational. 

The goal is to give subscribers a “backstage pass” to content that offers a more multidimensional view of your brand. This includes: 

• Sharing blog posts and webinars that signal your niche authority 
• Showcasing your commitment to give back
• Spotlighting the eco-friendly side to your company
• Introducing your community, their activities
• Sending regular updates via newsletters
• Highlighting the benefits of your products/services

All of this is you playing the waiting game. You want to provide maximum soft value before you’re in a place to encourage the subscriber to buy. 

The time it takes to reach that stage varies from business to business.

Subscriber behavior is a factor, too. Some subscribers are hard to convert. Others, not so much. 

3. A pre-purchase campaign 

A strategic pre-purchase email series is more than prodding and nudging the would-be customer to buy. It is orientation coupled with reinforcement.

You guide the potential customer through your products/services (orientation) and create a series of triggered emails in response to their most recurrent behavioral signals (reinforcement). Take a typical nutraceutical brand. Their email journey involves a calibrated roll-out of product highlights, precautions, side-effects, case studies, etc. The orientation phase is in response to a subscriber’s interest in a particular product or range over another. It reinforces their latent interest in that product, gradually bridging the distance between their actual need and their initial resistance to fulfil it. 

One of our favorite examples would be Kurk’s email journeys. 

Their pre-purchase campaigns are informative, reassuring, and full of intent. 

You may have to go beyond behavioral data to really know your potential customers. You can set up focus groups, send out surveys, etc.

4. A cart abandonment campaign 

Cart abandonment is an integral part of the buying cycle, often driven by natural pre-purchase hesitations. The goal isn’t to eliminate it entirely, as every shopper is unique, with varying reasons for leaving items in their cart.

Strategic actions should focus on engaging shoppers after they’ve abandoned their carts—this is where cart abandonment emails play a crucial role.

Abandoned carts offer a unique chance to reconnect with potential buyers—those who represent a high-value segment of your audience, having already expressed intent to purchase. This is your moment to step into a customer service mindset. To that end, here are a few expert tips: 

• Include a toll-free number in your email to provide immediate help.
  
• Ask for feedback to understand obstacles in the buying process.
  
• Recognize that not all cart abandoners require follow-up—some will return on their own. Measure the natural return rate and target emails only to those who genuinely abandon their carts.
  
• Limit follow-up emails to a maximum of three to avoid overwhelming shoppers.
  
• Set a frequency cap to identify and manage habitual cart abandoners, such as shoppers who frequently abandon carts but rarely convert; customers exploiting discounts triggered by cart abandonment; buyers who often abandon but reliably return to complete purchases, etc. 

Check out Graza’s 3-email cart abandonment series. 

5. A post-purchase campaign 

The would-be customer is now a real customer. But you’re not done. Now is the time to convert a one-time buyer to a lifetime customer/advocate. 

A post-purchase campaign is aimed at increasing CLV. 

To that end, a series of upsell and cross-sell emails can go a long way. 30% of sales teams cite these as their top revenue stream. 

You’re not interacting with a cold lead (not that you’re corresponding with a fan, either), so, firstly, you can afford to tweak your cadence. You want to be top-of-mind without overwhelming the customer who just made you those bucks. 

Zoom’s post-purchase campaign is a 3-email series spread across 20 days. 

“Zoom’s post-purchase emails,” Email Love explains, “are designed to educate and engage customers, ensuring they maximize the value of their new subscription. With a clean, modular layout, each email introduces Zoom’s powerful tools, like AI Companion, Zoom Notes, and Cloud Storage, in easy-to-digest sections.” Consider these post-purchase campaign tips:

• Send an order confirmation email with live tracking enabled. Ask the customer to “star” it so they can return to it easily.
  
• After the order has successfully reached the customer, send a Thank You email. Introduce related products here.
  
• Depending on how much time it takes someone to get acquainted with your product/service, send a product review email.
   
• Resume cross-selling/upselling, now a bit more elaborately but not too aggressively. Optimize the cadence depending on customer behavior.

Although the point of post-purchase flows is to increase CLV, be prepared for one-time customers, too. If the customer shows no signs of engaging with your emails, consider a re-engagement campaign and if that fails, lay off. But, that need not mean they’ve stopped engaging with your brand altogether.

Stop launching campaigns out of a hat! 

You now know the core campaigns any small business must run. These make up the backbone of email marketing. Without these, you’re merely working hard at improving the bottom line — without adding value to your customers. 

Easier said than done, you say? We’ll help you! Our six-tier email marketing framework is designed keeping both SMBs and large companies in mind. 

For more related information, read our post on email automations during the holidays.