Automated emails to update quarterly
There are not many automated emails that needs update of multiple times a year. (After all, there are now so many different ways to say, “Your order has been confirmed.”) However, there are just a few campaigns where it is apropos.
Seasonally-relevant content
Based on the research for this article, not much of the companies seem to have added seasonal content to their automated emails, but some larger retailers have definitely partaken.
While you are updating your automated emails with the seasonal flair is not a necessity, it is a good touch and it could bring more traffic to your store since the graphics now cleverly imply you have got seasonally-relevant products to sell.
Static recommendations
It is great if you can also include recommended products in your emails to cross-sell, especially if those your recommendations are automatically inserted into the email based on the personalization or on the relevant segmentation to the specific customer.
But there might be a scenario also where you will want to push or to promote a specific product to everyone. Here, for example, is a static recommendation for the products from Thrive Market in their welcome email. They are making use of the opportunity to promote best sellers here those products are not deep linked, they are part of one graphic only that is linked to the best sellers product page.
There are number of reasons why you might want to feature static recommendations. Maybe it is something that is making sense for the season, maybe it is a new product you want every of your customer to know about, or maybe it is a case where you are way too overstocked on a product and you want to make one last push to move all of that inventory.
Whatever the case may be, you will want to update those your static recommendations to make sure that they are relevant and because, eventually, your repeat customers will just start to ignore them as they are seeing them over and over again. (That happens thanks to something that is called ad blindness, and it is why we all learned to ignore the banner ads on websites.)
Automated emails to update when something changes only
For the rest of your automated emails, there is no pressing calendar that is needed for an update. Sure, it would be great to give them a look on a semi regular basis, but it note that does not have to top the priority list.
But you will just definitely have to update whenever something changes.
New branding
If you have to change your logo, your color scheme, you change your slogan, your company’s name, or you change anything else with your branding, you just need to remember updating your automated emails. Here is an example of Walmart’s order confirmation email through out the years. The branding is always updated as the logo and the design aesthetic evolve. (The copy barely changes but in the most recent version of it, it is moved to the bottom side of the email to fit the more modern, the white space heavy design aesthetic.)